Odyssey 9.88 · Book 9, lines 88–90
Three scouts sent inland
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δὴ τοτʼ ἐγὼν ἑτάρους προΐειν πεύθεσθαι ἰόντας, οἵ τινες ἀνέρες εἶεν ἐπὶ χθονὶ σῖτον ἔδοντες ἄνδρε δύω κρίνας, τρίτατον κήρυχʼ ἅμʼ ὀπάσσας.
then at that point I sent companions ahead to go and find out what sort of men might be there, eating bread on that earth — having chosen two men, and sending a herald along as a third.
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The setting
Standard scouting procedure: before trusting an unknown land, Odysseus sends a small party inland to learn what kind of people live there — the question the whole encounter will answer.
A note on this passage
Odysseus sends out a reconnaissance. Three men — two chosen soldiers and a herald — go inland to find out 'what sort of men' live on this earth and eat its bread. It is the recurring question of the wanderings, asked at every new shore: are these people just, hospitable, lawful, or not?
The phrasing carries the poem's measure of civilisation. 'Men who eat bread' (σῖτον ἔδοντες) is Homer's standard mark of ordinary humanity — grain-eaters, as against monsters and savages. The scouts are sent precisely to test whether the Lotus-eaters are that kind of people. The answer will be stranger than either yes or no: a folk who eat not bread but a flower, and whose only violence is hospitality.
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