# Phaeacians — The Odyssey character guide

> Phaeacians in The Odyssey by Homer.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** the Phaeacians

**First appearance:** 0006-book-v-departure-of-ulysses-from-calypso

## Snapshot

A prosperous, seafaring people who welcome a shipwrecked stranger with feasting, games, and songs, then carry him home in a single night.

## Who they are

The Phaeacians occupy a blessed island outside the ordinary world, generous hosts whose court becomes the stage for Ulysses' own account of his wanderings. Their hospitality is genuine but fragile, shadowed by a prophecy that helping strangers by sea may bring divine punishment on their city. They matter because they give the hero both an audience and a passage home, and because their fate raises the poem's uneasy question of whether kindness to a guest can ever be cost-free.

## Relationships

### [Ulysses](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_odyssey_se/characters/ulysses)

_social_

The Phaeacians are a seafaring people who welcome Ulysses and provide him passage to Ithaca, acting as gracious hosts.

### [Ulysses](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_odyssey_se/characters/ulysses)

_social_

The Phaeacians are a seafaring people who welcome Ulysses and provide him passage to Ithaca, acting as gracious hosts.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_odyssey_se/characters/phaeacians
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_odyssey_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_odyssey_se/characters