Christopher Nolan’s new film, The Odyssey, is based on Homer’s great work of fiction. For over 2,500 years, scholars have tried to match Odysseus’ journey to real Mediterranean islands and coastlines.
Here’s where they think Odysseus went:
After the Greeks sack Troy, Odysseus sails home for Ithaca. The trip should take weeks. Instead, storms, monsters, and angry gods turn it into a 10-year ‘odyssey’.
Troy itself is in what is now north-west Turkey, close to the sea.
The journey has a bad start. Blown off-course as soon as they leave, Odysseus and his men end up in Ismaros (Maroneia, Greece). He raids the city of the Trojan allies, the Cicones.
But his men linger to celebrate and the Cicones counterattack, killing many of his crew.
After they leave, Odysseus rounds one of Greece’s most dangerous headlands, Cape Malea. Violent storms blow his ships far off course.
Ancient sailors dreaded the rough seas and strong winds at Cape Malea. Its reputation survives even today. For 10 days they are battered.
Eventually they end up at the Island of the Lotus-Eaters, often linked with Djerba, an island offTunisia. Here grows the mysterious, soporific lotus. Anyone who eats it loses all desire to return home.
Odysseus has to drag his unwilling men back to the ships by force.
From there it gets steadily worse.
Next they end up in the land of the Cyclopes (eastern Sicily). The curious and hungry crew enter the cave of Polyphemus (son of sea god Poseidon), but the giant traps them inside, then starts eating them raw.
But, Odysseus has a plan…
Odysseus escapes by giving him very strong wine, then blinding him with a sharpened olive stake and hiding beneath sheep. As he makes his escape in a boat, he rounds Sicily and ends up in Aeolia, modern Lipari, where he is given a bag of winds from the god Aeolus.
They leave, but just as they are nearly home to Ithaca, the crew open the bag of winds to see what treasure is inside, and the winds blow them back to Aeolia. Thinking his mission cursed, Aeolus refuses any further help to Odysseus or his crew, and they leave the island.
Things now go from bad to worse. Next they end up at the land of the Laestrygonians, modern Sardinia, who are man-eating giants. 11 of the 12 ships are stoned and sunk, with the men then speared and eaten like fish.
Just *one* boat leaves the island.
They end up in Aeaea (Monte Circeo in Italy) where the divine enchantress Circe turns Odysseus’ men into pigs. But, with help from the Olympian god Hermes, Odysseus resists her magic and charms.
The crew, once un-pigged, remain here for an entire year.
Eventually they drag themselves away from Aeaea. Odysseus journeys to the realm of the dead, where the prophet Tiresias reveals the dangers that still lie between him and home. This is thought to be Lake Avernus near Naples, in Italy.
The journey home continues past the island of the Sirens, again in Italy (the Sirenuse Islands just south of Naples). Odysseus gets his men to tie him to the mast so he can’t throw himself off the boat, lured to his death. His men put beeswax in their ears.
It works!
And the perils just keep coming. Next it’s Scylla and Charybdis (the Strait of Messina between Italy and Sicily). A six-headed monster waits on one side, a deadly whirlpool on the other. Odysseus sacrifices six men to Scylla to save the rest from Charybdis.
Once free of this hellish double-act, the small crew end up in Thrinacia (Malta), the island of the sun god Helios. Despite warnings not to do so, the hungry crew slaughter the sacred cattle of Helios. Zeus destroys their ship as they try to escape. Only Odysseus survives.
Odysseus washes up in Ogygia (neighbouring Gozo) not too far away. The demi-god Calypso ensnares Odysseus for seven years, demanding lots of sex.
But eventually he tires of this, and the Olympian gods release him, and he sets off once again to get home to Ithaca.
But, upon leaving Ogygia on a raft, Polyphemus’s father Poseidon is waiting. After several days at sea for Odysseus, Poseidon unleashes a storm. Odysseus is nearly done for, but ends up shipwrecked on Scheria, often identified as Corfu. He is found by Princess Nausicaa.
Odysseus is welcomed by the Phaeacians, whom he tells his whole story to. Overcome, the king and queen finally provide the ship that carries the exhausted hero back to Ithaca, where his wife and son wait for him, after being apart for 20 years.
NOTE: The location of Ithaca is disputed. The modern island of Ithaki is often thought to be ancient Ithaca, but modern scholars think it is actually on neighbouring island Kefalonia.
