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Abstract
This thesis explores the role of women as helpers in Homer’s Odyssey and Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica. In writing this thesis, I had two goals: to better understand the complex roles of the women in the Odyssey and to learn the complex ways in which Apollonius incorporates and references these earlier women within his Medea. My first chapter examines the actions of Odysseus’ main female helpers and how these women interact with Odysseus and allow him to move closer to obtaining his goal of returning to Ithaca and retaking his house and wife. My second chapter explores how Apollonius of Rhodes creates his Medea with numerous similarities to the Odyssean women but also alters these models to separate her from her predecessors. This thesis ultimately seeks to display Medea’s unusual prominence within the narrative of the Argonautica through her similarities to Odysseus’ helper women.