HistoryExtrahttps://www.historyextra.comHome of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast2026-09-27T19:56:01.000Zhourly12000-01-01T12:00+00:00Hitler ordered my father’s death – but an SS general spared his lifehttps://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/george-lascelles-harewood-gottlob-berger-colditz-ww2/2026-09-27T20:00:06.000ZIt was April 1945. As the Second World War entered its final stages, my father, First Lieutenant George Lascelles of the Grenadier Guards, was imprisoned in Oflag IV-C, Colditz Castle.

The prisoners there called it a straflager – a punishment camp – much to the irritation of their German captors, who insisted it was just an ordinary PoW camp but with better security. It was where they sent particularly troublesome prisoners, the habitual escapers and those considered to be deutschfeindlich, hostile to German ways.

My father, just 22 years old, didn’t see himself as any of those. He had been a prisoner for less than a year and had never tried to escape. What he was, though, was well connected. His maternal uncle was King George VI, and he was one of a small group of young British officers being held together in Colditz, all of them related to members of the establishment: the son of the Viceroy of India, the nephew of Clementine Churchill, and so on.

The Germans called them the ‘Prominente’. They were hostages, kept together for who knows what purpose when the war ended: perhaps as bargaining chips for captured high-ranking Nazis, or as human shields in Hitler’s rumoured last redoubt in the mountains of southern Germany.

For the other prisoners in Colditz, the sound of the Allied guns was the sound of approaching freedom. For the Prominente, it signalled the moment of maximum danger. Sure enough, just a couple of days before the Americans liberated Colditz, they were roused from their beds in the middle of the night, loaded onto a bus and driven south, destination unknown.

Fear and uncertainty

The Prominente were on the road for more than two weeks. It was a time of fear and uncertainty. They never knew where they were going to be the next day or whether that day might be their last.

After being transported to another medieval castle prison in the town of Tittmoning, they encountered a Dutch officer who had a plan that might buy them a little time – time, they hoped, for the approaching Allied armies to arrive.

• Listen | Ben Macintyre discusses his book Escape from Colditz

A small chamber had been excavated in the thick castle walls, in which five of the men could hide. A sixth, Giles Romilly, would escape with one of the Dutch prisoners in a pre-arranged plan. Hopefully the Germans would think they had all escaped.

It almost worked. It was four days before they were discovered, and Romilly and his Dutch companion made it all the way to Munich, arriving there a matter of days before the Americans liberated the city.

The Prominente were watched even more closely after this, with their guards now Waffen-SS rather than regular soldiers. So when they were moved to a run-down camp just outside the alpine town of Markt Pongau, they thought it was a concentration camp and that this was to be their end.

After a couple of days at the new site, they received an unexpected visitor: Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger, the SS general recently appointed as Germany’s head of prisoner-of-war affairs. He showed them a letter from Hitler. It contained a list of their names, ranks and PoW numbers, with a short note attached: “On no account must the listed prisoners be allowed to fall into Allied hands.” It was their death warrant.

Berger had other ideas, however. The order was pointless and certainly illegal, he told them, and he – for the first time in his long military career – was not going to obey it. Instead, he was going to arrange their safe passage to the Allied front line, only a few hours’ drive away.

“I ask for nothing in return,” he added, “except that you remember this moment when the war is over.” And he presented the most senior member of the group, John Elphinstone, with a gift: an ornamental pistol in a red leather case. “This is,” he said, “of my goodwill the proof.”

Years later, Michael Alexander – one of the other Prominente and the cousin of a senior British general – described the moment in vivid detail:

“In the box, resplendent on a couch of red velvet, lay an enormous automatic pistol about the same size as a Colt .45. This splendidly flashy weapon was inlaid with ivory and enamel; its squat barrel was elaborately chased with golden oak-leaves in high relief. On the butt was the enamelled monogram of the SS and a small plate with Berger’s signature.”

Within days, the Prominente were home. Berger, on the other hand, was arrested, interrogated and tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and his lawyer asked Elphinstone to write to the appeals court on behalf of the Prominente, explaining what Berger had done for them.

This affidavit was an important factor in Berger’s sentence being heavily reduced. Twenty-five years became 10 and, with further time off for good behaviour, he was released by the end of 1951.

Berger then settled in the small town of Gerstetten in southwest Germany, where his wife, two children and two grandchildren were living. He died there in 1975, still connected to many figures on the far right and still bitter at his treatment by the Allies. He said he regretted ever having trusted his long-time boss, Heinrich Himmler.

But why had he decided to spare the lives of my father and his fellow Prominente? Remorse? A belated onset of compassion? Or simply self-interest?

After Colditz

The Prominente returned to their old lives, or at least a version of them. My father was the youngest of the group, still at school when the war began, and just 22 when he returned to England. The next six years – 1945–51, when Berger was in prison – were perhaps the most tumultuous of his life.

• Read more | The Nuremberg Trials: the real history behind the post-WW2 tribunal

After leaving the army, he served as an aide to the governor general of Canada before graduating from Cambridge and getting a job in the business about which he was most passionate – music, especially opera.

His father died in 1947, and he inherited the family title, becoming the 7th Earl of Harewood. By the end of 1949 he was married, and his first child was born in 1950. That’s me.

The return home was not so straightforward for all the other Prominente. Some of the men almost certainly suffered from what would now be called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), though the condition wasn’t recognised then. “Pull yourself together and get on with it,” they would have been told.

Dawyck Haig, for example, son of Field Marshal Douglas Haig, the commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force during the First World War, wrote in his memoirs that he had “a sort of breakdown”.

Giles Romilly, who had escaped from Tittmoning, was also haunted by his wartime experiences. “My five years of absence were like a deep shaft,” he wrote. “I at the bottom, able to see the free people overhead, not able to make them see or hear me.” He died of an overdose of barbiturates in California in 1967.

Michael Alexander, meanwhile, led a colourful postwar life in London, entertaining fellow members of what became known as the Chelsea Set in his flat in Eaton Square and at his restaurant just off the King’s Road.

The hunt for the pistol

Years later, I met several other descendants of the Prominente. There was one question that I asked each of them: did they know what had become of Berger’s pistol?

I had been intrigued by it from the moment I started working on my new book, Out of Colditz. It seemed like a classic MacGuffin – a plot device in a movie that helps drive the story but is otherwise unimportant to the audience (the Maltese Falcon, for example). The story of Berger and the Prominente would have been much the same without the pistol, but the weapon seemed to embody the theatricality of their brief, strange encounter.

Berger had presented the pistol to John Elphinstone, so I set out to learn more about him. Elphinstone was a countryman, a fisherman and a keen shot. After the war, he returned to manage the family estate in Scotland. I assume he took the pistol home with him, though I could find no evidence of this or of what happened to it next.

• Read more | I’ve just been inside a Nazi monster’s mansion – and what I found there was deeply haunting

Its last known sighting was on the popular TV programme This is Your Life in 1985, when my father was the subject and Michael Alexander – a guest on the show along with a couple of the other Prominente – produced it from his pocket with a theatrical flourish. “Do you remember this, George?” he asked.

Elphinstone had died in 1975, so Alexander seemed to me to be the most likely holder of the gun. However, Alexander had died without leaving a will, and his friends had no idea of the weapon’s whereabouts. It was another dead end.

So if Alexander or his descendants didn’t have the pistol, who did? Elphinstone’s family seemed the most likely. He never married, so the title, the estate and the contents of the family home passed to his nephew, Jamie. Jamie married Willa Chetwode shortly after inheriting, and they had four children together before Jamie died in 1994, aged just 41.

Willa was left rattling around with four young children in a large house that held unhappy memories for her. Within a year she had sold the house, moved out and put its contents into storage. There it all remained, untouched, until a fire at the storage unit destroyed much of it. Did that include the pistol, I wondered?

When I finally tracked down Willa, who had since remarried, I asked her whether she had any idea where the pistol was. “Oh yes,” she replied. “I know exactly where it is. I’ve got it here in my safe.”

A special weapon with a strange history

I drove to meet Willa and her husband Thomas Lloyd at their home in west Wales, getting hopelessly lost in the narrow lanes around their house and arriving late, hot and flustered. “Don’t worry about that,” said Willa. “I expect you want to see the pistol.”

Thomas held up a red leather case. He clicked open the brass catches on the lid. It was, in its own small way, a dramatic moment. The lining of the box was a faded yellow, not the red that Michael Alexander had described. The case was a little battered, the engraved brass barrel quite tarnished and the ivory handle discoloured, but the Nazi eagle, swastika, SS insignia and Berger’s signature were very much as originally stated.

I lifted the pistol carefully out of the case. It was smaller than I had expected, settling easily into my palm, but heavier too. I checked the safety catch and the trigger. Both were jammed solid – hardly surprising, as it hadn’t been handled for a long time and had probably never been fired.

There was something almost comically theatrical about the way it had been presented, but the SS insignia and the swastika gave it a sinister edge. As often happens if you’ve been looking for something for a long time, the moment of discovery can be an anti-climax, but there was a tickle of emotion there, too, as I tried to picture the strange scene when the presentation was made.

“Wow!” I said, rather feebly. “So it really does exist.” Willa smiled ruefully. “Yes. It’s been sitting there all this time, and I’ve never known what to do with it.”

We talked about what might happen next. We agreed that a museum, probably the Imperial War Museum, would be the pistol’s best destination. It would be a permanent home for this “splendidly flashy” weapon, as Michael Alexander described it – a special weapon with a strange history.

As I write, Elphinstone’s family and the Imperial War Museum are currently in discussions. There could be no more suitable home for a weapon that, to me, has come to represent the extraordinary encounter between Berger and the Prominente, and its enduring impact on the lives of all concerned.

David Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood, is a BAFTA-winning film and television producer. He is the author of Out of Colditz: My Father the POW and the Nazi Who Controlled His Fate (Profile Books, 2026)

]]>The secrets of our DNAhttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/the-secrets-of-our-dna-podcast/2026-09-08T11:43:31.000ZWhat can DNA tell us about who we are and where we came from?

Professor Turi King – who previously appeared on the podcast to discuss her research into Adolf Hitler’s DNA – returns to explore modern genetics and its role in solving some of history’s biggest mysteries.

Speaking to Jon Bauckham, Turi discusses the surprising origins of DNA fingerprinting, common misconceptions surrounding testing, and her role in the groundbreaking discovery of King Richard III.

]]>Daily quizzeshttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/daily-quizzes/2026-08-12T15:52:28.000ZA wild history of partyinghttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/a-wild-history-of-partying/2026-08-12T08:50:32.000ZFor hundreds of years, people have gathered after dark to drink, dance and escape the pressures of everyday life. But how did 'going out' become a habit across the world?

Jon Bauckham chats to Imogen Willetts about the hedonistic history of partying, journeying from 17th-century Japan to Weimar Germany, Cold War Las Vegas and beyond.

]]>Churchill and the Crownhttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/churchill-and-the-crown-podcast/2026-07-27T08:16:03.000ZSir Winston Churchill was a passionate defender of Britain’s monarchy – but that didn’t mean he always saw eye to eye with the royals themselves.

Jon Bauckham talks to Ted Powell about Churchill’s complex relationship with the Crown – from his clashes with George V and controversial support for Edward VIII, to his role in guiding the young Elizabeth II through the early years of her reign.

]]>Is The Odyssey based on a true story? The movie's historical accuracy explainedhttps://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/odyssey-true-story-historical-accuracy-christopher-nolan/2026-07-17T21:30:52.000ZChristopher Nolan’s The Odyssey brings one of the oldest stories ever told back to the big screen. With its cast of legendary heroes, gods and monsters, the movie raises the question: how much of what it depicts is true to history?

The answer is more nuanced than a straightforward yes or no.

Though the adventures of Odysseus – portrayed in Nolan’s movie by Matt Damon – belong firmly to the world of myth, many of the people, places and political realities that underpin Homer’s epic have deep, authentic roots in Late Bronze Age Greece.

Below, we examine the historical and archaeological evidence, separate fact from myth, and reveal the extent to which Nolan’s blockbuster departs from the source material.

Warning: this article contains spoilers for the new Christopher Nolan movie

Is The Odyssey based on real history?

Taken literally, neither Homer’s Odyssey nor Nolan’s adaptation is based on a true story. No evidence has been found to suggest that a Greek king spent 10 years sailing home from Troy – let alone while battling Cyclopes, Sirens, witches and sea monsters.

But dismissing it as mere myth misses something important about the story’s historicity.

Many historians now see epics including the Odyssey as examples of cultural memory: stories that preserve fragments of genuine historical episodes long after the events themselves passed into legend. Even before the invention of written storytelling, oral traditions proved remarkably durable. In societies without widespread literacy, memories of important people, wars and migrations were passed down through generations of professional storytellers. Details changed with every retelling, but the historical core could survive.

• Read more | Greek gods and goddesses: 15 of the most important deities

This process is well documented elsewhere. The Icelandic sagas preserve memories of Viking settlements from centuries before they were written down; indeed, the Old Norse word saga means literally ‘what is said’. Early Irish literature contains echoes of Iron Age society despite being recorded in the medieval period. The Native American Klamath story, which tells of a fiery battle between gods that destroyed a huge mountain and created the cavity on Mount Mazama now filled by Crater Lake, may preserve a cultural memory of a real eruption 7,700 years ago. These are just a few examples demonstrating how oral traditions can transmit elements of major events across countless generations.

The same may be true of Homer’s epic poems, with archaeological evidence strengthening this interpretation. During the 19th century, many scholars regarded the Trojan War itself as entirely mythical – until German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated the site of what’s believed to have been Troy in modern-day Turkey. Though Schliemann’s methods were deeply flawed, later excavations confirmed that a major fortified city stood there during the Late Bronze Age and suffered repeated destruction.

Whether Homer’s account of the Trojan War reflects one historical conflict or is an amalgam of several remains uncertain. What is increasingly clear, though, is that he was drawing upon memories of a civilisation that had flourished centuries before his own lifetime.

That’s not to say that any specific event depicted in the Odyssey actually happened. But it is plausible that the story is woven around a historical core.

When was Homer’s Odyssey written?

The ancient Greek Odyssey was probably written during the late eighth or early seventh century BC, around four centuries after the collapse of the Mycenaean civilisation that forms its backdrop.

Modern scholars continue to debate whether Homer, the bard to whom the Odyssey is traditionally attributed, was a single poet, several poets, or merely the name later attached to a long oral tradition.

• Read more | Was Homer a real person? Michael Wood explains

Before the Greek alphabet was adopted from the Phoenicians during the eighth century BC, stories were transmitted orally by singers known as aoidoi. These memorised and recited enormous bodies of verse using recurring formulae, repeated epithets and familiar narrative patterns that made long performances possible.

Homer’s Odyssey combines genuine memories of the Mycenaean world with the concerns of his own age. The political landscape of numerous small realms ruled by local kings described in the poem broadly resembles what archaeology has revealed about Late Bronze Age Greece.

Was Odysseus a real person?

There is no single character in the Odyssey who can be said with any certainty to have existed as a historical figure. But that doesn’t mean they don’t contain any seeds of historical truth.

Odysseus himself was almost certainly not a historical individual whose life can be reconstructed. No contemporary records mention him, and his adventures are unmistakably mythical. Nevertheless, he may represent an amalgam of one or more Mycenaean rulers whose achievements gradually merged through centuries of oral storytelling to shape the figure of a single legendary king.

Similarly, Odysseus’s wife, Penelope – portrayed in Nolan’s movie by Anne Hathaway – is unlikely to represent one specific historical queen. But, through her, Homer reflects the genuine political importance of royal women, dynastic marriage and household management within Bronze Age kingdoms.

What about the other characters in the story?

Other major figures depicted in both Nolan’s movie and Homer’s poem are more or less historically credible.

Helen of Troy (Lupita Nyong’o), whose kidnapping triggers the Trojan War, almost certainly owes more to legend than to biography, but her story may preserve distant memories of aristocratic marriage alliances between powerful Bronze Age kingdoms.

Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) is more perplexing. As the supreme leader of the Greek expedition against Troy, he may reflect one or more powerful rulers of the age, although no evidence identifies him with a specific king. Helen’s husband, Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus (Jon Bernthal), occupies similar ground: a legendary hero who may preserve echoes of genuine Bronze Age elites without being historical individuals.

Taken together, these characters are best understood not as historical biographies but as literary composites preserving real social roles, political institutions and distant memories of people who once lived.

What are the key differences in Christopher Nolan’s movie?

Even before its release, Nolan’s adaptation attracted criticism from some historians and online commentators. Much of the debate centred on casting decisions and modern-sounding dialogue revealed in the movie’s trailers, as well as aspects of costume and production design. Others even questioned whether the architecture resembled that of classical Greece more closely than the Mycenaean world.

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But even if the movie’s stylistic choices deviate from the archaeological record, the spine of Homer’s poem remains intact. More than 10 years after leaving Ithaca to fight in the Trojan War, Odysseus is still trying to get home following the end of that conflict, encountering all manner of obstacles and enemies on the way. And, as in Homer’s text, he ends up stranded on the island of Ogygia as a captive of the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron).

In fact, Nolan’s adaptation introduces many of the central characters within its first 15 minutes, in a flurry of timeline-hopping that not only depicts Odysseus’s departure for Troy and the aftermath of the war but also the events that have unfolded in Ithaca during his long absence. His palace is now filled with arrogant suitors hoping to marry his wife, Penelope, while his adult son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), is eager to set sail and seek news of his father’s whereabouts.

That said, Nolan frequently departs from Homer, combining numerous themes and motifs into single scenes. Whereas in Homer’s poem Odysseus and his crew encounter an island of lotus-eaters whose consumption of the fruit causes them to live in a state of forgetfulness, the movie instead has Calypso feeding lotus petals to Odysseus himself.

Similarly, in both Homer’s and Nolan’s takes, when Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca he is reunited with his loyal swineherd Eumaeus (John Leguizamo) and his dying canine companion, Argos. But in the new movie, Odysseus is also on hand to stop Telemachus from being murdered, killing the would-be assassins in a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena.

More minor plot points are tweaked in the movie, too. Odysseus proves his identity to Penelope not by demonstrating knowledge of the olive tree that forms their marital bed, but from the moment he triumphs in the archery contest she has set for the suitors. The man-eating Cyclops Polyphemus (Bill Irwin) is maimed not only with a burning-hot stake but also by an arrow that Odysseus looses into his eye. The witch Circe (Samantha Morton) does transform Odysseus’s men into pigs, but she does not become the hero’s lover.

Which characters have been added to Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey? And who is absent?

Though Nolan’s epic clocks in at a hefty 2 hours and 52 minutes, it would have been a tall order to depict every single character from Homer’s poem. The messenger god Hermes, for example, does not descend from the heavens to deliver Zeus’s commands, while the spirits of Odysseus’s mother, Anticleia, and the fallen warriors Achilles and Ajax do not emerge when the hero travels to the underworld to consult the blind prophet Tiresias.

Conversely, Nolan introduces characters who are absent from Homer’s poem. Despite rumours suggesting that he had been cast as Achilles, the Canadian actor Elliot Page stars as a warrior named Sinon who, as told in flashbacks at the beginning of the movie, convinces the people of Troy to take into their city the wooden horse in which Greek soldiers are hidden.

Although his screen time is brief, Page’s character plays an important role in the story. During the movie’s underworld sequence, the spirit of Sinon emerges to scold Odysseus for leaving him to be killed by the Trojans, and to implore him to exact revenge on Antinous (Robert Pattinson), who betrayed Sinon as a child. Later, when Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca disguised as a beggar, he adopts the name ‘Sinon’ as part of his deception.

Did Odysseus’s kingdom of Ithaca really exist?

Yes. Unlike many mythical locations in Greek legend, Ithaca is a real island in the Ionian Sea that remains inhabited today.

Archaeological research has confirmed that Ithaca supported substantial settlements throughout the Late Bronze Age. Excavations at several sites have uncovered Mycenaean buildings, pottery, tombs and imported goods dating to the period traditionally associated with the Trojan War. None of these sites can be identified as Odysseus’s palace, though.

Excavations at the so-called School of Homer near the village of Stavros on Ithaca found a significant Mycenaean complex that some archaeologists believe could have formed part of a regional administrative centre. Other experts remain unconvinced, arguing that the evidence is insufficient to identify it as a royal palace.

The wider political landscape described by Homer is, though, broadly plausible. During the Late Bronze Age, Greece consisted of numerous relatively small kingdoms centred on fortified palaces such as Mycenae, Pylos, Tiryns and Thebes. A ruler controlling Ithaca and neighbouring islands would fit comfortably within this wider Mycenaean world.

How is the Trojan Horse depicted in Nolan’s movie?

The story of the Trojan Horse is among the most famous tales in all Greek literature, and inspires a suitable high-octane sequence in Nolan’s adaptation. After convincing the Trojans that they have abandoned their 10-year siege, the Greeks leave a large wooden horse outside the gates of Troy, which its inhabitants then move inside the city walls. After nightfall, Odysseus and his men emerge from the belly of the horse and open the gates, enabling Agamemnon and the returning Greek army to overrun Troy and slaughter its citizens.

In the movie, we see the tale unfold as a flashback, with the events relayed to Telemachus by King Menelaus, Agamemnon’s brother and the husband of Helen, whose abduction instigated the conflict years previously. But aside from introducing Sinon’s role in the deception, the differences in Nolan’s adaptation are mostly visual. Rather than being mounted on wheels and left outside the city gates, the Trojans find the horse half-buried on the shore and drag it up the beach on wooden rollers.

It is worth mentioning that the story of the Trojan Horse merits only a brief mention in Homer’s text, though is described in greater detail in Virgil’s Aeneid. By showing the deception and its brutal impact on screen, Nolan conveys the devastating effects of war on those involved. While some of his fellow soldiers boast of their victory over the Trojans, Odysseus struggles to come to terms with his role in the slaughter. Likewise, when Telemachus is introduced to Helen many years later, the beauty whose face “launched a thousand ships” is shown to be psychologically – as well as physically – scarred.

The Greeks’ brutality also sets up one of the film’s biggest revelations. Throughout the story, references are made to a mysterious group known as the ‘Sea People’, whose repeated violent attacks have spread fear across the known world. In studies of ancient history, ‘Sea Peoples’ is a term given to a loose confederation of seafaring tribes whose raids in the eastern Mediterranean are hypothesised to have contributed to the Late Bronze Age collapse. In Nolan’s adaptation, it is implied that the Sea People are the Greeks themselves.

Overall, how historically accurate is the Odyssey?

Both Homer’s poem and Christopher Nolan’s movie occupy an unusual space between history and mythology.

The broad political and cultural context – the network of Mycenaean kingdoms, the importance of kingship, palace economies, dynastic succession, long-distance seafaring and aristocratic warfare – is well attested to by archaeology.

Likewise, the social customs that dominate the story, including hospitality (xenia), gift exchange and household honour, reflect values that did indeed shape ancient Greek society. In Nolan’s adaptation, Odysseus frequently urges his men to uphold ‘Zeus’s Law’ – to treat others how you would like to be treated – but is left racked with guilt when he fails to abide by this moral code himself.

At the same time, neither Homer nor Nolan has attempted to produce a documentary reconstruction of the Late Bronze Age. Homer freely combines details from different historical periods, while the supernatural elements of the story belong entirely to myth.

Yet both storytellers have created narratives that provide eye-opening insights into the eastern Mediterranean world of the Late Bronze Age.

Don’t miss our upcoming podcast series exploring the history of Homer’s Odyssey, featuring award-winning classicist and author Daisy Dunn. HistoryExtra members can listen to all four episodes from Sunday 19 July.

]]>Was Antinous a real person? The history behind The Odyssey character explainedhttps://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/antinous-real-history-odyssey-robert-pattinson/2026-07-17T21:30:22.000ZWhile Odysseus struggles to return to Ithaca, another battle is already underway back at his palace home. Leading the suitors who occupy the absent king’s palace is Antinous: opulent, arrogant and convinced that Odysseus will never return.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey gives the events on Ithaca far greater prominence than many previous adaptations, making Antinous – portrayed by Robert Pattinson – the principal antagonist facing both Penelope and Telemachus before Odysseus arrives home.

But was Antinous ever real? Or does he instead represent something about the politics and values of the Late Bronze Age world Homer inherited?

Warning: this article contains spoilers for the new Christopher Nolan movie

Was Antinous a real person?

There is no archaeological or documentary evidence that Antinous was a historical individual.

Antinous appears to be a purely literary creation, not based on any real figure from history. No surviving Mycenaean records mention him, nor do independent traditions suggest that Homer based the character on a specific historical nobleman.

That does not mean Antinous lacks historical significance.

Rather than representing one individual, he may represent something akin to an archetype: an ambitious aristocrat willing to exploit political uncertainty for personal gain. The Odyssey is set in a world where kingship depends heavily upon personal authority. When that authority disappears for 20 years, it creates a vacuum of power that ambitious noblemen naturally begin competing to fill.

• Read more | The ancient Greeks at war: hoplites, the phalanx and the greatest battles

Rather than attempting to overthrow Odysseus by force, Antinous instead seeks legitimacy by marrying Penelope, occupying the royal household, and removing Telemachus, the lawful heir. With Antinous, it’s likely that Homer intended to reflect certain facts about societies built around hereditary kingship: long royal absences create uncertainty, and uncertainty creates opportunity for conniving rivals.

Antinous’s role in Homer’s poem

Antinous is the son of Eupeithes and one of the most influential suitors occupying Odysseus’s palace.

Although many men compete for Penelope’s hand, Antinous emerges as something of a ringleader among the suitors, roughly equal in influence to another nobleman, Eurymachus. He encourages the continued occupation of the palace, consumes Odysseus’s wealth without invitation, and openly dismisses Telemachus’s authority.

His ambitions extend beyond marriage. When Telemachus travels to Pylos and Sparta in search of news about his father, Antinous organises an ambush, intending to kill him before he can return to Ithaca. Removing the heir would leave Penelope under even greater pressure to remarry and strengthen the claim to the kingdom.

When Odysseus eventually returns disguised as a beggar, Antinous treats him with contempt. The incident shows both his arrogance and his disregard for the obligations owed to strangers.

During Penelope’s contest of the bow, Odysseus strings his own weapon, reveals his identity, and kills Antinous with the first arrow before turning on the remaining suitors. Homer makes Antinous the first to die, presenting his death as the beginning of justice being restored to Ithaca.

How is Antinous depicted in Christopher Nolan’s movie?

Portrayed by Robert Pattinson, Antinous serves as the primary antagonist in Nolan’s 2026 adaptation. Of all the suitors who have overrun Odysseus’s palace in his absence, Antinous is by far the most odious. He attacks the king’s loyal swineherd, Eumaeus (John Leguizamo), berates his son, Telemachus, and even consigns his beloved dog, Argos, to a dungheap.

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And, as in Homer’s poem, Antinous also establishes himself as one of the most powerful suitors. His efforts to break Penelope’s loyalty to Odysseus are demonstrated in one of the film’s most important palace scenes, in which the nobleman confronts the queen with knowledge of her secret: that she has been unpicking the very shroud she claims to have been weaving, thereby delaying her decision to marry a suitor. Then, when Penelope’s disloyal maidservant, Melantho (Mia Goth), reveals that Telemachus has secretly sailed to Sparta, it is Antinous who hatches a chilling plan to have the prince killed.

There are several key differences concerning Antinous’s role in the film, however. Most notably, the fellow suitor Eurymachus – depicted as a co-ringleader in Homer’s poem – is absent altogether. Nolan also establishes a subplot in which a young Antinous tricks Odysseus’s cousin, Sinon, into taking his place in the army bound for Troy. The scene, unique to Nolan’s adaptation, later gains added significance when the spirit of Sinon appears to Odysseus in the underworld, imploring him to exact revenge.

• Read more | Greek gods and goddesses: 15 of the most important deities

When Odysseus does finally get to unleash his fury on the suitors, killing the men in a maelstrom of arrows and sword blows, Antinous is not the first to die. Nolan instead shifts his death towards the end of the sequence, with Odysseus able to deliver some final words of retribution before slaying him.

What does Antinous reveal about Late Bronze Age Greece?

Antinous illustrates how fragile kingship could become when a ruler disappeared, and demonstrates how an ancient Greek aristocrat should not behave.

Antinous also highlights the political importance of the palace itself. The palace is the centre of government, wealth, and royal legitimacy. Controlling it places him at the heart of the kingdom’s political life.

Antinous’s role in the story also offers a window into the politics of household economics. His greatest offence – as emphasised in the Nolan adaptation – is his repeated violation of xenia, the sacred code of hospitality. Guests were expected to respect the household that received them, while hosts were expected to offer protection and generosity. But throughout the Odyssey, the suitors consume Odysseus’s livestock, his wine and other provisions in extravagant quantities.

Antinous remains an uninvited guest for years, consumes another man’s wealth, insults strangers, and uses his position to threaten the very family whose hospitality he abuses. Elite feasting was an important feature of Mycenaean society, strengthening alliances between aristocratic households. Antinous subverts this custom by exploiting it.

• Read more | Was Homer a real person? Michael Wood explains

His attempt to murder Telemachus also reflects the realities of dynastic politics. Throughout history, rival claimants to thrones have frequently sought to eliminate legitimate heirs before they could consolidate power – not unlike the Princes in the Tower. Whether or not such events occurred on Bronze Age Ithaca, Homer clearly understood succession as a dangerous and deeply political process.

Throughout the Odyssey, intelligence, moderation and respect for social obligations are virtues that yield their own rewards. Antinous possesses none of these qualities. His death marks the re-establishment of the values Homer believed held both households and kingdoms together.

Don’t miss our upcoming podcast series exploring the history of Homer’s Odyssey, featuring award-winning classicist and author Daisy Dunn. HistoryExtra members can listen to all four episodes from Sunday 19 July.

]]>Was Telemachus a real person? The history behind The Odyssey character explainedhttps://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/telemachus-real-history-odyssey-tom-holland/2026-07-17T21:30:20.000ZThe Odyssey tells another story running alongside that of Odysseus’s homeward journey: the coming of age of his son, Telemachus.

Homer’s poem devotes its opening four books to the young prince left behind on Ithaca, whereas Christopher Nolan’s film constructs an interwoven, non-linear narrative that sees Telemachus – portrayed by Tom Holland – play a central role throughout the story.

When his father, Odysseus, departs for Troy, Telemachus is still an infant. By the time The Odyssey begins, he has grown into adulthood in a kingdom in the throes of chaos. In his father’s absence, can he establish himself as the rightful heir before the suitors with designs on his mother, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), destroy his family and seize the throne?

Warning: this article contains spoilers for the new Christopher Nolan movie

Was Telemachus a real person?

There is no archaeological or documentary evidence beyond Homer’s Odyssey that Telemachus was a real historical figure. Like Odysseus, he is absent from the surviving Linear B tablets, and no independent tradition confirms his existence.

The strongest argument against his historicity is literary. Telemachus is a character constructed by Homer to fit a narrative. His journey within the story serves the needs of the plot, rather than being an attempt to preserve historical memory. Even if the character of Telemachus does encode distant memories of one or more real young aristocratic men, there’s no reason to think that Homer modelled him on one specific historical person.

Nevertheless, the world Telemachus inhabits is grounded in the realities of Mycenaean Greece. The uncertainty surrounding his inheritance reflects a genuine problem in hereditary monarchies: the absence of a king created a power vacuum that needed to be filled by a capable male heir.

As the story of Telemachus shows, that was easier said than done. Although everyone acknowledges him as Odysseus’s son, that fact alone does not secure his position. Powerful noblemen occupy his father’s palace, consume his family’s wealth, and openly compete to marry his mother.

Does Homer use Telemachus to show a recurring political problem rather than a single historical prince? It’s possible. Throughout the Bronze Age, and especially in times of war, heirs would often have inherited unstable kingdoms in which ambitious rivals tested young successors’ authority before it was fully established.

• Read more | Was Homer a real person? Michael Wood explains

When Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca, Telemachus proves himself worthy of his father’s trust. Together they plan the destruction of the suitors, with Telemachus fighting alongside Odysseus rather than remaining a passive observer.

As with Odysseus, the safest conclusion is that Telemachus is not a recoverable historical individual but a literary character built around recognisable problems of dynastic succession, aristocratic politics and the transition from youth to kingship.

How is Telemachus depicted in Christopher Nolan’s movie?

Tom Holland portrays Telemachus as a courageous prince who clings to the notion that his father may still be alive, and desperately tries to find him. He forms a close bond with his father’s loyal swineherd, Eumaeus (John Leguizamo), practises combat with his advisor, Mentor (Ryan Hurst), and stands up to the boorish suitors who spend their days drinking in Ithaca’s palace.

As in Homer’s poem, Telemachus sets sail from Ithaca with a crew of oarsmen and meets the Spartan king Menelaus (Jon Bernthal), with whom Odysseus served during the Trojan War. Menelaus tells the prince of his father’s exploits, and provides him with hope that Odysseus might still be alive, even though the two leaders went in separate directions following the conclusion of the campaign.

Though these episodes broadly correspond with Homer’s epic, other details of Telemachus’s journey are altered or omitted altogether. Unlike in the poem, the prince is not seen meeting King Nestor in Pylos; instead, his main encounter away from Ithaca is with Menelaus and his wife, Helen (Lupita Nyong’o). Similarly, when Antinous (Robert Pattinson) and the other suitors hatch a plan to kill Telemachus, the action unfolds inside a temple – another sequence unique to Nolan’s adaptation.

• Read more | Greek gods and goddesses: 15 of the most important deities

One of the biggest changes, however, comes in the film’s closing scenes, when Telemachus is shown ascending the throne of Ithaca. This is not because Odysseus has died; rather, the king abdicates and enters self-imposed exile with Penelope, sailing into the unknown to honour his fallen comrades.

Here, Nolan appears to have taken inspiration from Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, in which Odysseus (known by his Latin name, Ulysses) gets bored of Ithaca and heads west on one last fateful journey.

What does Telemachus reveal about Late Bronze Age Greece?

Beyond reflecting the challenges of hereditary monarchy, Telemachus’s role in the Odyssey tells the audience much about Late Bronze Age Greece.

First, it depicts his education. Instead of receiving formal instruction, Telemachus learns by travelling between royal courts and observing older rulers. This mirrors what is known of aristocratic societies throughout the ancient world, where leadership was acquired through experience, personal relationships and participation in elite networks.

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Through the eyes of Telemachus, the audience sees the central importance of the royal household. The palace is the centre of political authority, economic production and social order. Once the suitors establish themselves within it, they are impossible to remove without violence.

Telemachus also reflects the Greek belief that leadership must be earned as well as inherited. To claim his rightful place, Telemachus must learn to speak confidently in public, travel independently, make difficult decisions and, ultimately, risk his life beside his father.

His relationship with older rulers also highlights the value placed on experience. In their interactions with Telemachus, Nestor and Menelaus embody wisdom accumulated through age, demonstrating that young aristocrats should learn from established leaders before assuming power themselves.

• Read more | The ancient Greeks at war: hoplites, the phalanx and the greatest battles

The poem also presents filial loyalty as a defining virtue. Telemachus refuses to abandon hope that his father will return, even when others assume that Odysseus is dead. The son’s determination to preserve his father’s household points to the Greek ideal that family honour extends across generations.

Finally, Telemachus shows that adulthood is measured less by age than by conduct. It is only by confronting the suitors, defending his household and standing alongside Odysseus that he proves himself worthy of inheriting his father’s kingdom and reputation.

Don’t miss our upcoming podcast series exploring the history of Homer’s Odyssey, featuring award-winning classicist and author Daisy Dunn. HistoryExtra members can listen to all four episodes from Sunday 19 July.

]]>Was Penelope a real person? The history behind The Odyssey character explainedhttps://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/penelope-real-history-odyssey-anne-hathaway/2026-07-17T21:30:18.000ZWhile her husband Odysseus fights at Troy and strives to return home, Penelope waits at Ithaca for two decades, surrounded by hostile suitors who consume her household’s wealth and pressure her to choose a new husband.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey places even greater emphasis on these events unfolding in Ithaca, interweaving them in the narrative alongside Odysseus’s journey in non-linear fashion, making Penelope’s role central to the story’s political drama as well as its emotional core.

But was Penelope, portrayed in Nolan’s film by Anne Hathaway, ever real? And what does Homer’s literary treatment of her reveal about Late Bronze Age Greece?

Warning: this article contains spoilers for the new Christopher Nolan movie

Was Penelope a real person?

There is no archaeological or documentary evidence that Penelope was a historical queen.

Like Odysseus and Telemachus, she appears only in the Homeric tradition, and no surviving Linear B tablet records a queen who can plausibly be identified as her.

That does not mean Penelope lacks historical value. Though she is unlikely to represent a single individual, the position she occupies is recognisable in Late Bronze Age society.

Penelope’s role in Homer’s poem

Penelope remains in Ithaca during Odysseus’s two-decade absence, raising their son Telemachus and waiting for her husband’s return.

As years pass and Odysseus is presumed dead, more than 100 suitors occupy his palace, enjoy his wealth, and pressure his wife to remarry. She delays them through deception, most famously by promising to choose a husband once she finishes weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus’s father, Laertes – but secretly unravels that garment each night.

After Odysseus finally returns, disguised as a beggar, Penelope speaks with him without recognising him and announces a contest: she will marry the man who can string Odysseus’s bow and shoot an arrow through 12 axe handles. Odysseus succeeds, reveals his identity, and kills the suitors with the help of Telemachus and his allies.

• Read more | Greek gods and goddesses: 15 of the most important deities

Penelope remains cautious, though, and tests his identity by referring to their immovable marriage bed; when he correctly explains that it is constructed around an olive tree, she accepts that he is truly her husband, returned at last.

How is Penelope depicted in Christopher Nolan’s movie?

In the new film, Anne Hathaway portrays Penelope as a loyal and resilient queen who steadfastly clings to the belief that her husband is still alive. Despite the advances of the suitors who have overrun her palace – particularly the slimy Antinous (Robert Pattinson) – she stands firm and does all she can to spurn their affections.

Penelope’s bond with Odysseus is demonstrated in the trailer-like flurry of scenes that kick off Nolan’s film and provide much of its exposition. Before Odysseus departs to fight in the Trojan War, we see the couple locked in an embrace in their bedchamber. The king implores his wife to remarry should he not return before their infant son, Telemachus, comes of age. The queen tearfully presents her husband with a golden pin depicting the goddess Athena, to which Odysseus clutches over the course of his travels.

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The pin also plays a pivotal role at the point when Odysseus arrives on Ithaca some 20 years later, disguised as a beggar. Although his identity becomes obvious when he triumphs in the archery contest, it is his possession of the pin that provides Penelope with the ultimate proof – not his knowledge of their immovable marriage bed.

Many other key details from the story remain the same, however. Penelope continues her nightly unravelling of the shroud that she has no intention of completing. In the film, though, we see Antinous confronting the queen about the deception separately to the other suitors.

What does Penelope reveal about Late Bronze Age Greece?

In the absence of a king, the queen became one of the most important figures in the royal household. Marriage to a reigning queen could strengthen or even legitimise a claim to political authority. This explains why the suitors pursue Penelope so relentlessly: they’re attempting to gain control of Odysseus’s kingdom through marriage.

Penelope understands this and, like Odysseus, relies on her cunning to navigate her way through the danger. Her famous weaving ruse postpones a constitutional crisis. Every day she avoids making a decision is another day during which her son Telemachus remains the recognised heir, and another day on which Odysseus might yet return.

• Read more | Women in ancient Greece: what were their lives like?

This is the stuff of legend, but it reflects a plausible political reality. Throughout the Bronze Age, queens could have become pivotal figures during periods of uncertainty and would have done their best to find ways of securing agency.

Penelope also reveals the economic responsibilities of elite women. Throughout the Odyssey, she supervises servants, oversees textile production and maintains the daily operation of the household despite its gradual decline under the suitors’ occupation.

Her weaving is important to note, too. In the Bronze Age, textiles represented one of the most valuable products of palace economies, and Linear B tablets from Pylos and Knossos record large numbers of women engaged in textile production under palace administration. Her famous loom places her within one of the most important industries of the Mycenaean world.

What does Penelope reveal about ancient Greek values?

If Odysseus exhibits mētis (intelligence, cunning and problem-solving ability) on the battlefield and at sea, Penelope demonstrates the same quality within the household.

She deceives the suitors without openly provoking them, tests those around her before trusting them, and even challenges the disguised Odysseus to prove his identity before accepting him as her husband. Homer consistently presents caution as a virtue rather than a weakness.

• Read more | Was Homer a real person? Michael Wood explains

The poem also celebrates fidelity, but not in the passive sense sometimes associated with Penelope. She actively preserves her family during Odysseus’s long voyage home, protecting her son’s inheritance and resisting intense political pressure over two decades.

Penelope’s relationship with Telemachus also reflects the Greek importance of the oikos, or household. The family was the foundation of political and social life, and preserving it was a responsibility shared by both men and women.

Finally, Penelope demonstrates that wisdom is not exclusively male. Homer repeatedly places her as Odysseus’s intellectual equal.

Don’t miss our upcoming podcast series exploring the history of Homer’s Odyssey, featuring award-winning classicist and author Daisy Dunn. HistoryExtra members can listen to all four episodes from Sunday 19 July.

]]>Was Odysseus a real person? The hero of the The Odyssey explainedhttps://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/odysseus-real-history-odyssey-matt-damon/2026-07-17T21:30:16.000ZAt the centre of both Homer’s epic poem and Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of The Odyssey is the eponymous Late Bronze Age king who outwits monsters, survives storms sent by the gods, and spends 10 years striving to get home from the Trojan War.

Portrayed in Nolan’s adaptation by Matt Damon, Odysseus is a highly skilled but ruthless leader whose talents on the battlefield are matched only by his love for his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), and his son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), both of whom have long pined for his return.

Of course, there is no evidence to suggest that any historical Greek king fought off terrifying Cyclopes or encountered a witch who could turn men into pigs. But was Odysseus based on a real person?

We look at how Odysseus is depicted in Homer’s poem, as well as the key differences in the new blockbuster adaptation of the story.

Warning: this article contains spoilers for the new Christopher Nolan movie

Was Odysseus a real person?

There is no archaeological evidence that an individual named Odysseus ever ruled Ithaca.

However, some scholars argue that Odysseus embodies memories of one or more genuine Mycenaean rulers. Oral traditions often retain the names of important leaders long after historical details have faded. Over several centuries, stories about different individuals may merge into a single legendary hero. So Odysseus could be an amalgam: a composite figure incorporating aspects of many kings.

• Read more | Greek gods and goddesses: 15 of the most important deities

Others remain sceptical. The Odysseus of Homer’s epic poem and Nolan’s interpretation is a decidedly literary hero, enmeshed in divine magic and fantasy. Unlike some Bronze Age rulers, he does not appear in surviving Linear B tablets (though this absence is unsurprising given that only a minuscule number of Mycenaean documents have survived).

So Odysseus is almost certainly not a historical individual whose life can be reconstructed. But as a character, he may preserve real aspects of Mycenaean kingship, seafaring, warfare and diplomacy. The historical core may be real even if the surrounding narrative has become legend.

More broadly, even if archaeology can’t prove Odysseus’s existence, it does support the truth of parts of the world Homer describes. Excavations on Ithaca have uncovered substantial Mycenaean settlements occupied during the Late Bronze Age. Though none can be identified with any certainty as Odysseus’s palace, they demonstrate that the island formed part of the Mycenaean political landscape.

• Read more | The ancient Greeks at war: hoplites, the phalanx and the greatest battles

The political organisation of Odysseus’s kingdom also resembles what is known of Mycenaean Greece. Local kings ruled relatively small territories centred on fortified palaces, while acknowledging the leadership of more powerful rulers – figures resembling the Odyssey’s Agamemnon. This pattern broadly matches evidence recovered from sites including Mycenae, Pylos and Tiryns.

Odysseus’s role in Homer’s poem

Odysseus is the son of Laertes and Anticleia, and the husband of Penelope, with whom he has one son, Telemachus. He rules the small island kingdom of Ithaca and commands a contingent of 12 ships during the Trojan War.

Though guided by the goddess Athena (portrayed by Zendaya in the Nolan movie), Homer also presents him as a capable warrior of great intelligence. In the Iliad, he fights alongside the greatest Greek heroes and frequently acts as an adviser in councils. He is respected by Greek kings Agamemnon, Menelaus and Nestor. His defining quality is mētis – practical intelligence, cunning and the ability to solve problems through strategy rather than just brute force.

This attribute shapes every stage of the Odyssey. The hero blinds the Cyclops Polyphemus not through superior strength but using his wiles. He ensures he can resist the seductive songs of the Sirens by ordering his crew to bind him to the ship’s mast. When he finally reaches Ithaca, he disguises himself as a beggar and patiently gathers the information needed to reclaim his palace and his family. These episodes show Odysseus to be a hero whose greatest weapon is his mind.

His flaws are equally important. His pride leads him to reveal his real name to Polyphemus after escaping, allowing the Cyclops to call upon Poseidon for revenge. His curiosity repeatedly places himself and his companions – all of whom perish before the journey ends – in danger.

How is Odysseus depicted in Christopher Nolan’s movie?

Nolan’s adaptation depicts Odysseus’s story across a span of approximately 20 years. We not only follow the king on his gruelling, decade-long journey home to Ithaca, but also see flashbacks to life on the island before the Trojan War has even begun. And although the Odysseus who finally returns to reclaim his kingdom is certainly older and more rugged, he has not lost any of his fighting ability – he’s still able to brutally dispatch Penelope’s suitors in the movie’s climax.

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Certain aspects of Homer’s poem are either condensed or wholly omitted. Odysseus’s encounter with the witch Circe (Samantha Morton), who has transformed his soldiers into pigs, is largely reduced to a single – but highly memorable – scene around a dinner table, whereas in Homer’s epic the pair become lovers. Likewise, when Odysseus is shipwrecked on Ogygia with Calypso (Charlize Theron), he is fed a diet of lotus petals that causes him to lose his memories. This borrows from a different episode in Homer’s Odyssey, in which the flower’s fruit is consumed not by Odysseus but by members of his crew, causing them to lose all desire to return home.

In terms of characterisation, Damon brings a depth to Odysseus that can only really be gauged on screen. As the years pass following the Trojan War, he becomes racked with guilt over his past actions, lamenting both his soldiers’ violence and the occasions on which he and those around him violated ‘Zeus’s law’ by failing in their duties of hospitality. In another invention unique to Nolan’s script, Damon’s Odysseus is made to feel further regret when he is confronted by the shade, or spirit, of his cousin, Sinon (Elliot Page), whom he abandons while hiding inside the famous Trojan Horse.

Another key difference comes at the end of the movie. After reuniting with Penelope and Telemachus, Odysseus abdicates the throne to his son and leaves Ithaca in self-imposed exile, still struggling to come to terms with his past and eager to honour the men who fought alongside him. This marks a significant departure from Homer’s poem, in which Odysseus simply regains power and agrees a truce with the families of the suitors he has slain.

What does Odysseus reveal about Late Bronze Age Greece?

Odysseus provides one of the clearest windows into elite Mycenaean society.

First, his character shows the centrality of kingship in this period and place. His authority rests not upon bureaucracy or written law but upon personal leadership and inherited status. His household functions as both family home and political centre. The crisis that dominates the Odyssey is, therefore, constitutional as much as personal. Without the king, rival aristocrats consume his wealth and compete to replace him by marrying Penelope. The stability of the kingdom depends upon the restoration of legitimate rule.

• Read more | Was Homer a real person? Michael Wood explains

Second, Odysseus illustrates the importance of long-distance seafaring. The Mycenaeans maintained trading networks that stretched across the eastern Mediterranean. Archaeological evidence demonstrates contact with Cyprus, Egypt, the Levant, Sicily and southern Italy. Though Homer enlivens these voyages through encounters with monsters and enchantresses, the underlying point is realistic: elite rulers travelled widely by sea, and expected foreign contact to bring both opportunity and danger.

Third, the story reflects a warrior aristocracy. Prestige comes through military success, reputation and the loyalty of companions – not unlike the honour-bound mead-hall culture of the Germanic tribes of the early medieval period.

Don’t miss our upcoming podcast series exploring the history of Homer’s Odyssey, featuring award-winning classicist and author Daisy Dunn. HistoryExtra members can listen to all four episodes from Sunday 19 July.

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