What is a common theme for the texts “Land of Cicones” and “Lotus Eaters”? Lotus Eaters text:

“I might have made it safely home, that time, but as I came around Malea the current took me out to sea, and from the north a fresh gale drove me on, past Cythera. Nine days I drifted on the teeming sea before dangerous high winds. Upon the tenth we came to the coastline of the Lotus Eaters, who live upon that flower. We landed there to take on water. All ships’ companies mustered alongside for the mid-day meal. Then I sent out two picker men and a runner to learn what race of men that land sustained. They fell in, soon enough, with Lotus Eaters, who showed no will to do us harm, only offering the sweet Lotus to our friends—but those who ate this honeyed plant, the Lotus, never cared to report, not to return: they longed to stay forever, browsing on that native bloom, forgetful of their homeland. I drove them, all three wailing, to the ships, tied them down under their rowing benches, and called the rest: ‘All hands aboard; come, clear the beach and no one taste the Lotus, or you lose your hope of home.’ Filing in to their places by the rowlocks my oarsmen dipped their long oats in the surf, and we moved out again on our seafaring.”

Land of Cicones text:

“I am Laertes’ son, Odysseus.
Men hold me
formidable for guile in peace and war:
Formidable: fear, respect, powerful
Guile: sly or cunning
My home is on the peaked sea-mark of Ithaca
under Mount Neion’s wind-blown robe of leaves,
in sight of other islands—Dulichium,
Same, wooded Zacynthus—Ithaca
being most lofty in that coastal sea,
and northwest, while the rest lie east and south.
A rocky isle, but good for a boy’s training;
I shall not see on earth a place more dear,

though I have been detained long by Calypso, loveliest among goddesses, who held me
in her smooth caves, to be her heart’s delight,
as Circe of Aeaea, the enchantress, desired me, and detained me in her hall.
But in my heart I never gave consent.
Where shall a man find sweetness to surpass his own home and his parents?
he shall not, though he find a house of gold.
What of my sailing, then, from Troy?
What of those years
of rough adventure, weathered under Zeus?
The wind that carried west from Ilium
brought me to Ismarus, on the far shore,
a strongpoint on the coast of Cicones.
We stormed that place and killed the men who fought.
Plunder we took, and we enslaved the women,
to make division, equal shares to all—
but on the spot I told them: ‘Back, and quickly!
Out to sea again!’ My men were mutinous,
fools, on stores of wine. Sheep after sheep
they butchered by the surf, and shambling cattle,
feasting,—while fugitives went inland, running
to call to arms the main force of Cicones.
Mutinous: A soldier that doesn’t obey the orders of a person in authority
This was an army trained to fight on horseback
or, where the ground required, on foot. They came
with dawn over that terrain like the leaves
and blades of spring. So doom appeared to us,
dark word of Zeus for us, our evil days.
My men stood up and made a fight of it—
backed on the ships, with lances kept in play,
from bright morning through the blaze of noon
holding our beach, although so far outnumbered;
lances: a long weapon like a spear, pike, shaft, harpoon, etc.
but when the sun passed toward unyoking time,
then the Achaeans*, one by one, gave way.
Six benches were left empty in every ship
that evening when we pulled away from death.
And this new grief we bore with us to sea:
our precious lives we had, but not our friends.
No ship made sail next day until some shipmate
had raised a cry, three times, for each poor ghost
unfleshed by the Cicones on that field.”

* Greeks”

I’m bad at finding out themes of things so can someone please help me I need this in 2 hours