0 - Troy
Trojan War during 10 years
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1 - Ipsaro - The Ciconians
After Odysseus and his men depart from Troy, they are
greeted by friendly and calm waters. The crew had landed in
Ciconia. The city was not at all protected and all of the
inhabitants fled without a fight into the nearby mountains.
Odysseus and his men looted the city and robbed it of all its
goods. Odysseus wisely told the men to board the ships
quickly but they refused and fell asleep on the beach. The next
morning, the Ciconians returned with their fierce kinsmen from
the mountains. Odysseus and his men fled to the ships as fast
as they could but they lost many men still.
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2 - Djerba - The Lotus-Eaters
When Odysseus and his men landed on the island of
the Lotus-Eaters, Odysseus sent out a scouting party
who ate the lotus with the natives. This caused them
to fall sleep and stop caring about ever going home.
Odysseus went after the scouting party and dragged
them back against their will to the ship and set sail.
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3 - Aetna - the cyclops Polyphemus
Polyphemus catches Odysseus and his men and
devours two of them each day. Odysseus tricks
Polyphemus by giving intoxicating wine and then
blinds him, After this episode, Odysseus is haunted
by the wrath of Poseidon. Victor Berard thought
Vesusius was Polyphemus's home but for many
searchers, it is Aetna in Sicilia.
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4 - Lipari - Aeolus
Odysseus stopped at Aiolia, home of Aeolus, the god of the winds.
He gave them hospitality for a month and provided for a west wind
to carry them home. Unfortunately he also provided a gift of a bag
containing each of the four winds, which Odysseus' crew
members, suspecting that treasure was in the bag, opened just
before their home was reached. They were blown back to Aiolia,
where Aeolus refused to provide any further help because he
thought Odysseus was unlucky.
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5 - Formia - The Laestrygonians
They came to Telepylos, the stronghold of Lamos, king of
the Laestrygonians. These people attacked the fleet with
boulders, sinking all but one of the ships and killing
hundreds of Odysseus' men.
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6 - Monte Circeo - Circe
Island of Cice the enchantress who changed all
the Odysseus' men into pigs. She later fell in love
with Odysseus and assisted him in his quest to
reach his home after he and his crew spent a
year with her on her island.
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7 - Vesuvius - Journey to the Underworld
Odysseus wanted to speak with Tiresias, so he and his men
journeyed to the River Acheron where they performed sacrifices
which allowed them to speak to the dead, including his mother,
Elpenor, Tiresias, and Achilles. They all gave him valuable
advice on how to pass the rest of his journey. Odysseus
sacrificed a ram and the dead spirits were attracted to the
blood. He held them at bay and demanded to speak with
Tiresias, who told him how to pass by Helios' cattle.
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8 - the sirens
Odysseus escaped the Sirens by having all his sailors plug their
ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast. He was curious as
to what the Sirens sounded like. When he heard their beautiful
song, he ordered the sailors to untie him but they ignored him.
When they had passed out of earshot, Odysseus stopped
thrashing about and calmed down, and was released.
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9 - Stretto di Messina - Scylla and Charybdis
In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus is given advice by
Circe to sail closer to Scylla, for Charybdis could
drown his whole ship. Odysseus then successfully
navigates his ship past Scylla and Charybdis, but
Scylla manages to catch six of his men, devouring
them alive.
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10 - Sicilia - Thrinacia
Finally, Odysseus and his
surviving crew landed on an
island, Thrinacia, sacred to
Helios, where he kept sacred
cattle. Though Odysseus warned
his men not to (as Tiresias had
told him), they killed and ate
some of the cattle. The guardians
of the island, Helios' daughters
told their father. Helios destroyed
the ship and all the men save
Odysseus.
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11- Malta - Calypso
Odysseus was washed ashore on Ogygia,
where the nymph Kalypso (Calypso) lived.
She made him her lover for seven years
and would not let him leave, promising him
immortality if he stayed. On behalf of
Athena, Zeus intervened and sent Hermes
to tell Kalypso to let Odysseus go. Some
believes that Ogygia is in the middle of
Atlantic Ocean.
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12 - Corfou - Scheria
Odysseus left Ogygia on a small raft furnished
with provisions of water, wine and food by
Kalypso, only to be hit by a storm and washed up
on the island of Scheria and found by Nausicaa,
daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of the
Phaeacians, who entertained him well and
escorted him to Ithaca. On the twentieth day of
sailing he arrived at his home in Ithaca.
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13 - Ithaca
Odysseus's home
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Welcome to Læstrygonia
Aeolus entertained me for a whole month asking me questions all the time
about Troy.
He even gave me an assortment of storm winds to stow on board, tied up in
a leather bag.
I had dozed off, exhausted by manning the sail myself the whole way. Now
my men noticed the bag that Aeolus had given me.
So they opened it and let loose a hurricane that blew us all the way back to
Aeolus's island.
I appeared once more before him and asked if he would send us home
again. He kicked me right out of there.
So for the space of six days we sailed by night and day continually, and
on the seventh we came to the steep stronghold of Lamos, Telepylos of
the Laestrygons, where herdsman hails herdsman as he drives in his
flock, and the other who drives forth answers the call.
There might a sleepless man have earned a double wage, the one as
neat-herd, the other shepherding white flocks: so near are the outgoings
of the night and of the day.
The men when they got on shore followed a level road by which the people
draw their firewood from the mountains into the town, till presently they met a
young woman who had come outside to fetch water, and who was daughter
to a Laestrygonian named Antiphates. She was going to the fountain Artacia
from which the people bring in their water, and when my men had come close
up to her, they asked her who the king of that country might be, and over
what kind of people he ruled; so she directed them to her father's house, but
when they got there they found his wife to be a giantess as huge as a
mountain, and they were horrified at the sight of her.
She at once called her husband Antiphates from the place of assembly,
and forthwith he set about killing my men. He snatched up one of them,
and began to make his dinner off him then and there, whereon the other
two ran back to the ships as fast as ever they could. But Antiphates raised
a hue and cry after them, and thousands of sturdy Laestrygonians sprang
up from every quarter- ogres, not men.
They threw vast rocks at us from the cliffs as though they had been mere
stones, and I heard the horrid sound of the ships crunching up against one
another, and the death cries of my men, as the Laestrygonians speared
them like fishes and took them home to eat them.
While they were thus killing my men within the harbour I drew my sword,
cut the cable of my own ship, and told my men to row with alf their might if
they too would not fare like the rest; so they laid out for their lives, and we
were thankful enough when we got into open water out of reach of the
rocks they hurled at us. As for the others there was not one of them left.