Odysseus thought Italy was an island ?

Widdekind

Widdekind

Joined Dec 2009
918 Posts | 3+
According to the EVN documentary Gods & Heroes of Greece & Rome, Odysseus' odyssey can be correlated, to known geographic locations, e.g.

Lotus Eaters = Djerba off African coast close to Carthage [Tunisia]
[recognizing coast of north Africa, Odysseus sailed north to Sicily]

Cyclops Polyphemus = Mt. Etna on eastern coast of Sicily

Aeolus (1st time) = Aeolian islands off northern coast of Sicily
[w/ directions, thru Messinae strait, to Ithica]
Aeolus (2nd time) = back to former host for more help

Circe = Mt. Circeo on western coast of Italy
[Odysseus tried to sail north around Italy into Adriatic, perceiving possibility of Italy being an island ??]
1 year with Circe, e.g. men into pigs
[Odysseus explored coasts of Tyrrhenian sea, southern Gaul, seeking "northeast passage", for a year ??]

Sirens = Salina, one of Aeolian islands
Scylla & Charybdis = Strait of Messina, between Sicily & Calabria
[having determined that Italy was a peninsula, Odysseus backtracked south along Italian coast, retracing previous passage]

Hyperion's cattle on Thrinacia,
Calypso on Ogygia = Calabria, Apulia, "toe & heel" of Italy ??
[ultimately, Odysseus was within raft's reach of Ithaca, so suggesting the narrow Strait of Otranto]​

According to the EVN documentary Etruscans, in the 1st millennium BC, the Villanovan / Etruscans, then living in the region of Mt. Circeo, near where Circe hosted Odysseus et al., all herded pigs, as important parts of many rituals, including marriage (they were fed on acorns). If Odysseus explored northwestern Italy, circa a century before Aeneas; then perhaps the importance of pigs reflects indigenous native pre-Etruscan practices ??
 
B

Brasidas Pylos

Joined Oct 2013
2 Posts | 0+
Fairbanks, Alaska
I have not seen or heard of the EVN documentary on the Etruscans but considering that Aeneas and Odysseus were contemporaries I’m not sure why they would have Odysseus exploring northwestern Italy a century before Aeneas.

Our buddy Dionysius of Halicarnassus was the real expert on Aeneas. He speculated quite a bit on the subject. Did the documentary cite Dionysius as a source?
 
Widdekind

Widdekind

Joined Dec 2009
918 Posts | 3+
Circa 1200 BC, climatic crisis caused continuing crop-failures and famine, bringing about massive migrations around the region, e.g. Sea Peoples. According to Herodotus, Lydian princes Tyrrhenus, and his brother Tarchon, driven by desperation, fled from fierce famine, to Etruria in Italy. There, Tarchon later helped Aeneas and the Trojan refugees. According to archeology, the presumably proto-Etruscan "Villanovan" culture began about 1100 BC. That ties Tyrrhenus, Tarchon, and the Trojans, to the 12th century BC, and the massive migrations of displaced populations, e.g. Sea Peoples, known to history.

Meanwhile, Odysseus explored Italy, circa 1200 BC, immediately after the Trojan War, before the first refugees established Etruria. Given that long-distance trade ties existed, cris-crossing the Mediterranean, in the Late Bronze Age (circa 1500-1200 BC), perhaps the Lydians (under Tyrrhenus & Tarchon), and then their Trojan northern neighbors (under Aeneas), fled for refugee with Italian trading partners (w/ whom they may have made many marriage ties too) ?

According to Virgil, Aeneas initially avoided the Strait of Messina, keeping close to the coast of Sicily, perhaps implying a "prudence is the better part of valor" behavior by Aeneas. But, blown far off course, to Carthage, by a strong storm, Aeneas encountered a Calypso-like Carthaginian Queen Dido. Perhaps plausibly, such could be construed, as consistent, with refugees fleeing for far-off places, populated by previous prior partners, to whom they were tied together by trade? (Perhaps the pre-Phoenician Canaanites had created a colony near Classical-era Carthage, in the LBA, even as post-Phoenician Romans re-created a colony at Carthage, over a thousand years later?) Perhaps the presence of comparatively "familiar faces" in Etruria, attracted the Trojans, too? I.e. refugees from around the region, relied on their networks of "friends & family", to survive the continuing climatic crisis?
 
Widdekind

Widdekind

Joined Dec 2009
918 Posts | 3+
Brasidas Pylos said:
I have not seen or heard of the EVN documentary on the Etruscans but considering that Aeneas and Odysseus were contemporaries I’m not sure why they would have Odysseus exploring northwestern Italy a century before Aeneas.

Our buddy Dionysius of Halicarnassus was the real expert on Aeneas. He speculated quite a bit on the subject. Did the documentary cite Dionysius as a source?
Click to expand...

The documentary describes Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as having interviewed Etruscans (1st C. BC), who supposedly stated, that they were entirely "natives of Italy".

Surely, if Odysseus had sailed to the Tiber, after Tyrrhenus, Tarchon, and Aeneas, then he would have found foes, not friends. If the Trojan War occurred circa 1190-1180 BC, then Odysseus reached Italy circa 1180 BC, whereas (according to archeology) the Etruscans & Trojans arrived generations later, circa 1100 BC, about the time that Troy was (again) destroyed by (another) devastating fire, during the depths, of the continuing climatic crisis, that caused the collapse of the LBA (after 1200 BC), and plunged the place into the depths of "dark ages" (to 900 BC).

Odysseus and Aeneas were comparatively close-to-contemporary, each reaching Italy, in the 12th century BC. But, they likely lived generations apart, w/ Odysseus the senior in the sequence.
 
Widdekind

Widdekind

Joined Dec 2009
918 Posts | 3+
Glowin said:
Croatian island of Mljet is considered, in Croatia, to be the place where Calypso charmed Odysseus.
this is a picture of what is called Odysseus's Cave there
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Odisejeva.jpg
Click to expand...

that is perhaps potentially possible. Yet, Croatia is far to the north, of the Strait of Otranto, which is already far to the north, of Ithaca. i personally perceive, that queen Circe's advice to adventurous Odysseus, was to sail south, along the "shin" of Italy; then east under the "foot" of Italy, to the "heel", where the width of the waters, at Otranto, was noticeably narrower, and so significantly safer to try to cut across, to get to Greece. (Indeed, Odysseus did do it, in a hand-crafted raft.)
 
AlpinLuke
Italy

AlpinLuke

Joined Oct 2011
40,550 Posts | 7,631+
Italy, Lago Maggiore
An extreme reading.

According to Felice Vinci, Homer would have collected a tradition coming from North, from Scandinavia, so that the sea through which Odysseus navigated was the North Sea, not the Mediterranean.

In Finland there is even a little village, Toija ...

Anyway ...

The matter of fact that it's possible to detect finds from the Bronze Age in the are is not that great evidence, actually.

But:

Homer says that the Peloponnesus is a flat isle [while it's a mountain isle in reality]
Homer indicates the Hellespont as a wide sea [it's little]
Itaca is not in the correct position and Dulichio [the long isle] is missing.
Furthermore, what about those metaphors about snow?

Also Plutarch put some of the isles met by Odysseus in the North [North of Britain!].
 
Louise C

Louise C

Joined Jan 2011
7,239 Posts | 5+
Southeast England
seeing it took Odysseus ten years to get home, he seems to have been a pretty hopeless navigator, and I don't see how one can determine where he was at any given time. he probably didn't know whether it was Italy or Wednesday wherever he was. he must have been going round in circles.
 
Moros

Moros

Joined Jun 2012
3,102 Posts | 13+
Aeneas and Odysseus were contemporaries according to Homer (your source for Odysseus). Virgil wrote the Aeneid upwards of 700 years after Homer composed the Odyssey, and he largely copied Homer's model to create his own plot. The story of Aeneas' journey could well be a much later invention, hence no surprise he isn't in Italy when Homer puts Odysseus there.
 
Akil

Akil

Joined Oct 2013
56 Posts | 0+
Prishtinë
Odysseus the name is clearly taking about zeus because double ss is an z zeus albanian zot
 
AlpinLuke
Italy

AlpinLuke

Joined Oct 2011
40,550 Posts | 7,631+
Italy, Lago Maggiore
Louise C said:
seeing it took Odysseus ten years to get home, he seems to have been a pretty hopeless navigator, and I don't see how one can determine where he was at any given time. he probably didn't know whether it was Italy or Wednesday wherever he was. he must have been going round in circles.
Click to expand...

It's evident that the way to narrate his travel is suitable for the author and the whole tale. I wouldn't consider Odysseus chronicle a reliable record with reference to covered distances, endurance of the journey, visited places, geographical configuration of the region ...
 
Louise C

Louise C

Joined Jan 2011
7,239 Posts | 5+
Southeast England
AlpinLuke said:
It's evident that the way to narrate his travel is suitable for the author and the whole tale. I wouldn't consider Odysseus chronicle a reliable record with reference to covered distances, endurance of the journey, visited places, geographical configuration of the region ...
Click to expand...

But he has to be the world's worst sailor ever. TEN YEARS to get from Turkey to Greece? He could have got back quicker than that if he'd hopped on one leg all the way.
 
B

Boethus

Joined Mar 2013
1,566 Posts | 3+
Australia
Akil said:
Odysseus the name is clearly taking about zeus because double ss is an z zeus albanian zot
Click to expand...

Yes it looks like you're right. Ode is 'this' in ancient Greek. So we have something like 'this Zeus'. Strange as he was portrayed as far from physically imposing in the Iliad and other books of around the 5th Century.
 
AlpinLuke
Italy

AlpinLuke

Joined Oct 2011
40,550 Posts | 7,631+
Italy, Lago Maggiore
Louise C said:
But he has to be the world's worst sailor ever. TEN YEARS to get from Turkey to Greece? He could have got back quicker than that if he'd hopped on one leg all the way.
Click to expand...

To be fair, someone, in an other tradition did even worse: Moses took 40 years to go from North East Egypt to Canaan ... I guess that in both the cases it's about "supernatural influence on human reality" [or something like that].

The difference stays in that the Jews were substantially blocked in a limited desert region, while Odysseus navigated in a limited sea region ... [but wider than Sinai].
 
Widdekind

Widdekind

Joined Dec 2009
918 Posts | 3+
confirmed cases of cannibalism, in ancient pre-history, e.g. Kinsey caves in Yorkshire circa 3900 BC (HC Cannibalism Secrets Revealed), corroborate the claims, of (say) Polyphemos the cyclops of Sicily slaying Odysseus' men, in the Odyssey
 
Widdekind

Widdekind

Joined Dec 2009
918 Posts | 3+
Moros said:
Aeneas and Odysseus were contemporaries according to Homer (your source for Odysseus). Virgil wrote the Aeneid upwards of 700 years after Homer composed the Odyssey, and he largely copied Homer's model to create his own plot. The story of Aeneas' journey could well be a much later invention, hence no surprise he isn't in Italy when Homer puts Odysseus there.
Click to expand...

Trying to conflate, conjoin, and combine accounts...

  • during the Trojan War, Aeneas was a prince of the Trojans (in a collateral branch of the Trojan royal clan)
  • after the war, Aeneas became king, as the noblest survivor of his clan
  • further afterwards, he led survivors to Italy

In the Iliad, Aeneas is a minor character, where he is twice saved from death by the gods as if for an as-yet unknown destiny... Aeneas, though from a junior branch of the royal family, is destined to become king of the Trojan people.
Click to expand...

the time taken to become king, assemble the survivors, and organize an expedition across the Mediterranean, might not have occurred quickly. Still, in historical terms, Odysseus' and Aeneas' ships came quite close to crossing courses. Clearly (?), Odysseus had ventured on, before Aeneas made landfall.

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneas]Aeneas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
 
Widdekind

Widdekind

Joined Dec 2009
918 Posts | 3+
Louise C said:
But he has to be the world's worst sailor ever. TEN YEARS to get from Turkey to Greece? He could have got back quicker than that if he'd hopped on one leg all the way.
Click to expand...

according to the account, Odysseus was befallen by bad-luck, at times attributable to other people present

for quick comparison, the Canaanite trading expeditions, circumnavigating the Mediterranean, required years (plural) to complete... because of being blown about by severe storms, Odysseus essentially completed a comparable course around the region. Perhaps he was intentionally exploring ?? Most of the time (7 years) was spent in a single spot (Calabria? w/ Calypso).

Odysseus does certainly seem to have not known the geography of the western Mediterranean, and so seemingly stopped, fairly frequently, to ask directions. Facing the same suite of storms as Odysseus, others were worse off
 
Widdekind

Widdekind

Joined Dec 2009
918 Posts | 3+
could Homer have been re-dacted, during the Roman era, to include Aeneas, or augment mentions made of him therein ?
 
Diviacus

Diviacus

Joined Jan 2011
1,127 Posts | 46+
FRANCE
Widdekind said:
could Homer have been re-dacted, during the Roman era, to include Aeneas, or augment mentions made of him therein ?
Click to expand...
Dozens of continuations have been invented by Greek poets. Stesochorus, in the beginning of the VIth century, would have been the first to imagine Aeneas flying to Italy.
 
Widdekind

Widdekind

Joined Dec 2009
918 Posts | 3+
the HC documentary Mankind - the Story of Us portrays "Sea Peoples" raiding Egypt, seemingly in search of food, and land, bringing about the Bronze Age collapse, in tin trade (requiring innovative inventive shifts towards iron).

Perhaps the mythic memories, of Aeneas, Tyrhhenus & Tarchon, represent the other side of the story? I.e. Aeneas and his Trojans, and Tyrhhenus & Tarchon and their Lydians, were two of many peoples beset by famine & starvation, who sought survival, far afield? (Those who sought to steal & settle in Egypt were ultimately beaten back, but Aeneas, Tyrhhenus, & Tarchon successfully sought survival overseas in Italy.)
 
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