Character
Philoetius
The cowherd · one of the two slaves who stay loyal
The cowherd, and with Eumaeus one of the two slaves who stay loyal. He is introduced grumbling at what has become of his master's cattle, and when the fighting starts he is the man who bars the courtyard gate so that no suitor can escape. The poem is careful to reward him and the swineherd by name at the end — the household is restored to the people who kept faith with it, not simply to its owner.
The poem names him and Eumaeus at the end when the household is restored — it is careful that loyalty, not ownership, is what gets rewarded.