The standard epithets applied to the suitors often emphasize their excessive desire to be “above” or “beyond” others (hyper: above and beyond): they are hyper-phialos or hyper-thymos (“self-indulgent,” “heedless,” “overbearing”). These words can be neutral or even positive (suggesting “noble” or “high-minded”—above the norms in a good way), but they acquire a sinister connotation here, since they are also applied to the man-eating Laestrygonians and Cyclops. We are repeatedly told that the suitors are devouring not only the literal “property” of Odysseus, but also, metonymically, his “house”
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