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| The Mediterranean Sea of Odysseus' voyages |
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| Some of these sites are pure conjecture--but with a history! (Map by Bruce Burton) |
Odysseus tells of his wanderings in such detail that sailors, scholars, and ordinary readers have long wanted to decide just
where he may have gone. Some of the places marked on this map--Egypt, Cyprus, Crete--are factual; the location of Ithaka
itself has been called into question, though most people now agree that is the modern Ithaki. The others are often supposed
to have been behind some of the bard's imaginative narrative and descriptive passages, but nobody is likely to prove anything
decisive about most of them.
| Greece and Asia Minor in the Homeric Epics |
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| The names on this map occur in the Odyssey and refer to real places. (Map by Bruce Burton) |
Most of the places in Greece, on the other hand, still exist, and many of the cities are inhabited. We are not sure that
Nestor had his palace where Pylos is shown on this map, but most others are well attested.
| South Ithaka, viewed from Kathara Monastery |
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| Phorkys Bay and Vathi Bay (Photograph by the translator) |
This view illustrates more concretely the meeting of epic fiction with geographical fact, for it shows where Odysseus is thought
to have arrived on his much-delayed return from the Trojan War--in "Phorkys Bay," the small cove to the right of
the main bay. On the hillside nearby is the reputed "Cave of the Nymphs," where Odysseus and Athena hid the presents
he brought with him on his voyage from Phaiakia. Also of note are the splendor of the topography, "rugged and rocky,"
and the deep blue of the water, the "wine-dark sea," that surrounds Ithaka.
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