Double Wages: Homer’s Laestrygonians and the Twenty-Four-Hour Economy

Among the monsters encountered by Odysseus on his journey home, the Laestrygonians are easily mistaken for merely another race of Homeric giants. Yet before Homer reveals them as cannibals, he gives us an unexpected description of their economy — one that is extraordinarily modern. This essay reads the episode as a meditation on production without purpose, economic activity without human limits, and appetite without restraint.