Melampous in The Odyssey

Melampous

Sometimes spelled Melampus. This is another minor name in a major digression over yet another minor character. Let's see if we can identify some sort of relevance to our tale: In Book XV, Telemachos picks up a hitchhiker fugitive seer on his way back to Ithaka from Sparta. The hitchhiker is Theoklymenos, a descendant of Melampous. We then launch into Melampous' story, and find that he was unfairly exiled from his land until he came back and dished up some vengeance, Odysseus-style.