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The Ithaca of the Odyssey1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Extract

The identity of the Ithaca of the Odyssey with the island which has borne that name since remote antiquity had never been disputed until recent times. When, therefore, the tradition of centuries was called in question by so eminent an authority as Dr. Dörpfeld it was inevitable that zealous defenders would come forward to contest his arguments. The exploration of the traditional Ithaca (or Thiáki as the name has become by the metathesis not unusual in medieval Greek) by a group of British archaeologists and scholars, together with the excavations carried out there over some four years under the direction of Mr. W. A. Heurtley, who was able to devote the summers to this work, have established important conclusions for the solution of a controversy which has divided Homeric students. Investigation on the spot has revealed how closely the narrative of the epic, rationally interpreted, conforms to geographical conditions. Its episodes take place in scenes readily recognisable to-day and evidently drawn from personal observation. Even calculations of distance to be traversed incidentally to the story by land or sea are correctly estimated. The excavations confirm the evidence derived from a text in which amplitude of local detail, so unusual in early literature, tends to confirm another tradition accepted in ancient times, namely, that the poet was personally familiar with Ithaca.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1933

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References

page 4 note 1 See Strabo I ii 20 and X ii 11 for the geographical position of Ithaca.

page 5 note 1 The blocks of this and the following map have kindly been lent to the School by Messrs. Edward Arnold and Co.

page 7 note 1 The interpretation, however, remains uncertain, as this epithet is also applied to Corinth and should then mean between two seas. Another ingenious interpretation of this epithet has been advanced by a supporter of the old tradition. Thomopoulos, M. (, Athens, 1908)Google Scholar, who points out that it is used by Homer of Ithaca and by Sophocles of Lemnos. These two islands have a common peculiarity, in that they both consist of two approximately equal sections, united by an isthmus and enclosing a gulf of considerable area. He would therefore have its meaning to be active and not passive, sea-surrounding, not sea-surrounded. Ithaca and Lemnos are, however, by no means the only islands in Greek waters so formed as to encircle an ample tract of sea.

page 7 note 2 The translator of the Odyssey in the Loeb edition has in this passage added the words from the mainland. They do not occur in the Greek text.

page 9 note 1 An analogy may be found in the repute enjoyed in the beginning of the nineteenth century by Hydra, itself an unproductive island, but the headquarters of a maritime community which provided Greece with a fleet in the struggle for emancipation. Hydra is only one island in the group which includes Spetsae and several smaller islands.

page 11 note 1 The modern name seems to have been given in accordance with the traditional interpretation of Homer's θοαὶ, but Dr. Mackail prefers the literal and more poetic rendering, The Fleeting Isles.

page 13 note 1 There is in northern Ithaca, above the Bay of Phrikes, a headland which to-day bears the name of Krokali. None the less the district Krokyleia will only fit into the picture in the southern section.

page 14 note 1 M. Thomopoulos (op. cit.) advances an ingenious argument for associating Dexia with the larger Bay of Vathy, which he identifies with the haven of Phorcys. The head of the harbour, where the Phaeacians are said to have landed Odysseus would in English mean its innermost recess, whereas he contends that in the language of Greek seamen to-day it signifies the entrance. The little bay of Dexia, to the west alongside the entrance to Vathy, could therefore properly be described as .

page 15 note 1 It is possible that this narrow entrance was at one time concealed by vegetation, since Strabo (I iii 14), apparently quoting Demetrius, says that the grotto in Ithaca described by Homer can no longer be found.

page 16 note 1 Vollgraff had, however, reported the presence there of prehistoric sherds.

page 16 note 2 These pieces of clay, as well as many of the artifacts, were found among masses of unworked stones which had evidently been shovelled down the slope from the top of the hill to level up space for cultivation and cannot represent merely house-foundations. It is safe to infer that the walls of these buildings were of unworked stones.

page 16 note 3 The three references XVII 30, XX 358 and XXIII 88 seem all to be to the same threshold over which access was obtained to upper chambers.

page 17 note 1 Strabo, referring to this passage, adopts the reading ὑπὸ Νηίου (X ii 11).

page 18 note 1 A few Mycenaean kylix-stems were found here.

page 18 note 2 Here were some Mycenaean sherds, including a kylix-stem.

page 20 note 1 The earliest of the pottery fragments must, however, belong to the beginning of the twelfth century B.C., cf. pp. 64, 65.