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Odysseus stopped by this morning and announced that he was going to do an inspection of the Ithacan encampment tomorrow.

After I had called our men to order, the General berated them for a good thirty minutes. In his words, the men looked like: "A stinking flock of lecherous seleni!"

Odysseus informed them all that the camp better look like "an Olympian wedding hall" by tomorrow morning, or heads were going to roll.

Before he stomped off, he nodded to me and said: "See to it, Eurylochus!"

The General was right. Our camp badly needed to be cleaned. However, I knew that his sudden desire for order was actually a result of the failed horse-capturing attempt. Flexing his authority over the men was a way for Odysseus to save some face.

Anyway, the rest of the day was pretty frantic. Nervous men were lined up at my tent all afternoon. Some were there to make sure that I understood that their tent had been clean all along, and that it was the other men who were to blame. Others were curious to know what an Olympian wedding hall looked like. -Some men started sticking flowers on their tents.

Macar had it the worst. Suddenly, everyone wanted new sandals, belts and bedrolls. I could hear his grating voice cussing out soldiers all day.

The laundry women were quickly overwhelmed, and instead resorted to giving the men lessons on how to clean their own tunics. The sight of a few hundred naked Ithacans slapping their clothes against the rocks brought a lot of cheer to the other armies.

The barber was frantically cutting more beards than he had in a month.

By nightfall, the camp looked much improved. No tents were sagging, no bones were scattered about the firepits, new latrines had been dug and the overfilled ones had been covered.

I am sure that Odysseus will be pleased.