Odyssey

The Odyssey (Greek ????????) is the second of the two great Greek epic poems ascribed to Homer, the first of which is the Iliad. The book follows the events of the voyage of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, returning from the Trojan War, and the story of Odysseus son Telemachus who sets out to find his father. During two nights in the company of the Phaeacians Odysseus describes his adventures during the ten year-long voyage home, before returning to Ithaca. Once in Ithaca, Odysseus, after a twenty-year absence, reasserts himself as king of Ithaca, father of Telemachus, and husband of Penelope. In contrast to the Iliad, with its extended sequences of battle and violence, Odysseus is able to complete his journey using his cleverness, under the support of the goddess Athena. This cleverness is most often manifested by Odysseus use of disguise and, later, recognition. This disguise takes both physical forms (altering his appearance) and verbal forms (Odysseus tells the Cyclops that his name is No One (Outis) and later escapes after injuring the Cyclops because no one comes to help him when he yells that he has been attacked by "no one").

Geography in The Odyssey

The text of The Odyssey does not contain many modern place names that can immediately be located on a map. Scholars both ancient and modern are divided as to whether or not the locations were in any way real places or mere inventions. Eratosthenes, the third century BC Alexandrian geographer, ridiculed attempts to identify places mentioned in the Odyssey, saying "you will find the scene of the wanderings of Odysseus when you find the cobbler who sewed up the bag of winds." Those who tend towards real locations point to the high degree of realism present throughout the poem, especially in Homer's description of sailing. It seems most likely that Homer strung together tales of one or more sea voyages and that some locations at least should follow a logical sequence. Even amongst those scholars who believe the locations to have some basis in reality there is much dispute.

Related Topics:
Eratosthenes - Third century BC - Alexandria - Homer

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The traditional orthodox theory, which has unfortunately been taken as accurate by many including some encyclopedias and other reference works, sees Odysseus driven into the western Mediterranean with most of his adventures taking place between Tunisia, Sardinia, Italy and Sicily. However this theory has a number of flaws which make little sense either from a sailing or identification point of view. Ancient Greek ships were small, rarely ventured out onto the open sea and their captains did not explore unknown territories but instead sought to regain their course if blown off it. The orthodox route includes the following questionable locations:

Related Topics:
Encyclopedia - Odysseus - Mediterranean - Tunisia - Sardinia - Italy - Sicily

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• The island of Calypso is associated with Gozo, which is part of the Maltese archipelago. Odysseus is said to have landed on the northern shore of the island, on the beach of Ir-Ramla.
• The Lotus Eaters are located in Tunisia on the basis that this is where a sailing vessel blown off course at Cape Malea could reach at full speed. However, a vessel blown off course would have been more cautious and would not have ventured so far away, especially if trying to reach home.
• Aeolus is traditionally located in the Aeolian Islands to the north of Sicily. However, for Odysseus' vessels to have caught a favourable wind all the way to Ithaca and then have an unfavourable wind blow them all the way back so that they would have had to sail through the Straits of Messina is extremely implausible.
• There is a real river Acheron in north west Greece. However, its location has been ignored by many, since the orthodox theory makes no allowances for Odysseus being in that region.
• Scylla and Charybdis are traditionally located in the Straits of Messina. However, the channel they inhabit is said to be narrow. The Straits are over two miles wide at their narrowest point, and even wider at the rock traditionally identified as Scylla's. The whirlpools around the straits are not even in the "narrows" and are nothing more than gyrating patches of water caused by the cross-section of two currents. It is impossible to conceive of them producing the legend of Charybdis.
• Thrinicia, the island home of Helios' cattle, is said to have been Sicily since the name Thrinicia implies an island connected to the number 3 and Sicily has three corners. However, Sicily is huge by ancient Greek standards and so its three corners are only noticeable on a modern map, not at sea, and it is more likely that the name Thrinicia would have come about because sailors could use it to easily identify an island as they could see it.

More generally the orthodox theory assumes that the ancient Greeks knew about Italy, but there are very few references at all in the Odyssey to any part of the world to the west of Greece, though lands in the east and south such as Egypt and Sudan are mentioned in several places.

Related Topics:
Italy - Egypt - Sudan

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The historian of science and specialist in the cartography of antiquity Tullio Catullo Stecchini makes interesting speculations in an essay "The Navigations of Odysseus", among several alternative theories that have been proposed in recent times. Not all are based purely on readings in the classics: Tim Severin sailed a replica Greek sailing vessel (originally built for his attempt to follow Jason's argosy) along the 'natural' route from Troy to Ithaca, following the sailing directions that could be teased out of Homer. Along the way he found locations at the natural turning and dislocation points which fit the pattern much more closely than the orthodox theory. However, he also came to the conclusion that the sequence of adventures from Circe onwards derived from a separate voyage to those that ended with the Laestrygonians, possibly coming via the stories of the Argonauts. He placed many of the later adventures on the northwest Greek coast, near to the river Acheron. Along the way he found on the map Cape Skilla and other names that implied strong mythological links to the Odyssey. His adventure is recounted in The Ulysses Voyage: Sea Search for the Odyssey.

Related Topics:
Antiquity - Tullio Catullo Stecchini - Classics - Tim Severin - Jason - Argosy - Troy - Ithaca - Circe - Laestrygonians - Argonauts - Acheron - Cape Skilla

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