Odyssey 6.266 · Book 6, lines 266–270
Poseidon's precinct, and a people of the ship
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ἔνθα δέ τέ σφʼ ἀγορὴ καλὸν Ποσιδήιον ἀμφίς, ῥυτοῖσιν λάεσσι κατωρυχέεσσʼ ἀραρυῖα. ἔνθα δὲ νηῶν ὅπλα μελαινάων ἀλέγουσι, πείσματα καὶ σπεῖρα, καὶ ἀποξύνουσιν ἐρετμά. οὐ γὰρ Φαιήκεσσι μέλει βιὸς οὐδὲ φαρέτρη,
There too is their assembly-place around the fair temple of Poseidon, fitted with quarried stones bedded deep. There they attend to the tackle of the black ships, cables and sails, and plane down the oars. For the Phaeacians care not for bow nor quiver,
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The setting
The sketch of the town finishes at its public heart: the assembly-ground by Poseidon's temple, where the Phaeacians tend the gear of their ships. A seafaring people, not a warlike one.
A note on this passage
The tour finishes at the civic center: the assembly-ground laid out around Poseidon's temple, walled with deep-set quarried stone, where the men see to their ships' cables and sails and shape the oars. They have no interest in bow or quiver.
Two quiet points sit under the description. Poseidon — the very god hunting Odysseus across the sea — stands at the heart of the town he is walking into, its patron and neighbor. And these are people of the ship, not the spear: their whole public life is rigging and oars, not arms. He is nearing the safest, and the most dangerously divine-claimed, city he could reach.
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