King of the Phaeacians on Corcyra, son of Nausithous, wise in counsel by the gods' gift; he received Odysseus and sent him home with treasure, and in Apollodorus his queen Arete married Jason and Medea when the Argonauts came to the island.1
When Odysseus came ashore on Scheria, Athena sent him to the house of Alcinous, upon whom depend the might and power of the Phaeacians; his daughter Nausicaa led the stranger to the city, and the king heard his tale and promised him a safe passage home.2
Apollodorus names Corcyra the island of the Phaeacians, of which Alcinous was king — the haven the Argonauts reached after Thrinacia, where Arete the queen married Medea to Jason.3
Homer makes him the pivot of Odysseus' last leg home: when the stranger had wept at Demodocus' songs of Troy and revealed his name at last, Alcinous promised gifts and a ship to carry him to Ithaca while he slept — the Phaeacians' final service before Poseidon punished them for aiding the man the earth-shaker hated.4
When the returning ship had set Odysseus ashore on Ithaca, Poseidon asked Zeus to let him petrify the vessel and ring the Phaeacian city with a mountain — so the people who had borne the wanderer home lost their swift ships forever, and Alcinous' prayer to the god could not undo the earth-shaker's wrath.5
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story