Short answer: the suitors are a hundred and eight nobles from Ithaca and the nearby islands who move into Odysseus' house while he fails to return, eat his herds and demand that Penelope choose one of them. Three have names and characters of their own: Antinous, the most violent, Eurymachus, the smoothest talker, and Amphinomus, the only one who behaves decently.
They are not an enemy army. That is the uncomfortable part: they are the neighbours.
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The suitors' crime is not wanting the throne. It is breaking xenia, sacred hospitality, the pact that held together a Greek world with no police and no inns: the guest is treated well, and the guest does not abuse it.
They are guests devouring the house. That is why the ending is so brutal: it is not personal revenge, it is an order being restored.
Antinous is the ringleader. He is the one who proposes killing Telemachus in an ambush on his way home, to remove the heir.
He is also the one who, when Odysseus turns up disguised as a beggar, throws a stool at him. Striking a beggar was a vile act even then, because the beggar might be a god testing you.
When the slaughter begins, the first arrow is his. It catches him drinking, cup at his lips.
Eurymachus is more dangerous than Antinous precisely because he is better mannered. He is the one who calms things in public, who shifts blame, who promises compensation.
The moment Antinous falls, Eurymachus changes his story in a heartbeat: he says the dead man was to blame for everything and offers to repay every ox eaten. Odysseus does not even answer. The second arrow is his.
The myth is precise about this: talking well does not save him. Acting differently would have.
Amphinomus is the decent suitor. He opposes the plan to kill Telemachus. He is kind to the beggar nobody recognises.
And Odysseus, still disguised, tells him to his face to leave that house before its owner returns. He is the only one handed a way out.
Amphinomus stays. He dies with the rest.
That detail is the moral core of the passage: standing among the guilty is already a choice, even when you are not the worst of them.
Penelope holds the suitors off for three years with a trick. She promises to choose when she has finished her father-in-law's shroud, and every night unpicks what she wove by day. A maid gives her away.
Then she proposes the test of the bow: she will marry whoever can string Odysseus' bow and send an arrow through twelve axe heads in a row. Nobody can. Only Odysseus can string Odysseus' bow, and he is the beggar asking for a turn.
| Suitor | What he does | How he dies |
|---|---|---|
| Antinous | Leads them, plans the ambush on Telemachus | First arrow, mid-drink |
| Eurymachus | Talks well, shifts blame, offers to pay | Second arrow |
| Amphinomus | The decent one, opposes the ambush | Dies anyway, after a warning |
A hundred and eight, by the count Telemachus gives in the poem, from Ithaca and the nearby islands, plus a few servants on their side. Only three have a real part in the story.
The leader of the suitors and the most violent of them. He plots to kill Telemachus and throws a stool at Odysseus disguised as a beggar. He is the first to die when the killing starts.
Because he stays. Odysseus gives him an explicit warning and he does not leave. The poem is hard precisely there: being the least guilty of a guilty group is not enough to save you.
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