ἐκ μὲν Κρητάων γένος εὔχομαι εὐρειάων
I say-solemnly [eukhesthai] that I was born and raised in Crete, the place that reaches far and wide
(What follows is epitomized from Nagy 2017.04.11 5§§27–28.) Odysseus, disguising himself as a Cretan princeling, begins with a statement about his origins. He says he is from Crete. In the singular, Krētē refers to the island of Crete. But here at O.14.199 we see the plural Krêtai, which cannot mean a multiplicity of islands named Crete. There is no such thing. Rather, we see here an elliptic plural, meaning ‘Crete and everything that belongs to it’. And of course whatever belongs to Crete are all the Aegean islands and lands controlled by the thalassocracy of Crete (HTL 163–164, following Muellner 1976:70). At O.19.178, we will see a pronoun that refers to Crete, and, like the noun Krêtai here at O.14.199, that pronoun too appears not in the singular but in the plural. So, again at O.19.178, we will see an elliptic plural. Also, in the comment on O.07.078–081, I noted a parallel example: it is the elliptic plural Athênai, which means ‘Athēnē and everything that belongs to it’. My translation here shows ‘it’ instead of ‘her’ for a simple reason: the fact is, the singular form Athēnē refers not only to the goddess Athena but also to the place that she personifies. As we see at O.07.080, the noun Athēnē in the singular can refer not only to the goddess Athena but also to the place that she controls, which was primarily the acropolis of Athens. So, to put that singular form into the plural, which is an elliptic plural, is a way of referring to all the places controlled by the acropolis of Athens. Besides Athênai in the sense of ‘Athens’, other such elliptic plurals include Mukênai ‘Mycenae’ and Thêbai ‘Thebes’. See the comment on O.07.078–081 (see also, again, HTL 163-164). On ellipsis in general, see the comment on I.04.196; also on I.06.209, I.07.015–017.