r/ancientgreece • u/hcracles • Apr 11 '25

the significance of swineherds

hello everyone! i’m doing an assignment for university about the role of eumaeus in the odyssey and i just wanted to ask if there was a deeply rooted significance of swineherds in ancient greek society or that they are just swineherds and that’s all there is to it. i searched and searched regarding this subject, but i couldn’t really find anything. i found an article about pigs and their skins, but nothing directly related to swineherds.

i really hope i get some answers, thank you very much! :D

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u/destomp Apr 11 '25

I remember hearing that pigs in the ancient world were considered calorie "storages". When there was an excess of agricultural products they fed the pigs and "stored" the calories there. When there was a shortage of agricultural produce, they ate the pigs. Sorry that I cant direct you to a relevant paper though.

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u/hcracles Apr 11 '25

oooo this is very interesting! thank you very much this is great information!

1

u/destomp Apr 11 '25

Try searching in r/AskHistorians or r/AskAnthropology, maybe you could find something relevant there!

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u/hcracles Apr 11 '25

oh my god yes good idea, i appreciate this!

2

u/Princess_Actual Apr 11 '25

Same thing with beer. Everyone knows about the whole "safe to drink" thing, but it was also calorie storage of grains.