Odyssey 10.258 · Book 10, lines 258–260
One man hangs back
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Eurylochus — αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν ὑπέμεινα, ὀισάμενος δόλον εἶναι. οἱ δʼ ἅμʼ ἀιστώθησαν ἀολλέες, οὐδέ τις αὐτῶν ἐξεφάνη· δηρὸν δὲ καθήμενος ἐσκοπίαζον.
But I held back, suspecting it was a trap. And they were made to vanish all at once, in a body, and not one of them appeared again; and I sat a long while, keeping watch.
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The setting
Eurylochus tells how he alone refused to enter, suspecting a trap, and then watched the others disappear without a trace.
A note on this passage
Eurylochus sets his own caution against the others' trust: he stayed outside, suspecting δόλος, a trick. Then the men were ‘made to vanish’ — the whole party swallowed from sight — and though he sat watching a long time, not one came back out.
The verb ἀιστόω is stronger than ‘disappeared’: it means to be made unseen, subtracted from the visible world. From his lookout Eurylochus meets the loss as pure absence — no bodies, no sound, no return — which is why he can call it destruction. His suspicion saved him and left him helpless, a watcher who cannot act.
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