But numbers don’t really tell us what interests me most.

They don’t tell us how someone who has lived for three millennia would see the world.

That’s a much more difficult question.

One of the reasons Philippe feels so believable is that Deborah Harkness rarely uses his age to impress us. Instead, she lets us discover it through his perspective. He almost never reacts to events with the urgency of someone thinking about next week or next year. His instinct is always to step back, look farther ahead, and ask what today’s decisions will mean generations from now.

That way of thinking appears again and again in All Souls.

Philippe builds alliances that may not matter for decades. He invests in relationships before they become useful. He prepares Matthew, Baldwin, and the rest of the de Clermont family for futures they cannot yet imagine. Even when others are focused on immediate problems, Philippe is already considering what comes next.

It’s a remarkable contrast to the pace of modern life.

Most of us measure time in days, months, or perhaps the next stage of our lives. We make decisions based on careers, children, retirement, or the next few years. Philippe has the luxury, and the burden, of measuring time differently.

He thinks in centuries.

That way of seeing the world has surprisingly deep roots in the Homeric tradition.

Although The Odyssey tells the story of one man’s journey home, Homer constantly reminds his audience that every decision echoes across generations. Odysseus worries about the future of Telemachus. The reputation of fathers shapes the expectations placed upon sons. Houses rise and fall because of choices made long before the story begins. Memory extends beyond individual lives.

For the Greeks, immortality was rarely about living forever.

It was about being remembered.

The word kleos described the reputation that survived after death—the stories future generations would continue to tell about you. Heroes sought lasting honor because they knew their lives were finite. Their hope was that their names would outlive them.

Philippe presents us with a fascinating inversion of that idea.

He doesn’t need kleos to survive.

He survives.

What matters instead is whether the people and institutions he loves will endure alongside him. His concern is not his own memory but the future of the de Clermont family. Legacy, for Philippe, isn’t measured by stories told after his death. It’s measured by the generations he helps shape while he is still alive.

That shift explains something I’ve often wondered about Philippe.

He is remarkably patient.

Modern stories frequently celebrate decisive action. Philippe certainly acts when necessary, but he rarely rushes. He understands that some conflicts resolve themselves over decades, that relationships require time to mature, and that today’s setback may become tomorrow’s opportunity.

Three thousand years teaches patience in a way no ordinary lifespan can.

It also changes the meaning of loss.

Philippe has loved countless people, buried friends, watched civilizations disappear, and seen ideas once considered permanent quietly fade away. Yet he continues to invest in the future. He continues to build families, protect knowledge, and believe that some things are worth preserving.

That optimism may be one of his most remarkable qualities.

Deborah Harkness could have written an immortal character consumed by nostalgia, forever looking backward. Instead, Philippe remains surprisingly future-oriented. His deepest concern is not preserving the past exactly as it was, but ensuring that the values he believes matter most continue into the future.

Perhaps that’s the final connection to Homer.

Both The Odyssey and All Souls understand that the true measure of a life is not simply how long it lasts. It is what we leave behind.

For Odysseus, that meant restoring his household so the next generation could flourish.

For Philippe, it means preparing the de Clermont family to survive a future he may never completely control.

The centuries between them are vast.

The question they ask is the same.

What deserves to endure?

Read It Again

As you revisit Philippe’s scenes, notice how often he speaks about the future rather than the past. Although he carries three thousand years of memory, his attention is almost always focused on what comes next - Matthew’s future, Diana’s role, the de Clermont family, and the generations that will follow. His greatest gift may not be immortality itself, but the patience to think beyond a single lifetime.

Again and again, Odysseus arrives somewhere unfamiliar. Before anyone asks who he is, where he has come from, or why he is there, he is offered food, wine, a bath, and a place to rest. Only after those needs have been met do the questions begin.

To modern readers, these scenes can feel repetitive. To Homer’s audience, they represented one of the most important values in Greek society.

The Greeks called it xenia.

The word is often translated simply as “hospitality,” but that doesn’t quite capture its meaning. Hospitality today usually suggests courtesy or generosity. Xenia was something much deeper. It described a sacred relationship between host and guest, one protected by Zeus himself. To welcome a stranger, offer food, provide shelter, and ensure their safe departure was not merely an act of kindness. It was a moral responsibility.

That obligation extended to both people.

The host offered protection and generosity.

The guest responded with respect, gratitude, and trust.

Together they created a relationship that could last for generations.

Once you recognize xenia in The Odyssey, you begin to notice how often Homer uses it to reveal character. The best hosts are generous without hesitation. The worst violate the rules completely. The suitors who occupy Odysseus’s home do more than overstay their welcome—they abuse the sacred bond between host and guest by consuming his food, disrespecting his household, and exploiting Penelope’s hospitality. Their behavior is offensive not simply because it is rude, but because it threatens the moral order of the oikos itself.

Reading those scenes made me think about Sept-Tours.

Throughout All Souls, Philippe’s home is more than a family estate. It is a place where alliances are formed, guests are protected, difficult conversations take place, and relationships are tested. People are welcomed, fed, and, perhaps most importantly, brought under Philippe’s protection.

Those scenes are easy to read as expressions of generosity.

I wonder if they are something more.

Like Homer, Deborah Harkness often uses hospitality to reveal character. Who is welcomed? Who is trusted? Who is offered a place at the table? Those choices tell us as much about Philippe as any battle or political negotiation.

What strikes me most is that Philippe rarely separates hospitality from responsibility. Once someone enters his household, he assumes obligations toward them. He may not always be warm. He may not always be easy to understand. But he consistently acts as though the role of host carries duties that cannot simply be set aside when they become inconvenient.

That idea feels deeply ancient.

Today we often think of hospitality as optional. We invite people into our homes because we enjoy their company or because the occasion calls for it. Philippe’s world operates differently. Hospitality creates relationships, and relationships create obligations. Once those obligations exist, they endure.

That perspective also helps explain why meals occupy such an important place in All Souls. Some of the most significant conversations in the series take place around a table. Families argue. Alliances are negotiated. Guests become friends. Trust is built one shared meal at a time.

Food is rarely just food.

The table becomes part of the story.

Perhaps that’s why The Odyssey spends so much time describing meals that modern readers sometimes skim past. Homer understood that a shared table was where strangers became allies and where households revealed the values they lived by.

Deborah Harkness understands the same thing.

The next time I read the scenes at Sept-Tours, I suspect I’ll pay less attention to what is being served and more attention to who has been invited to the table.

Hospitality, it turns out, may be one of the oldest forms of storytelling.

It tells us exactly who we are.

Read It Again

The next time you read a meal at Sept-Tours, resist the temptation to treat it as a pause in the story. Instead, notice who is welcomed, who sits together, who serves, and who is protected. Deborah Harkness rarely uses the dinner table simply as a setting. Like Homer, she uses it to reveal relationships, establish trust, and show us the values that holds the De Clairmont household together.

Today, we often think of family as a group of individuals connected by love and shared experiences. We celebrate personal choice, encourage independence, and generally believe that parents should prepare their children to build lives of their own. These values are so familiar that they can feel timeless.

They aren’t.

In Homer’s world, the family was understood very differently. The Greeks used the word oikos, often translated simply as “household,” but the word meant far more than a home or a collection of relatives. The oikos included the family, the land, servants, wealth, reputation, alliances, and the generations yet to come. It was the foundation of society, and its preservation was the first responsibility of its leader.

That idea lies at the heart of The Odyssey.

Odysseus does not spend twenty years trying to return to Ithaca simply because he misses home. During his absence, his oikos begins to unravel. His wealth is consumed by the suitors. His authority is questioned. His son grows up without him. His wife must defend the household against those who would seize it. Returning home is not simply a personal goal—it is an act of restoring order to everything entrusted to his care.

Once I began thinking about the oikos, I found myself looking at Philippe de Clermont differently.

One of the questions readers often ask is why Philippe demands so much from the members of his family. He arranges alliances, places enormous expectations on Matthew, and repeatedly asks individuals to sacrifice for the good of the de Clermonts. Read through a modern lens, those choices can feel controlling or even unfair.

Read through the idea of the oikos, they tell a different story.

Philippe rarely thinks about one member of the family in isolation. His decisions are almost always measured against the future of the household as a whole. Alliances matter because they strengthen the family across generations. Marriages matter because they protect its future. Every choice is made with an eye toward what will preserve the de Clermonts long after he is gone.

That doesn’t mean we have to agree with his decisions.

But it does help explain them.

One of Deborah Harkness’s greatest strengths as a writer is her refusal to modernize Philippe. It would have been easy to create an immortal character who happened to have lived through history while thinking very much like a contemporary reader. Instead, she gives Philippe a worldview that remains rooted in the civilization that first shaped him.

He adapts to new languages, new countries, and new political realities, but his deepest assumptions about leadership and family remain remarkably consistent. His first instinct is almost always to ask what is best for the de Clermont household, even when the answer comes at great personal cost.

That way of thinking often places him at odds with Matthew.

Matthew values the family deeply, but he also struggles with expectations that seem to leave little room for individual choice. Their disagreements are not simply generational. They reflect two very different understandings of what family exists to do. Philippe sees himself as the guardian of something larger than any one person. Matthew increasingly sees the family as existing to serve the people within it.

Deborah Harkness never suggests that one perspective is entirely right and the other entirely wrong. Instead, she allows both worldviews to coexist, creating one of the richest and most emotionally complex relationships in the series.

Perhaps that’s why Philippe continues to fascinate readers.

He isn’t simply ancient because he has lived for three thousand years.

He is ancient because he still carries the values of the world that first taught him what it meant to lead, to love, and to protect a family.

Understanding the oikos doesn’t resolve every question about Philippe’s choices.

It does something much more interesting.

It reminds us that before we decide whether we agree with him, we should first understand the world that shaped him.

Read It Again

The next time you visit Sept-Tours, notice Philippe's conversations with Matthew and ask yourself a different question. Instead of wondering whether Philippe is being controlling, ask what responsibilities he believes come with leading a family that has survived for centuries. Once you begin reading him through the values of the ancient Greek world, some of his most difficult decisions become less surprising even if they remain open to debate.

When we first meet Philippe de Clermont in Shadow of Night, it’s easy to focus on the obvious. He is powerful. Charismatic. Strategic. He commands loyalty from those around him and seems to carry the weight of centuries with effortless confidence.

Deborah Harkness tells us something else that is just as important, although it’s easy to overlook.

Philippe was born in ancient Greece.

That single fact changes the way I read him.

Not because I imagine him walking beside Odysseus or witnessing the events of The Odyssey. Rather, because it reminds me that Philippe’s earliest understanding of family, leadership, honor, and responsibility would have been shaped by a world very different from our own—a world remarkably like the one Homer describes.

It is tempting to think that living for three thousand years would eventually erase those early influences. Yet that isn’t how people work. Historians often remind us that the values we absorb when we are young become the lens through which we interpret the rest of our lives. We adapt to changing circumstances, but the foundations remain surprisingly durable.

Perhaps that’s why Philippe sometimes feels so different from the other de Clermonts.

Modern readers often judge him by modern expectations. We value independence, individual choice, and personal fulfillment. Philippe certainly understands those ideas—he has lived long enough to witness them emerge—but they are not the values that formed him.

The world Homer describes begins somewhere else.

One of the central ideas in The Odyssey is that a leader’s first responsibility is the survival of the household. A king is expected to protect his people, preserve his family’s future, and make decisions that ensure the continuity of generations yet to come. Personal desires matter, but they are secondary to the stability of the household.

Read Philippe through that lens, and many of his decisions begin to look different.

He builds alliances that will outlast him. He thinks strategically about marriages. He prepares his children not simply for the next conflict, but for conflicts that may arise centuries later. He often asks individuals to sacrifice for something larger than themselves.

That doesn’t always make him easy to like.

It does make him easier to understand.

The same shift happens when we consider how Homer treats intelligence.

Modern retellings often emphasize Odysseus’s adventures—the Cyclops, the Sirens, the Trojan Horse. But Homer’s audience admired something deeper. Odysseus survives because he observes carefully, adapts quickly, and thinks several moves ahead. His greatest victories are intellectual before they are physical.

Philippe possesses that same instinct.

Throughout All Souls, he rarely relies on strength alone. He studies people. He anticipates their choices. He builds relationships long before he needs them. His understanding of politics is measured not in months or years, but in generations.

It is strategy as a way of life.

Perhaps the most revealing comparison, however, lies in Philippe’s understanding of love.

One of the most common criticisms of Philippe is that he sometimes appears emotionally distant. He asks difficult things of Matthew. He expects loyalty. He places extraordinary responsibilities on members of the de Clermont family.

Yet in Homer’s world, love and duty were rarely opposites.

To protect your household, arrange alliances, preserve your family’s future, and place the needs of the community above your own were all understood as expressions of responsibility. Affection certainly existed, but it was inseparable from obligation.

That ancient perspective doesn’t excuse every decision Philippe makes.

It does explain why his love often looks different from ours.

This, I think, is one of Deborah Harkness’s quietest achievements as a writer.

She doesn’t simply tell us Philippe has lived for three thousand years. She allows him to remain, in some essential ways, a man of the ancient Mediterranean. He speaks modern languages. He adapts to changing politics. He embraces science and scholarship. Yet the values that shaped him remain remarkably constant.

History isn’t something Philippe remembers.

It is something he carries.

Reading The Odyssey reminded me that great literature doesn’t only preserve stories. It preserves ways of thinking. The world Homer describes may feel distant, but its ideas continue to live in unexpected places, including the pages of All Souls.

The next time I read Shadow of Night or The Book of Life, I know I’ll see Philippe differently. I’ll still question some of his decisions, and I’ll still sympathize with the frustration his children sometimes feel. But I’ll also remember that Deborah Harkness didn’t create a man who merely lived through history.

She created a man who was shaped by it.

And that might be one of the reasons Philippe is one of the most compelling and powerful characters in the entire series.

Read It Again

The next time Philippe appears in Shadow of Night, listen carefully to the questions he asks before making a decision. Notice how often he thinks about strategy, reputation, alliances, and the long game rather than immediate solutions. Deborah Harkness doesn’t simply tell us Philippe was born in ancient Greece—she lets us see it in the way he thinks.

We encounter them as children, meet them again in school, recognize them in novels, films, and paintings, and then, years later, discover they have been quietly shaping our imagination all along.

This summer, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey returns one of those stories to the big screen. It’s a timely reminder that Homer’s epic has never really disappeared. It has simply changed form, finding new life in every generation that chooses to tell it again.

That announcement made me think less about the film itself and more about another character who has been quietly living in Homer’s world all along.

Philippe de Clermont.

Deborah Harkness tells us that Philippe was born in ancient Greece more than three thousand years ago. It’s an extraordinary piece of his story, but one that’s easy to overlook. We tend to think of it as a fascinating detail about his age rather than a clue to understanding the man himself.

What if it’s much more than that?

What if the key to understanding Philippe isn’t simply that he has lived for three millennia, but that he was shaped by the same world that produced The Odyssey?

That question became the inspiration for this summer’s series.

Over the next five Sundays, I’d like to explore Philippe through the lens of ancient Greece—not to argue that he is another Odysseus, but to ask how a man raised in the Homeric world might think about leadership, family, hospitality, legacy, and time.

We’ll look at the ancient Greek ideas that formed one of All Souls’ most compelling characters and ask how Deborah Harkness quietly wove those ideas into her novels. Along the way, we’ll discover that understanding the world Homer describes doesn’t just deepen our appreciation of The Odyssey. It changes the way we read Philippe as well.

One of the things I’ve always admired about Deborah Harkness is that she doesn’t simply tell stories set in history. She writes as a historian. Her characters are shaped by the civilizations that formed them, and nowhere is that more evident than in Philippe. His decisions, his sense of duty, and even the way he loves his family all make more sense when we remember where—and when—his story began.

My hope is that, by the end of this series, you’ll find yourself returning to Shadow of Night and The Book of Life with new eyes. Not because the story has changed, but because history has given you another way to read it.

I hope you’ll join me.We’ll follow the long conversation that stories have been having with one another for centuries.

Because perhaps no story is ever entirely new.

Every great book carries traces of the books that came before it.

Every library holds echoes.

And somewhere between Homer and Harkness is a path worth following.

I hope you’ll join me.