Was Ithaca (ever) an island?

There's a problem if you want to pinpoint the famous Ithaca on a modern map. The island that is now called Ithaca doesn't fit the description given by Odysseus at all. So, where exactly is Ithaca?

['Modern' Ithaca: Not 'rugged' but with gentle hills]

The first question we want to answer is: was Ithaca (ever) an island?

Odysseus himself gives a fair description of 'his' homeland and the islands that are situated near or around it in Book 9, lines 21-28 of the Odyssey, but I want to direct your attention to line 27.

a rugged isle, but a fine nursery of young men.
τρηχεῖ᾽, ἀλλ᾽ ἀγαθὴ κουροτρόφος· οὔ τοι ἐγώ γε

Ah, you think there one reads 'a rugged island'. So, Ithaca must be an island. But not all is so straightforward as it seems, because the word τρηχεῖ simply means 'rugged' and carries no sense of 'island'. What Odysseus actually says is: '(it is) rugged'.

I dwell in clearly-visible Ithaca, where there is a mountain,
Neriton, covered with waving forests, majestic; and on either side of it
lie many islands very close to each other:
Doulichion, Same, and forested Zakynthos.

αιετάω δ᾽ Ἰθάκην ἐυδείελον· ἐν δ᾽ ὄρος αὐτῇ
Νήριτον εἰνοσίφυλλον, ἀριπρεπές· ἀμφὶ δὲ νῆσοι
πολλαὶ ναιετάουσι μάλα σχεδὸν ἀλλήλῃσι,
Δουλίχιόν τε Σάμη τε καὶ ὑλήεσσα Ζάκυνθος.

You see, Doulichion, Same (Cephalonia), and forested Zakynthos, are called 'islands' by Odysseus. Ithaca is never described as being an island. However, in the entire text of the Odyssey, Ithaca is described five times as amphialos (ἀμφίαλος), with the meaning of ἀμφί ('around') and αλος ('sea'). That description is sometimes translated as 'sea-girt', but a more fitting description would be 'peninsula'.

[Paliki - Image ChristosV]

If Ithaca was an island (νῆσος - nesos), Odysseus would have surely mentioned that fact frequently, because he was extremely proud of where he came from.

He never does.

The oldest written record of the Odyssey?

Archaeologists in Greece have discovered what they believe to be the oldest known extract of Homer’s epic poem 'The Odyssey'.

A team of Greek and German researchers found it on an engraved clay plaque in Ancient Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games in the Peloponnese peninsula, the Greek culture ministry said on June 2018.

It holds 13 verses from the Odyssey’s 14th Rhapsody, where its hero, Odysseus, addresses his lifelong friend Eumaeus. Preliminary estimates date the finding to the Roman era, probably before the 3rd century AD.

The date still needed to be confirmed, but the plaque was still “a great archaeological, epigraphic, literary and historical exhibit,” the ministry said.

The Odyssey consists of 12,109 lines of poetry attributed to the ancient Greek poet Homer. It tells the story of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, who wanders around the Mediterranean for 10 years trying to get home after the fall of Troy, which ended the siege at the end of June 1218 BC.

But there is a problem. Although the find is an important one, another, earlier find was dated some 700 years earlier. There are about a hundred that are older than the 3^rd century CE, the date of the recently discovered tablet from Olympia.

The oldest written record known is a potsherd found at the Greek colony of Olbia in modern Ukraine dating to the 400s BC, which has Odyssey 9.39 written on it: ‘a wind bearing me from Ilios put me ashore among the Kikones’.

As the epitaph 'oldest record' is clearly wrong, some might think that the tablet is the oldest copy discovered in Greece. That's not correct too. One of the two oldest papyri found in Greece, the Derveni papyrus, found in Thessaly (Macedonia) and dating to ca. 340-320 BCE, quotes a line with a variant of Odyssey 8.335. It is possible that it wasn't meant to be a line from the Odyssey and it could even be a fragment from an Orphic poem that happens to resemble the Odyssey line closely. Aside from that, there are a number of Hellenistic vases that do quote lines from Homer.

An Enigma in Homer's Odyssey

Disguised as a beggar, Odysseus finally arrived at his homeland of Ithaka. The swineherd Eumaeus takes Odysseus in as a guest, not recognizing his long-lost master. Odysseus gives Eumaios a false biography, before launching into a story about a raid he participated in during the Trojan War. Odysseus does this to test the bounds of Eumaeus’ hospitality, to see if the swineherd will offer him a cloak, whether one of his own or a companion’s. The request for a cloak is the secret message of this ainos, and Eumaeus’ ability to understand it will decide Odysseus’ willingness to trust him.

Odysseus takes on the role of an unnamed Greek soldier at Troy. He refers to this self in the first person, while speaking of 'Odysseus' in the third person, projecting his true identity into a separate character. In the story, the 'beggar' is out on a scouting mission led by 'Odysseus' and Menelaus, who have named him their third in command. When night falls, the 'beggar' realises he has forgotten a cloak and will freeze, so he asks 'Odysseus' for help. Pretending to wake up from a divinely sent (θεῖός) bad dream, 'Odysseus' tells a warrior named Thoas to fetch backup from King Agamemnon, lest his foreboding dream come true and the group be ambushed by Trojans. The dream itself is not explained, leaving us to imagine that it featured a warning about a Trojan ambush. Thoas runs off to get unneeded backup, leaving his cloak behind for the 'beggar'.

Eumaeus, the swineherd, responds to the story with approval. He calls it a good 'ainos', revealing that he understands that this story has a hidden meaning. He then provides Odysseus with one of his own spare cloaks for the night, thus understanding its hidden meaning and proving his hospitality.

The question of exactly what an αἶνος (ainos) was has puzzled historians for ages. The word itself is related to the verb αἰνέω (aineō) ‘to praise’, the word means, 'praising speech', or more basically, 'speech act'. But not all ainoi appear as praise. They can also appear instructions, warnings, or fables.

The word αἶνος (ainos) appears as a sort of precursor in Latin as aenigma ('enigma'). It is borrowed from Greek αἴνιγμα (aínigma), with the meaning of 'dark saying' or 'speaking in riddles'. That word is derived from the verb αἰνίσσομαι (ainíssomai). 

Professor James Diggle, editor of the Cambridge Greek Lexicon (2021), deemed my etymology 'acceptable' (personal communication).

[Excerpt from Cambridge Greek Lexicon]

So, αἶνος (ainos) is akin to enigma. Perhaps, the telling of an ainos was simply an important part of the ritual of hospitality of the Ancient Greeks. Even today you could tell a 'good yarn' if you repose after a perfect dinner.

Additional reporting by Miriam Kamil.

Was Paliki (ever) an island?

When the Dark Age of Greece, which lasted from 1100 BC to around 750 BC, had finally ended, the entire region was largely depopulated and even the names of some of the lesser islands in the Ionian Sea had been forgotten. When the population started to grow again, they tried to rename the islands based on their 'best guesses'. For most islands that wasn't a problem, but the smaller islands got the 'left-over-names'.

Ithaca (Ithaki) is now the island to the right of Cephalonia and is separated from it by a narrow channel.

The problem is that it doesn't fit with Homer's description of Ithaca. He claims that 'Ithaca itself lies close in to the mainland the furthest toward the gloom, but the others lie apart toward the Dawn and the sun—a rugged isle,...'

Most scholars agree that the phrase 'towards the gloom' must mean 'towards the direction of the setting sun' or 'west'. Thus, it would be the most western of the Ionian islands. Which 'modern' Ithaca is obviously not.

Nowadays, the most western island is Cephalonia, but that island can surely not be Ithaca, because it is identified as Same which actually makes sense because there is still a town on the island called Sami (Σάμη).

As Homer says: ..dwell in clear-seen Ithaca, wherein is a mountain, Neriton, covered with waving forests, conspicuous from afar; and round it lie many isles hard by one another, Dulichium, and Same, and wooded Zacynthus.

If Ithaca was an island, we can ask, could that island have been what is now Paliki, a peninsula attached to Cephalonia in the northwest. A 'stratigraphic analysis' seemed to reveal that Cephalonia was once two islands separated by a narrow marine channel. Rockfalls over the intervening years (must have) filled the channel and linked the two islands[1]. The problem is that this research was published in a rather obscure journal, which makes that statement rather dubious.

Much, much later, in the first century AD, the Greek geographer Strabo (64 or 63 BC–circa AD 24), who wrote of the channel separating Paliki from Cefalonia[2]: Cephallenia lies opposite Acarnania (modern mainland Greece), at a distance of about fifty stadia from Leucatas (modern Lefkada) .., and about one hundred and eighty from Chelonatas (modern mainland Greece). It has a perimeter of about three hundred stadia, is long, extending towards Eurus (towards the direction of winter sunrise, thus southeast) and is mountainous. The largest mountain upon it is Aenus, ..; and where the island is narrowest it forms an isthmus so low-lying that it is often submerged from sea to sea. Both Paleis and Crannii are on the gulf near the narrows[3].

The problem is, of course, that Strabo lived almost a millennium after the events described in the Odyssey.

I'm not convinced that Paliki was ever an island, as is evidenced by proper research: “Paliki peninsula was almost an island during the Pliocene period. From the beginning of the Pleistocene a gradual uplift of the area started raising the older limestone formations...'[4]. 

Another obvious question is: if an entire channel was filled in by rubble from landslides, as Underhill and his team from Odysseus Unbound try to prove, where did all that rubble come from? The time period of 3200 years is too short to have such major changes occurring in the natural environment[5].

[1] Underhill: Relocating Odysseus' homeland in Nature Geoscience – 2009
[2] Newton: Strabo's Greece in Nature Geoscience – 2011
[3] Strabo: Geography, book 10, chapter 2, section 15
[4] Gaki-Papanastassiou et al: Geomorphic Evolution of Western (Paliki) Kephalonia Island (Greece) During the Quaternary in Bulletin of the Geological Society of Greece – 2010. See here.
[5] Gaki-Papanastassiou et al: Geomorphological study and paleogeographic evolution of NW Kefalonia Island, Greece, concerning the hypothesis of a possible location of the Homeric Ithaca in Bulletin of the Geological Society of Greece – 2011

The Trojan War and the Exodus

After the end of the Trojan War it took Odysseus ten long years wandering around the coasts of the Mediterranean before he could finally take his wife Penelope in his arms again in 1207 BC.

Strange, a hero who has fought in a war far from home for ten long years would probably yearn to go home as quickly as possible, but Odysseus did otherwise. Maybe Odysseus did not simply 'lose track of time' when he wandered along the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean, but was forced to do so because of a general state of unrest and turmoil.

After having conclusively reached an almost specific date of the end of the Trojan War as the end of June 1218 BC, a valid question would be: what happened after the city was destroyed by the conquering Greeks?

Let us briefly turn to the Bible, where the Pharaoh of the oppression of the Hebrews can be identified as Rameses II (1290-1223 BC) and it would appear that the time of the Exodus, a time of great upheaval, coincided with Rameses' successor Merneptah (1223-1211 BC). This Pharaoh fought several battles against the Sea People. It would not take a great leap of imagination to identify the Greeks as these Sea People and it suggests that a long war was fought in the Mediterranean after the end of the Trojan War.

The Great Karnak Inscription, an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription belonging to the Pharaoh Merneptah, mentions some names of these Sea People as I-q-w-š (Ahhiyawa, Achaeans), Tw-r-š (Trojans), R-kw (Lycians), Š-r-d-n (Sherdana) and Š-k-r- š (Shagalasha), being 'northerners coming from all lands'[1].

So, Odysseus' adventures might be garbled accounts of a war that the Greeks fought against the Egyptians. After the death of the Pharaoh, a sort of power vacuum ensued which resulted in a general state of unrest in the entire region, which might have lasted for about ten years. In Egyptian accounts the Greeks must have been known as the Sea People or the peoples from the islands. It all makes sense.

Part 1 of this series 'When was the Trojan War?' can be read here.
Part 2 of this series 'When was the end of the Trojan War' can be read here.

[1] Edward Lipiński: On the Skirts of Canaan in the Iron Age - 2006. See here.

When was the end of the Trojan War?

In our first column (see here), we have proven that Odysseus returned to his beloved Ithaka on the 30th October 1207 BC. Because it has taken Odysseus ten years to return home, the ten year long Trojan War must have raged from roughly 1227 BC until 1217 BC. But can we date the end of the Trojan War even more specific?

Can we find corroboration elsewhere in the works of Homer? Stavros Papamarinopoulos and his team think they can[1]. Homer’s Iliad recounts 52 days during the final year of the ten-year conflict.

[Mourners by the corpse of Patroclus]

The night before Patroclus’ death, the Trojans were compelled to make many fires in order to be able to observe the Achaeans’ possible manoeuvrers better because the night was pitch-black. That could signify a moonless night, because of a possible new moon, which is a prerequisite for a solar eclipse. Moreover, Diomedes and Odysseus heard the cry of a heron. Herons arrive to the northern Aegean Sea in the spring and stay there until the summer’s end.

Homer describes the battle, indicated that the time has reached at noon, as connecting it with the time in which the woodman has his meal. During this period, Patroclus was engaged in fighting with Sarpedon whom he eventually killed. Zeus then covered the battlefield by a destructive night, and Patroclus himself is slain by Hector.

[NASA's computers forgot there's no year 0]

The only possible partial solar eclipse was the one that happened on the 6th of June 1218 BC and that started at 14.10 local time. This means that indeed a slight kind of darkness is occurred characterized, by Homer, as 'night' (νύκτα) at noon.

But Achilles needs time to create a new shield and to be killed by an arrow to his only weak spot, his ankle, shot by Paris and guided by Apollo. Then the fabled Trojan horse must be made and implemented. These episodes must have taken a few weeks.

The end of the Trojan War can now be definitely set at the end of June 1218 BC. This date corresponds perfectly with the return of Odysseus to Ithaca on 4 November 1207 BC.

Part 1 of this series 'When was the Trojan War' can be read here.
Part 3 of this series 'The Trojan War and the Exodus' can be read here.

[1] Papamarinopoulos et al: A New Astronommical Dating of the Trojan War's End in Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry - 2014. See here.