As always, welcome, dear readers.

When I saw the new Indiana Jones film the first time,

I was a bit concerned that the actor’s actual age—80—might be an impediment to the action and certain remarks, mainly made early in the film–the character called “Teddy” initially addresses him as “old timer” and his co-star, “Helena”, remarks to him, “I like the hat, by the way.  Makes you look at least two years younger.”  as well as later calling him “an aging grave robber”—made me wary, but, once the action set in, age was mostly ignored, even though Jones’ character in the film was supposedly 70.

At the same time, I was disappointed that, when his old friend, Sallah, appeared,

after a brief scene, he was told, “This is not an adventure, Sallah.  Those days have come and gone.” and he was dismissed from the film, only to reappear briefly as a grandfatherly figure at the end.

To me, this seemed like the waste of an interesting character, who had twice helped Jones against Nazis,  and, as Jones was on his way to Tangier, it would seem that Sallah, a native Arabic-speaker, might have been of real use there, as well.  Was the actor (John Rhys Davies’) actual age (79) against him, especially if Jones is supposed to be older, as well?

This set me thinking about the ages of heroes in adventure.  Are there more like Indiana Jones?  And would that mean a second chance for Sallah?

Adventure is obviously a giant subject, and growing larger all the time, so I’ll restrict my questions for the moment to what I’m teaching this fall:  the Odyssey, Beowulf, and The Hobbit.

Beginning with the hero of the first of these, how old is Odysseus, for instance?  Athena, to protect him from being initially overwhelmed by the 100+ suitors and their minions,

 turns him into an old beggar

(This may be an Alan Lee?)

when he arrives on Ithaka, which presumably suggests he will be at least somewhat different from his  actual age.  (Odyssey, Book 13.397-403)  Although the text never provides a definite answer, we might do a little creative arithmetic, using the few facts we have about Odysseus’ early life.

1. His first adventure appears to be recorded in the Odyssey.  His grandfather had instructed his parents to send the boy to him when he first entered adulthood, so might we guess 18 to 20?  While staying with his grandfather, Odysseus was wounded during a boar hunt

and carried the scar with him into his later adult life, as its recognition, many years later, by his old nurse, Eurykleia,

almost gives away his disguise.  (Odyssey, Book 19, 386-490)

Of other early events, we learn of Odysseus winning Penelope in a footrace (Pausanias, Description of Greece, 3.12.2, 3.12.4—which you can read at:  https://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias3A.html ), although we have no idea of how old either Odysseus or Penelope was at that time.  There has been, as you can imagine, lots of scholarly discourse on when people in ancient Greece married, but there may be some consensus that girls would marry after about the age of 14 or 15—although the age of men is much less firm.  One ancient source suggests that girls should be about 19 and men about 30 (Hesiod, Works and Days, 695-699—for one view of the question, see:  https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2023/02/28/at-what-age-did-ancient-greek-women-typically-marry/ )

Beyond this event, we see Odysseus acquiring a bow from Iphitos, which he receives on a trip upon which his father, Laertes, and the elders of Ithaka had sent him (Odyssey, Book 21, 1-41), suggesting that he is still young enough to be under his father’s authority.  (This is the bow with which he later deals with the suitors.)

And we learn that his son, Telemakhos, was a baby when Odysseus left for the Trojan War.  (Apollodorus, Epitome, E 3.7, see:  https://www.theoi.com/Text/ApollodorusE.html  and Hyginus, Fabulae, 95, see:  https://topostext.org/work/206 )

Odysseus goes off to the War for ten years and spends a further 9 years coming home, adding 20 years to whatever total we can imagine.  He might have been about 40, then, or, considering the passage from Hesiod above, maybe fifty—although this would go against the idea that Athena has turned him into an old beggar.  Even if we settle upon 40, Odysseus, in a world where life expectancy may have been relatively short (lots of scholarly argument on this—just read through the Wiki article on “Life Expectancy” here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy ), was rather far along in his life and, though vigorous (with Athena’s help), perhaps about the equivalent of Indiana Jones in Dial.  (For a long, detailed look at Odysseus, see:  https://mythopedia.com/topics/odysseus )

We don’t know very accurately the ages of the title character in Beowulf when he’s involved in his major conflicts, but we do know that, when he finally faces the dragon, near the poem’s end,

he’s been king of his people for “fifty winters” (fiftig wintra, Beowulf, 2208—for a very useful translation, with the original Old English text placed parallel and lots of notes, see:  https://heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-text.html ).  Presuming that he was a young man when he fought Grendel and his mother earlier in the poem, I think that it’s safe to assume that he’s at least in his very late 60s or early 70s.

In the case of Bilbo, in The Hobbit, we are on firmer ground.  When Gandalf in April, TA2941, arrives to recruit Bilbo for the adventure Bilbo initially says he wants no part of,

(the Hildebrandts—and one of my all-time favorite illustrations by them)

Bilbo was 50, having been born in TA2890 (Bilbo’s birthday, as we know, is in September—for the date of Gandalf’s arrival, see “The Quest for Erebor”in Douglas Anderson’s The Annotated Hobbit, 375).

Hobbits, however, seem to have a longer life expectancy than humans, so that Bilbo’s 50 is probably not our 50—after all, hobbits only came of age at 33—although Bilbo’s state of preservation at 99 did cause remark in the Shire (see The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 1, “A Long-expected Party”).

Odysseus, in his 40s or even 50s, is able, with the aid of his son, Telemachus, and two slaves and a little help from Athena, to slaughter over a hundred suitors.  Beowulf, perhaps in his 70s, with the assistance of a single young warrior, Wiglaf, kills a fearsome dragon.  Even if Bilbo is a young fifty, he still manages to survive trolls, goblins, spiders, hostile elves, and a dragon and live another 80 years (we don’t know how much the Ring may have had to do with that longevity—after all, the Old Took manages 130 without it).  That being the case, perhaps the writers of The Dial of Destiny were a little premature in relegating Sallah to the sidelines?

Thanks for reading, as always.

Stay well,

Remember:  “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage”,

And remember, as well, that there’s always

MTCIDC

O