Abstract
In ancient Greece, women were expected to bear all responsibilities during early child rearing. Earlier in the epic, the audience witnesses Helen, whose departure with the Trojan prince Paris was the cause of the Trojan War, add an Egyptian drug called nepenthe to the wine she gives to her husband, Menelaos, and Odysseus’ son, Telemachus. Many academic authors have traced the modern practices of witchcraft to ancient cults and the survival of pagan traditions outside of mainstream Christianity.