Geography of the Odyssey
Encyclopedia
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
(excluding the narrative of Odysseus
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
's adventures) take place in the Peloponnese
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
and in what are now called the Ionian Islands
Ionian Islands
The Ionian Islands are a group of islands in Greece. They are traditionally called the Heptanese, i.e...
(Ithaca
Ithaca
Ithaca or Ithaka is an island located in the Ionian Sea, in Greece, with an area of and a little more than three thousand inhabitants. It is also a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. It lies off the northeast coast of Kefalonia and...
and its neighbours). Incidental mentions of Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
and its house Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
hint at geographical knowledge equal to, or perhaps slightly more extensive than that of the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
. However, scholars both ancient and modern are divided as to whether or not any of the places visited by Odysseus (after Ismaros
Ismara
Ismara also Ismaros or Ismarus is a city of the Cicones, mentioned in the Odyssey.-Homeric Ismaros:After their departure from Troy, Odysseus and his companions stop at Ismaros. They sack the town, and attack the Cicones, the inhabitants of the adjacent region...
and before his return to Ithaca
Ithaca
Ithaca or Ithaka is an island located in the Ionian Sea, in Greece, with an area of and a little more than three thousand inhabitants. It is also a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. It lies off the northeast coast of Kefalonia and...
) were real.
The geographer Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
came down squarely on the skeptical side: he reported what the great geographer Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes of Cyrene was a Greek mathematician, poet, athlete, geographer, astronomer, and music theorist.He was the first person to use the word "geography" and invented the discipline of geography as we understand it...
had said in the late third century BCE: "You will find the scene of Odysseus's wanderings when you find the cobbler who sewed up the bag of winds."
Undaunted, many have made the attempt.
Geography of the Telemachy
The journey of TelemachusTelemachus
Telemachus is a figure in Greek mythology, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, and a central character in Homer's Odyssey. The first four books in particular focus on Telemachus' journeys in search of news about his father, who has been away at war...
to Pylos
Pylos
Pylos , historically known under its Italian name Navarino, is a town and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Pylos-Nestoras, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. It was the capital of the former...
and Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
no longer raise geographical problems. The location of Nestor's Pylos was disputed in antiquity; towns named Pylos were found in Elis
Elis
Elis, or Eleia is an ancient district that corresponds with the modern Elis peripheral unit...
, Triphylia
Triphylia
Triphylia was an area of the ancient Peloponnese. Strabo and Pausanias both describe Triphylia as part of Elis, and it fell at times under the domination of the city of Elis, but Pausanias claims they reckoned themselves Arcadian, not Elean. They fell under the rule of Elis in the 8th century BC,...
and Messenia
Messenia
Messenia is a regional unit in the southwestern part of the Peloponnese region, one of 13 regions into which Greece has been divided by the Kallikratis plan, implemented 1 January 2011...
, and each claimed to be Nestor's home. Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
(8.3), citing earlier writers, argued that Homer meant Triphylian Pylos. Modern scholarship, however, generally locates Nestor's Pylos in Messenia. The presence of Mycenaean
Mycenaean Greece
Mycenaean Greece was a cultural period of Bronze Age Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. Athens, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns are also important Mycenaean sites...
ruins at the archaeological site of Ano Englianos, or Palace of Nestor
Palace of Nestor
The Palace of Nestor is the central building of a Middle Helladic era settlement surrounded by a fortified wall. The palace was a two-storey building with store rooms, workshops, baths, light wells, reception rooms and a sewage system...
, have greatly strengthened this view. The Linear B
Linear B
Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization...
tablets found at the site indicate that the site was called Pu-ro ("Pylos") by its inhabitants. A different view is mentioned by Wilkens, who locates the journey in southern Spain, where in the sandy region west to Sevilla (Pherae) the villages of Pilas and Gerena
Gerena
Gerena is a municipality in province of Seville, 25 kilometers far from the province capital, Seville....
can be found. (Nestor was surnamed 'the horseman of Gerenia'). He believes Sparta is located at Morón de la Frontera
Morón de la Frontera
Morón de la Frontera is a Spanish town in Seville province, Andalusia, 63 km South-East of Seville. It is primarily known as being home to Morón Air Base. The most remarkable monuments are the Moorish castle ruins and the main church...
at the foot of the Sierra de Esparteros.
Identification of Ithaca and neighboring islands
The geographical references in the Odyssey to Ithaca and its neighbors seem confused and have given rise to much scholarly argument, beginning in ancient times. Odysseus's Ithaca is usually identified with the island traditionally called Thiaki and now officially renamed Ithake, but some scholars have argued that Odysseus's Ithaca is actually LeucasLeucas
Leucas may refer to:* Leucas is a genus of plants from the family Lamiaceae.* Leucas, an English transliteration of the ancient Greek place name, Leukas ....
, and others identify it with the whole or part of Cephalonia. For further information on these debates see Homer's Ithaca
Homer's Ithaca
The location of Homer's Ithaca, i.e. Ithaca as featured in Homer's Odyssey, is a matter for debate.The central characters of the epic such as Odysseus, Achilles, Agamemnon and Hector are generally believed to be fictional characters. Yet there are many claims that some Homeric hero long ago had...
; for more on Robert Bittlestone's recent work, identifying the Paliki
Paliki
Paliki is a peninsula and a former municipality on the island of Kefalonia, Ionian Islands, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Kefalonia, of which it is a municipal unit. The name comes from the ancient town of Pale/Pali, which was north of Lixouri and is...
peninsula with Homeric Ithaca, see Odysseus Unbound
Odysseus Unbound
According to Robert Bittlestone's Odysseus Unbound , written with the assistance of Professor James Diggle of Cambridge University and Professor John Underhill of the University of Edinburgh, Paliki, a peninsula of Kefalonia, is the location of Homer's Ithaca, the home of Odysseus in Homer's...
.
Geography of Odysseus's narrative
Scheria
Scheria –also known as Scherie or Phaeacia– was a geographical region in Greek mythology, first mentioned in Homer's Odyssey as the home of the Phaiakians and the last destination of Odysseus before returning home to Ithaca.-Odysseus meets Nausikaa:In the Odyssey, after Odysseus sails...
, pose quite different problems from those encountered in identifying Troy, Mycenae, Pylos and Ithaca.
- The names of the places and peoples that Odysseus visits or claims to have visited are not recorded, either as historical or contemporary information, in any ancient source independent of the Odyssey.
- What happens to Odysseus in these places, according to his narrative, belongs to the realm of the supernatural or fantastic (to an extent that is not true of the remainder of the Odyssey).
- It can be doubted whether Odysseus's story is intended, within the general narrative of the Odyssey, to be taken as true.
- We cannot know whether the poet envisaged the places on Odysseus' itinerary, and the route from each place to the next, as real.
- Even if the places were envisaged as real, the effects of coastal erosionCoastal erosionCoastal erosion is the wearing away of land and the removal of beach or dune sediments by wave action, tidal currents, wave currents, or drainage...
, silting and other geological changes over thousands of years can alter the landscape and seascape to the point where identification may be extremely difficult.
For these reasons, the opinions of later students and scholars about the geography of Odysseus's travels vary enormously. It has repeatedly been argued that each successive landfall, and the routes joining them, are real and can be mapped; it has been argued with equal conviction that they do not exist in the real world and never can be mapped.
Ancient identifications
Ancient sources provide a wealth of interpretations of Odysseus' wanderings, with a complex range of traditions which affect one another in various ways. Broadly speaking there are two dominant trends. One is that of EuhemeristEuhemerus
Euhemerus was a Greek mythographer at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedon. Euhemerus' birthplace is disputed, with Messina in Sicily as the most probable location, while others champion Chios, or Tegea.-Life:...
accounts, which re-wrote mythical stories without their fantastic elements, and were often seen as thereby recovering "historical" records. The other reflects the conventions of foundation myths, whereby stories of a city or institution being founded in the course of Odysseus' travels often came to have political significance.
Some identifications are common to both groups. The main distinctions between them are in how the identifications were passed down through the generations, and the uses to which they were put. The most standard identifications, which are rarely disputed in ancient sources, are
- land of the CyclopesCyclopsA cyclops , in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead...
= SicilySicilySicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,... - land of the LaestrygoniansLaestrygoniansThe Laestrygonians are a tribe of giant cannibals from ancient Greek mythology. Odysseus, the main character of Homer's Odyssey, visited them during his journey back home to Ithaca...
= Sicily - island of AeolusAeolusAeolus was the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology. In fact this name was shared by three mythic characters. These three personages are often difficult to tell apart, and even the ancient mythographers appear to have been perplexed about which Aeolus was which...
= one or more of the Aeolian IslandsAeolian IslandsThe Aeolian Islands or Lipari Islands are a volcanic archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea north of Sicily, named after the demigod of the winds Aeolus. The locals residing on the islands are known as Eolians . The Aeolian Islands are a popular tourist destination in the summer, and attract up to...
off Sicily's north coast - Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians = Corcyra (modern CorfuCorfuCorfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...
), off the west coast of GreeceGreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and AlbaniaAlbaniaAlbania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea... - Ogygia, the island home of the nymph CalypsoCalypso (mythology)Calypso was a nymph in Greek mythology, who lived on the island of Ogygia, where she detained Odysseus for a number of years. She is generally said to be the daughter of the Titan Atlas....
= Gaudos, modern GozoGozoGozo is a small island of the Maltese archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. The island is part of the Southern European country of Malta; after the island of Malta itself, it is the second-largest island in the archipelago...
, part of the Maltese archipelago.
Euhemerist accounts
Euhemerist accounts are generally those found in writers on antiquarian subjects, geographers, scholars, and historians. The most important ancient sources are the 1st century geographer StraboStrabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
, who is our source for information on Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes of Cyrene was a Greek mathematician, poet, athlete, geographer, astronomer, and music theorist.He was the first person to use the word "geography" and invented the discipline of geography as we understand it...
' and Polybius
Polybius
Polybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...
' investigations into the matter; and the novelisation of the Trojan War
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
that goes under the name of Dictys of Crete, which many later writers treated as an authentic historical record of the war.
The prototypes for this tradition are in the 5th century BC. Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
identifies the land of the lotus-eaters
Lotus-eaters
In Greek mythology, the lotus-eaters , also referred to as the lotophagi or lotophaguses or lotophages , were a race of people living on an island near North Africa dominated by lotus plants...
as a headland in the territory of the Gindanes tribe in Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
, and Thucydides
Thucydides
Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...
reports the standard identifications mentioned above. Herodotus and Thucydides do not actively euhemerise, but simply take local myths at face value for the political importance they had at the time.
Euhemerist accounts become more prominent in Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
n scholarship of the Hellenistic period
Hellenistic period
The Hellenistic period or Hellenistic era describes the time which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. It was so named by the historian J. G. Droysen. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia...
. Callimachus
Callimachus
Callimachus was a native of the Greek colony of Cyrene, Libya. He was a noted poet, critic and scholar at the Library of Alexandria and enjoyed the patronage of the Egyptian–Greek Pharaohs Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes...
identifies Scheria as Corcyra, and also identifies Calypso
Calypso (mythology)
Calypso was a nymph in Greek mythology, who lived on the island of Ogygia, where she detained Odysseus for a number of years. She is generally said to be the daughter of the Titan Atlas....
's island with Gaudos (modern Gozo
Gozo
Gozo is a small island of the Maltese archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. The island is part of the Southern European country of Malta; after the island of Malta itself, it is the second-largest island in the archipelago...
, part of Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
). His student Apollonius of Rhodes
Apollonius of Rhodes
Apollonius Rhodius, also known as Apollonius of Rhodes , early 3rd century BCE – after 246 BCE, was a poet, and a librarian at the Library of Alexandria...
also identifies Scheria as Corcyra in his epic the Argonautica.
Apollonius' successor as head of the library of Alexandria
Library of Alexandria
The Royal Library of Alexandria, or Ancient Library of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt, was the largest and most significant great library of the ancient world. It flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty and functioned as a major center of scholarship from its construction in the...
, Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes of Cyrene was a Greek mathematician, poet, athlete, geographer, astronomer, and music theorist.He was the first person to use the word "geography" and invented the discipline of geography as we understand it...
, wrote a detailed investigation into Odysseus' wanderings. Eratosthenes takes a cynical view, regarding Homer as an entertainer, not an educator: "You will find the scene of the wanderings of Odysseus when you find the cobbler who sewed up the bag of the winds." This does not mean that he refuses any and all identifications. He conjectures that Hesiod
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
's information about the wanderings (see below on Hesiod) came from historical inquiries that Hesiod had made. The 2nd century BC poet-historian Apollodorus
Apollodorus
Apollodorus of Athens son of Asclepiades, was a Greek scholar and grammarian. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon, Panaetius the Stoic, and the grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace...
sympathises with Eratosthenes, believing that Homer imagined the wanderings as having taken place in a kind of fairyland in the Atlantic; he actively criticises the standard identifications in and around Sicily, and refuses to offer any identifications of his own.
The 2nd century BC historian Polybius
Polybius
Polybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...
discusses the wanderings in book 34 of his history. He refutes Apollodorus' idea that the wanderings were in the Atlantic on the basis of Odyssey 9.82, where Odysseus says that he sailed for nine days from Cape Malea
Cape Malea
Cape Maleas is a peninsula and cape in the southeast of the Peloponnese in Greece. To distinguish it from the cape, the peninsula is sometimes referred to as "Epidavros Limira" peninsula, after the most prominent ancient city located on it. It separates the Laconian Gulf in the west from the...
in the Peloponnese
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
to the land of the lotus-eaters: it would take much longer than nine days to reach the Atlantic. He accepts the standard identifications around Sicily, and is the earliest source to identify Scylla and Charybdis
Scylla and Charybdis
Being between Scylla and Charybdis is an idiom deriving from Greek mythology. Several other idioms, such as "on the horns of a dilemma", "between the devil and the deep blue sea", and "between a rock and a hard place" express the same meaning of "having to choose between two evils".-The myth and...
explicitly with the Strait of Messina
Strait of Messina
The Strait of Messina is the narrow passage between the eastern tip of Sicily and the southern tip of Calabria in the south of Italy. It connects the Tyrrhenian Sea with the Ionian Sea, within the central Mediterranean...
. He also identifies the land of the lotus-eaters as the island of Djerba
Djerba
Djerba , also transliterated as Jerba or Jarbah, is, at 514 km², the largest island of North Africa, located in the Gulf of Gabes, off the coast of Tunisia.-Description:...
(ancient Meninx), off the coast of Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
. Polybius is the most euhemerist source to this date: he justifies the description of Aeolus in the Odyssey as "king of the winds" on the grounds that Aeolus "taught navigators how to steer a course in the regions of the Strait of Messina, whose waters are ... difficult to navigate", and insists that the mythical elements in the wanderings are insignificant in comparison to the historical core.
Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
, living in the late 1st century BC and early 1st century AD, says that he tries to strike a balance between reading Homer as an entertainer and as a historical source. He is Euhemerist to the extent that he believes that any hypothesis at all, no matter how outrageous, is more plausible than saying "I don't know"; in this regard he accepts Polybius' arguments completely. Strabo offers the most detailed surviving set of identifications:
- Lotus-eaters: DjerbaDjerbaDjerba , also transliterated as Jerba or Jarbah, is, at 514 km², the largest island of North Africa, located in the Gulf of Gabes, off the coast of Tunisia.-Description:...
, following Polybius (1.2.17) - Cyclops: south-east Sicily, near Etna and LentiniLentiniLentini , historically Leontini, Leontinoi , or Leontium, is a town and comune in the Province of Syracuse, southeast Sicily .-History:...
(1.2.9); also suggests that Homer "borrowed his idea of the one-eyed Cyclopes from the history of ScythiaScythiaIn antiquity, Scythian or Scyths were terms used by the Greeks to refer to certain Iranian groups of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who dwelt on the Pontic-Caspian steppe...
, for it is reported that the Arimaspians are a one-eyed people" (1.2.10) - Aeolus: LipariLipariLipari is the largest of the Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the north coast of Sicily, and the name of the island's main town. It has a permanent population of 11,231; during the May–September tourist season, its population may reach up to 20,000....
, among the Aeolian IslandsAeolian IslandsThe Aeolian Islands or Lipari Islands are a volcanic archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea north of Sicily, named after the demigod of the winds Aeolus. The locals residing on the islands are known as Eolians . The Aeolian Islands are a popular tourist destination in the summer, and attract up to...
north of Sicily - Laestrygonians: south-east Sicily (1.2.9)
- land of the Cimmerians: the BosporusBosporusThe Bosphorus or Bosporus , also known as the Istanbul Strait , is a strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with the Dardanelles...
(1.2.9) - the Ocean: the Black SeaBlack SeaThe Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
(ancient Pontus; 1.2.10) - SirenSirenIn Greek mythology, the Sirens were three dangerous mermaid like creatures, portrayed as seductresses who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island. Roman poets placed them on an island called Sirenum scopuli...
s: either Cape Faro, by the Strait of MessinaStrait of MessinaThe Strait of Messina is the narrow passage between the eastern tip of Sicily and the southern tip of Calabria in the south of Italy. It connects the Tyrrhenian Sea with the Ionian Sea, within the central Mediterranean...
; or Sirenussae, a headland in ItalyItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
between the Bay of Naples and the Gulf of SalernoGulf of SalernoThe Gulf of Salerno is a gulf of the Tyrrhenian Sea in the coast of the province of Salerno in south-western Italy. The northern part of this coast is the touristic Costiera Amalfitana, including towns like Amalfi, Maiori, Positano and the city of Salerno itself.The Gulf of Salerno is separated...
; or NaplesNaplesNaples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
itself (1.2.12-13) - Scylla and Charybdis: Strait of MessinaStrait of MessinaThe Strait of Messina is the narrow passage between the eastern tip of Sicily and the southern tip of Calabria in the south of Italy. It connects the Tyrrhenian Sea with the Ionian Sea, within the central Mediterranean...
(1.2.9, 1.2.16) - OgygiaOgygiaOgygia , is an island mentioned in Homer's Odyssey, Book V, as the home of the nymph Calypso, the daughter of the Titan Atlas, also known as Atlantis in ancient Greek. In Homer's Odyssey Calypso detained Odysseus on Ogygia for 7 years and kept him from returning to his home of Ithaca, wanting to...
(CalypsoCalypso (mythology)Calypso was a nymph in Greek mythology, who lived on the island of Ogygia, where she detained Odysseus for a number of years. She is generally said to be the daughter of the Titan Atlas....
's island) and ScheriaScheriaScheria –also known as Scherie or Phaeacia– was a geographical region in Greek mythology, first mentioned in Homer's Odyssey as the home of the Phaiakians and the last destination of Odysseus before returning home to Ithaca.-Odysseus meets Nausikaa:In the Odyssey, after Odysseus sails...
: "imagined in fantasy" as being in the Atlantic (1.2.18)
Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
agrees with Strabo on the location of Calypso's island of Ogygia in the Atlantic, and specifically west of Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. He also repeats what Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
had described as a continent on the opposite side of the Atlantic ( North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
? ), and he adds that from this continent Ogygia was about 900 kilometres / 558 miles distant. Plutarch's account of Ogygia has created a lot of controversy as to whether he was referring to a real or a mythical place. Kepler
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican...
in his “Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia” estimated that “the great continent” was America
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
and attempted to locate Ogygia and the surrounding islands. G. Mair in 1909 proposed that the knowledge of America came from Carthaginian sailors who had reached the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
. Hamilton in 1934 indicated the similarities of Plutarch's account and Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
's location of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
on the Timaeus, 24E - 25A.
Other sources offer miscellaneous details. The Library
Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)
The Bibliotheca , in three books, provides a comprehensive summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends, "the most valuable mythographical work that has come down from ancient times," Aubrey Diller observed, whose "stultifying purpose" was neatly expressed in the epigram noted by...
wrongly attributed to Apollodorus summarises most of the accounts given above. Aristonicus
Aristonicus of Alexandria
Aristonicus of Alexandria was a distinguished Greek grammarian who lived during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, contemporary with Strabo...
, a contemporary of Strabo's, wrote a monograph On the wanderings of Menelaus, which influenced Strabo's own discussion.
Finally, the Ephemeris attributed to Dictys of Crete, who claims to have been present at the Trojan War, was probably written in the 1st century CE or perhaps a little earlier. It falls into a tradition of anti-Homeric literature, based on the supposition that Homer got most things about the Trojan War wrong by making virtuous people look like villains, and vice versa. It is important because later historians took Dictys as a historical record, including Sisyphus of Cos, John Malalas
John Malalas
John Malalas or Ioannes Malalas was a Greek chronicler from Antioch. Malalas is probably a Syriac word for "rhetor", "orator"; it is first applied to him by John of Damascus .-Life:Malalas was educated in Antioch, and probably was a jurist there, but moved to...
, George Cedrenus, John of Antioch
John of Antioch
John of Antioch was Patriarch of Antioch and led a group of moderate Eastern bishops during the Nestorian controversy. He is sometimes confused with John Chrysostom, who is occasionally also referred to as John of Antioch. John gave active support to his friend Nestorius in the latter's dispute...
, and others. Many Western mediaeval writers also accepted Dictys (in the Latin summary by Lucius Septimius) as the definitive account of the Trojan War.
According to Dictys, Odysseus fled from Troy after being accused of murdering Aias
AIAS
AIAS can refer to:* Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences* American Institute of Architecture Students* Association Internationale Albert Schweitzer* Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies* AIAS College of Natural Medicine...
. He first went north to the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
for a while; he sacked the Ciconian town of Ismarus
Ismara
Ismara also Ismaros or Ismarus is a city of the Cicones, mentioned in the Odyssey.-Homeric Ismaros:After their departure from Troy, Odysseus and his companions stop at Ismaros. They sack the town, and attack the Cicones, the inhabitants of the adjacent region...
in Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
on his way back. After visiting the lotus-eaters he went to Sicily, where he encountered three (or four) brothers, Antiphates, Cyclops, and Polyphemus (and possibly Laestrygon, according to Septimius), who each ruled a portion of the island. Odysseus and his men were mistreated by each of these kings in turn. Notably, they were imprisoned by Polyphemus when one of Odysseus' men fell in love with Polyphemus' daughter (Arene or Elpe) and tried to kidnap her; but they escaped. They passed through the Aeolian Islands
Aeolian Islands
The Aeolian Islands or Lipari Islands are a volcanic archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea north of Sicily, named after the demigod of the winds Aeolus. The locals residing on the islands are known as Eolians . The Aeolian Islands are a popular tourist destination in the summer, and attract up to...
, but the surviving accounts of Dictys do not give specific locations for the rest of the wanderings. Malalas' account of Dictys, however, tells us that Circe and Calypso were sisters ruling over neighbouring islands; that Odysseus visited a lake called Nekyopompos ("guide of the dead") near the sea, whose inhabitants were seers; that he passed some rocks called the Seirenidai; and Cedrenus' account seems to identify Scheria with Corfu, or at least an island near Ithaca.
Foundation myths
Numerous places in Italy and northern Greece also had aetiological legends about cities and other institutions founded by Odysseus on his various travels. Among these foundation myths the continuation of Odysseus's travels told in the TelegonyTelegony
The Telegony is a lost ancient Greek epic poem about Telegonus, son of Odysseus by Circe. His name is indicative of his birth on Aeaea, far from Odysseus' home of Ithaca. It was part of the Epic Cycle of poems that recounted the myths not only of the Trojan War but also of the events that led up...
is at least as important as the wanderings reported in the Odyssey.
The earliest record of a foundation myth connecting Odysseus with Italy is the lines surviving in Hesiod
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
's Theogony (1011ff.), which report that Odysseus and Circe had two sons Agrius and Latinus
Latinus
Latinus was a figure in both Greek and Roman mythology.-Greek mythology:In Hesiod's Theogony, Latinus was the son of Odysseus and Circe who ruled the Tyrsenoi, presumably the Etruscans, with his brothers Ardeas and Telegonus...
, who ruled over the Etruscans
Etruscan civilization
Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to a civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany. The ancient Romans called its creators the Tusci or Etrusci...
(Tyrsenoi). Latinus is an important figure in many early Italian myths. The lines are not in fact Hesiodic, but they are probably no later than the 6th century BC.
E.D. Phillips gives a very full treatment of myths that placed Odysseus and Telegonus
Telegonus
Telegonus is the name of three different characters in Greek mythology.-Son of Odysseus:In Greek mythology, Telegonus was the youngest son of Circe and Odysseus....
, his son by Circe, in Italy.
Imaginary places
The view that Odysseus's landfalls are best treated as imaginary places is probably held by the majority of classical scholars today.The modern Greek Homerist Ioannis Kakridis
Ioannis Kakridis
Ioannis Kakridis was a Greek classical scholar.He was born in Athens in 1901 and received his PhD at the University of Athens. He went on to become a professor at the universities of Athens, Thessaloniki, Tübingen, Stockholm, Lund and Uppsala. Kakridis was a Homer scholar and one of most...
may be compared with Eratosthenes in his approach to the problem. He argued that the Odyssey is a work of poetry and not a travel log. To attempt a quick outline of Kakridis's views, it is useless to try to locate the places mentioned in Odysseus' narrative on the map; we cannot confuse the narrative of Odyssey with history unless we believe in the existence of gods, giants and monsters. Kakridis admits that one may indeed ask what real locations inspired these imaginary places, but one must always bear in mind that geography is not the main concern either of Odysseus (as narrator) or of the poet. Similarly, Merry and Riddell, in their late 19th century school edition of the Odyssey, state the following opinion: "Throughout these books [books 9-12] we are in a wonderland, which we shall look in vain for on the map". W. B. Stanford in his mid 20th century edition comments as follows on book 9 lines 80-81 (where Odysseus says that he met storms off Cape Malea
Cape Malea
Cape Maleas is a peninsula and cape in the southeast of the Peloponnese in Greece. To distinguish it from the cape, the peninsula is sometimes referred to as "Epidavros Limira" peninsula, after the most prominent ancient city located on it. It separates the Laconian Gulf in the west from the...
near the island of Cythera): "These are the last clearly identifiable places in O.'s wanderings. After this he leaves the sphere of Geography and enters Wonderland ..." Thereafter, while frequently referring to ancient opinions on the location of Odysseus's adventures, Stanford makes little or no reference to modern theories.
Robin Lane Fox
Robin Lane Fox
Robin Lane Fox is an English historian, currently a Fellow of New College, Oxford and University of Oxford Reader in Ancient History.-Life:Lane Fox was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford....
observes of Euboea
Euboea
Euboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. The narrow Euripus Strait separates it from Boeotia in mainland Greece. In general outline it is a long and narrow, seahorse-shaped island; it is about long, and varies in breadth from to...
n Greek settlements in Sicily and Italy, "During their first phase in the West, c. 800-740, stories of mythical heroes were not already sited at points along the coast of Italy or Sicily. It was only later that such stories became located there, as if mythical heroes had been driven westward or fled from Asia while leaving the sack of Troy." The heroic legends, including an Odyssean geography, served to attach newly founded western communities "to a prestigious ancestry in the Greeks' mythical past." Fox notes that even Circe
Circe
In Greek mythology, Circe is a minor goddess of magic , described in Homer's Odyssey as "The loveliest of all immortals", living on the island of Aeaea, famous for her part in the adventures of Odysseus.By most accounts, Circe was the daughter of Helios, the god of the sun, and Perse, an Oceanid...
found a home on "Monte Circeo
Mount Circeo
Monte Circeo or Cape Circeo is a mountain remaining as a promontory that marks the southwestern limit of the former Pontine Marshes. Although a headland, it was not formed by coastal erosion–as headlands are usually formed–but is a remnant of the orogenic processes that created the...
" between Rome and Cumae: "but this association began at the earliest in the later sixth century BC. The Etruscan king Tarquin the Proud (c. 530-510) was credited with the settlement and in due course the very 'cup' of Odysseus was shown at the site."
The western Mediterranean
By contrast with these views, some recent scholars, travellers and armchair travellers have tried to map Odysseus's travels. Modern opinions are so varied in detail that for convenience they need to be classified, as do the ancient ones. This article deals first with those who believe, as did many ancient authors, that the hero of the Odyssey was driven west or south-west from Cape Malea and, more than nine years later, returned from the west to his native Ionian islands: his landfalls are therefore to be found in the western Mediterranean.For a long time the most detailed study of Odysseus's travels was that of the French Homeric scholar Victor Bérard. Although adopting the general frame of reference of the ancient commentators, Bérard differed from them in some details. For Bérard the land of the Lotus-Eaters was Djerba
Djerba
Djerba , also transliterated as Jerba or Jarbah, is, at 514 km², the largest island of North Africa, located in the Gulf of Gabes, off the coast of Tunisia.-Description:...
off southern Tunisia; the land of the Cyclopes was at Posillipo
Posillipo
Posillipo is a residential quarter of Naples, southern Italy, located along the northern coast of the Gulf of Naples; it is called Pusilleco in the Neapolitan language.-Geography:...
in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
; the island of Aeolus was Stromboli
Stromboli
Stromboli is a small island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the north coast of Sicily, containing one of the three active volcanoes in Italy. It is one of the eight Aeolian Islands, a volcanic arc north of Sicily. This name is a corruption of the Ancient Greek name Strongulē which was given to it...
; the Laestrygonians were in northern Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
; Circe's home was Monte Circeo in Lazio; the entrance to the Underworld was near Cumae
Cumae
Cumae is an ancient Greek settlement lying to the northwest of Naples in the Italian region of Campania. Cumae was the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy , and the seat of the Cumaean Sibyl...
, just where Aeneas found it in the Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
; the Sirens were on the coast of Lucania
Lucania
Lucania was an ancient district of southern Italy, extending from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Gulf of Taranto. To the north it adjoined Campania, Samnium and Apulia, and to the south it was separated by a narrow isthmus from the district of Bruttium...
; Scylla and Charybdis were at the Strait of Messina
Strait of Messina
The Strait of Messina is the narrow passage between the eastern tip of Sicily and the southern tip of Calabria in the south of Italy. It connects the Tyrrhenian Sea with the Ionian Sea, within the central Mediterranean...
; the Island of the Sun was Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
; the homeland of Calypso was at the Straits of Gibraltar. From there Odysseus's route took him to Scherie, which Bérard, like so many of his ancient predecessors, identified with Corcyra.
Bérard's views were taken as standard in the 1959 Atlas of the Classical World by A. A. M. van der Heyden and H. H. Scullard. They were adopted in whole or in part by several later writers. Michel Gall, for example, followed Bérard throughout except that he placed the Laestrygonians in southern Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
. Ernle Bradford had meanwhile added some new suggestions: the land of the Cyclopes was around Marsala
Marsala
Marsala is a seaport city located in the Province of Trapani on the island of Sicily in Italy. The low coast on which it is situated is the westernmost point of the island...
in western Sicily; the island of Aeolus was Ustica
Ustica
Ustica is the name of a small island, about 9 km across, situated 52 km north of Capo Gallo, Italy in the Tyrrhenian Sea...
off Sicily; Calypso was on Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
. The Obregons, in Odysseus Airborne, follow Bradford in some identifications but add several of their own. The Lotus Eaters are in the Gulf of Sidra
Gulf of Sidra
Gulf of Sidra is a body of water in the Mediterranean Sea on the northern coast of Libya; it is also known as Gulf of Sirte or the Great Sirte or Greater Syrtis .- Geography :The Gulf of Sidra has been a major centre for tuna fishing in the Mediterranean for centuries...
; the Cyclops and Aeolus are both to be found in the Balearic Isles; the island of Circe is Ischia
Ischia
Ischia is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about 30 km from the city of Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Roughly trapezoidal in shape, it measures around 10 km east to west and 7 km north to south and has...
in the Bay of Naples; most unexpectedly, Scherie is Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
.
Around Greece
A minority view is that the landfalls of Odysseus were inspired by places on a much shorter itinerary along the coast of Greece itself. One of the earliest to suggest any locations here was the 2nd century AD geographer PausaniasPausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
who, in his Description of Greece, suggested that the nekyia
Nekyia
In ancient Greek cult-practice and literature, a nekyia is a "rite by which ghosts were called up and questioned about the future," i.e., necromancy. A nekyia is not necessarily the same thing as a katabasis...
took place at the river Acheron
Acheron
The Acheron is a river located in the Epirus region of northwest Greece. It flows into the Ionian Sea in Ammoudia, near Parga.-In mythology:...
in north west Greece, where the Necromanteion
Necromanteion
The Necromanteion or Nekromanteion was an ancient Greek temple of necromancy devoted to Hades and Persephone. According to tradition, it was located on the banks of the Acheron river in Epirus, near the ancient city of Ephyra. This site was believed by devotees to be the door to Hades, the realm...
was subsequently built. However the location was overlooked or dismissed by many subsequently, until the archaeologist Sotirios Dakaris excavated the site, beginning in 1958. He found evidence of sacrifices to the dead that matched Homer's description of those made by Odyssesus. Subsequently the location was accepted by others as that described by Homer.
Tim Severin
Tim Severin is a British explorer, historian and writer. Severin is noted for his work in retracing the legendary journeys of historical figures. Severin was awarded both the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society and the Livingstone Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society...
sailed a replica Greek sailing vessel (originally built for his attempt to retrace the steps of Jason
Jason
Jason was a late ancient Greek mythological hero from the late 10th Century BC, famous as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus...
and the Argonauts
Argonauts
The Argonauts ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology who, in the years before the Trojan War, accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, the Argo, which was named after its builder, Argus. "Argonauts", therefore, literally means...
) along the "natural" route from Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
to Ithaca
Ithaca
Ithaca or Ithaka is an island located in the Ionian Sea, in Greece, with an area of and a little more than three thousand inhabitants. It is also a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. It lies off the northeast coast of Kefalonia and...
, following the sailing directions that could be teased out of the Odyssey. Along the way he found locations at the natural turning and dislocation points which, he claimed, agreed with the text much more closely than the usual identifications. However, he also came to the conclusion that the sequence of adventures from Circe onwards derived from a separate itinerary to the sequence that ended with the Laestrygonians and was possibly derived from the stories of the Argonauts
Argonauts
The Argonauts ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology who, in the years before the Trojan War, accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, the Argo, which was named after its builder, Argus. "Argonauts", therefore, literally means...
. He placed many of the later episodes on the north west Greek coast, near the Acheron
Acheron
The Acheron is a river located in the Epirus region of northwest Greece. It flows into the Ionian Sea in Ammoudia, near Parga.-In mythology:...
. Along the way he found on the map Cape Skilla (at the entrance to the Ambracian Gulf
Ambracian Gulf
The Ambracian Gulf, also known as the Gulf of Arta or the Gulf of Actium, and in some official documents as the Amvrakikos Gulf , is a gulf of the Ionian Sea in northwestern Greece. About long and wide, it is one of the largest enclosed gulfs in Greece...
) and other names that implied traditional links with the Odyssey. Severin agrees with the common opinion that the Lotus Eaters are in North Africa (although he placed them in modern Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
rather than Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
) and that Scherie is Corcyra.
A key part of Severin's thesis is that whilst the text of the Odyssey contains many place names to the east and south of Greece, there are very few identifiable references to places to the west. As a result he questions whether the western Mediterranean was known about at the time the original legends emerged (which he estimated to be some centuries before Homer composed the poem) and so consequently he doubted whether the stories had their origins there. In addition he noted that the Acheron is marked on the map, but traditionally ignored, whilst in the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes
Apollonius of Rhodes
Apollonius Rhodius, also known as Apollonius of Rhodes , early 3rd century BCE – after 246 BCE, was a poet, and a librarian at the Library of Alexandria...
the Argonauts' home voyage took them into the Adriatic
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
and Ionian Sea
Ionian Sea
The Ionian Sea , is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, southern Albania to the north, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante, Kephalonia, Ithaka, and...
s, corresponding to a north west Greek location for many of the later adventures.
Atlantic Ocean and other theories
Strabo's opinion (mentioned above) that Calypso's island and Scherie were imagined by the poet as being "in the Atlantic Ocean" has had significant influence on modern theorists. Henriette MertzHenriette Mertz
Henriette Mertz was an American patent attorney and ancient history researcher from Chicago. During World War II, she worked as a code-breaker for the U.S. government's cryptography department. She published multiple controversial works during the 1960s and 1970s...
, a 20th century author, argued that Circe's island is Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
, Calypso's island one of the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
, and the intervening travels record a discovery of North America: Scylla and Charybdis are in the Bay of Fundy
Bay of Fundy
The Bay of Fundy is a bay on the Atlantic coast of North America, on the northeast end of the Gulf of Maine between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the U.S. state of Maine...
, Scherie in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
.