Ithaca in the ancient sources

Ancient Sources / Figures / Ithaca

40 passages from 8 ancient authors that tell of Ithaca, in the original with English translation, author by author in the order the Greeks read them. Ithaca is an island in the Ionian Sea in Greece, which was an important setting in one of the most famous myths of ancient Greece, the Odyssey.The m... For the story in one place, read our article on Ithaca.

Homer (28)

Homer, Odyssey 4.425–624Menelaus seizes ProteusProteus comes up from the sea at midday to count his seals and lie down to sleep, and Menelaus and his men leap on him. The old man changes into a lion, a snake, a leopard, a boar, water and a tree, but they hold him fast until he tells Menelaus what the gods require. He tells of the deaths of Ajax and Agamemnon, and that Odysseus is held by Calypso on her island. Menelaus returns home and offers Telemachus horses, but Telemachus asks for a gift that can be stored, since Ithaca has no meadows.
Homer, Odyssey 1.1–95Invocation; the gods in councilThe poet asks the Muse to sing of the man who wandered long after the sack of Troy and lost his comrades through their folly in eating the cattle of the Sun. Odysseus is held on Calypso's island, longing for home, while Poseidon, who is angry with him, is away among the Ethiopians. In the council of the gods Zeus speaks of Aegisthus, and Athena pleads for Odysseus and obtains leave to send Hermes to Calypso and to go herself to Ithaca.
Homer, Odyssey 1.96–199Athena visits TelemachusAthena goes to Ithaca in the shape of Mentes, chief of the Taphians, and finds the suitors playing draughts in the courtyard while Telemachus sits among them, unhappy. He welcomes the stranger and sets a meal before him, and the two speak of the suitors who feast in the hall while a minstrel plays. Athena says that she is an old guest-friend of Odysseus' house and that he is still alive, held back on an island.
Homer, Odyssey 1.325–444Phemius sings; Telemachus faces the suitorsThe minstrel Phemius sings of the Achaeans' woeful return from Troy, and Penelope comes down and asks him to sing something else. Telemachus tells her to go back to her room and her work, and then boldly tells the suitors that he will call them to an assembly on the morrow. Antinous answers him, and at night Telemachus goes to bed pondering the journey Athena has shown him.
Homer, Odyssey 4.625–714The suitors plot an ambushIn Ithaca the suitors, playing at their games, learn from Noemon that Telemachus has gone to Pylos, and Antinous resolves to lie in wait for him with a ship in the strait between Ithaca and Samos. The herald Medon hears the plot and tells Penelope, who asks him why her son has gone.
Homer, Odyssey 14.109–190Eumaeus on his master; Odysseus swears he will returnThe stranger asks the name of the master, and Eumaeus answers that he has long since given up believing any wanderer who brings news of Odysseus. Odysseus swears by Zeus that his master will return before the month is out, and Eumaeus does not believe him. Eumaeus then asks the stranger who he is and how he came to Ithaca.
Homer, Odyssey 15.493–557Telemachus lands on IthacaThe two men sleep a short while, and at dawn Telemachus' ship comes to land, and he tells the crew to go to the city while he goes to the farm. He sends Theoclymenus to the house of Eurymachus, and as he sacrifices, a hawk flies by, carrying a dove, and Theoclymenus says that the family of Odysseus will rule Ithaca. Telemachus goes to Eumaeus' farmstead.
Homer, Odyssey 16.220–320Father and son plan the suitors' deathTelemachus asks how his father came to Ithaca, and Odysseus tells him of the Phaeacians and the treasure in the cave. Telemachus lists the suitors, more than a hundred in number, and Odysseus says that with Athena and Zeus they will be enough. He tells his son to go home, to say nothing of what he has learned, and to put away the arms in the store-room when he gives a sign. Telemachus agrees, but does not want to test the men in the farmsteads yet.
Homer, Odyssey 24.203–411Odysseus and LaertesOdysseus and his companions go down to the farm of Laertes, who is working in the orchard, in old and dirty clothes. Odysseus, weeping, tests him with a false tale, and Laertes grieves and falls to the ground, and Odysseus tells him who he is and shows him the scar and the trees that he had been given as a child. Laertes recognises him, and Athena makes the old man taller and stronger, and they eat. Dolius and his sons come in from the fields and join them at the meal.
Homer, Odyssey 2.146–238The omen of the eaglesZeus sends two eagles that fight in the air above the assembly and fly away. The seer Halitherses reads the sign as meaning that Odysseus will soon return and bring death to the suitors, but Eurymachus scorns him. Telemachus asks for a ship and twenty men to go in search of his father, and Mentor begins to speak.
Homer, Odyssey 2.239–381Mentor's rebuke; Telemachus prepares to sailMentor rebukes the people of Ithaca for sitting by in silence, and Leocritus answers that even Odysseus could not drive so many men from the hall. The assembly breaks up. Telemachus prays by the shore, and Athena in the likeness of Mentor encourages him to make ready, while the suitors mock him in the hall. He has the nurse Eurycleia fill jars with wine and bags with barley, and she swears to tell no one.
Homer, Odyssey 9.1–61Odysseus begins his tale; the CiconiansOdysseus tells Alcinous who he is and that he lives on Ithaca, and begins the story of his wanderings. From Troy the wind carried the ships to the Ciconians at Ismarus, where he and his men sacked the city. His men would not leave and feasted on the shore, and the Ciconians returned in force from the interior and killed six men from each ship.

16 more passages of Homer that name Ithaca

Apollodorus (1)

Apollodorus, The Library (Bibliotheca), with the Epitome E.7.1–40The wanderings of Odysseus, the suitors and his deathOdysseus leaves Troy and meets the Cicones, the Lotus-eaters and Polyphemus the Cyclops, then Aeolus, the Laestrygonians and Circe. After the visit to Hades, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis and the cattle of the Sun, he reaches Calypso and then the Phaeacians and Ithaca, where the suitors are named and killed. The section ends with his later life among the Thesprotians and the variant accounts of his death at the hands of Telegonus, and of Penelope's fate.

Epic Cycle (1)

Epic Cycle, Summaries and Fragments 9.1–10.2Returns and TelegonyProclus' summary of the Returns begins with Athena causing a quarrel between Agamemnon and Menelaus about the voyage from Troy. The fragments mention Medea and Aeson, Heracles at Themiscyra, and Telemachus marrying Circe. The Telegony, in two books, has Odysseus sailing to Elis after the suitors are buried, and the author says that Odysseus had a son Telegonus by Calypso.

Hyginus (1)

Hyginus, Fabulae 125–126The wanderings and homecoming of OdysseusA condensed Odyssey runs from the Cicones to Phaeacia and the return to Ithaca. The recognition of Odysseus, the beggar scenes and the revenge on the suitors follow, with some passages in the text damaged.

Parthenius of Nicaea (1)

Parthenius of Nicaea, Love Romances 3.1–4.5Odysseus and Evippe; Alexander and OenoneOdysseus seduces Evippe in Epirus, and their son Euryalus is killed at Ithaca when Penelope persuades Odysseus that he is a plotter; Odysseus himself later dies of a wound from his own offspring. Oenone, who lives with Alexander (Paris) on Mount Ida, foretells that he will leave her and that only she can cure him. When he is wounded by an arrow of Philoctetes she answers him haughtily, and he dies before she arrives, and she kills herself.

Plutarch (1)

Plutarch, Greek Questions 13–20Questions 13-20: the beggars' meat of the Aenianes, the wooden dog of the Locrians, Megara and PrieneQuestion 13 tells how the Aenian Temo, dressed as a beggar, took a clod of earth from the king of the Inachians and so fulfilled an oracle. The questions that follow explain the Coliads of Ithaca after the slaughter of the suitors, the wooden dog of the Locrians, and the Megarian customs of the aphabroma, the doryxenos and palintokia. They also treat the Anthedon of the Pythia's oracle, with the story of Calauria, and the darkness at the oak in Priene.

Strabo (5)

Strabo, Geography 10.2.10–13Ithaca and the Cephallenians of OdysseusStrabo discusses which lands Homer meant by the Cephallenians under Odysseus (Ulysses), and how to read Epirus, Samos and Same in the poem. He takes up Ithaca, the mountain Neritum and Homer's puzzling words about the island lying both low and high. He also mentions Cephallenia, its four cities and the exile Caius Antonius.
Strabo, Geography 8.3.26–29Telemachus's voyage and Nestor's war with ElisStrabo tests Homer's route of Telemachus and Peisistratus against the coast to prove that Nestor's Pylus lay on the Alpheius. He retells Nestor's account of how Heracles (Hercules) ravaged Pylus, how Nestor raided Elis and defeated the Epeii at Thryum, and weighs the Eleian and Messenian claims to be Nestor's land.
Strabo, Geography 1.2.28–30Ethiopia, the Pygmies and Egyptian ThebesStrabo draws on Ephorus to show that the ancients called the whole southern coast Ethiopia, and reads Zeus (Jove) feasting among the Ethiopians in that wide sense. He reads the cranes flying to the Pygmies and the return of Poseidon (Neptune) from the Solymi in the same way. He argues that the Arabian Gulf divides the Ethiopians and that Homer, who knew Egyptian Thebes, must have known the isthmus, the Nile and Pharos.
Strabo, Geography 1.3.16–23Earthquakes, changing coasts and migrationsStrabo lists changes in the land, among them the island thrown up between Thera and Therasia, the quakes of Phoenicia, and the springs of the Scamander in Homer. He adds drowned or altered places such as Bura, Helice, Arne, Mideia, the Echinades, Leucas and Homer's Asteris, and says changes may explain why Homer's descriptions no longer fit. He closes with migrations of peoples, including the Kimmerians, Midas' death, the Heneti, and the Greek tribes.
Strabo, Geography 2.5.18–25The Mediterranean: seas and islandsStrabo describes the four great gulfs of the outer ocean and then Our Sea from the Pillars of Hercules eastward. He lists its parts, such as the Tyrrhenian, Adriatic, Sea of Sicily, Aegaean and Euxine seas, the Hellespont and Propontis, with their sizes and many islands including Sicily, Sardinia, Ithaca and Cyprus. He fixes the southern, northern, western and eastern limits of the Mediterranean.

Virgil (2)

Virgil, Aeneid 3.192–277The HarpiesA storm drives the fleet for three days, and then the Trojans land on the Strophades and kill cattle and goats for a feast. Harpies swoop down and foul the food, and Aeneas's men cannot wound them with their weapons. The Harpy Celaeno prophesies that the Trojans will reach Italy but will not found their walls until hunger makes them gnaw their tables. Anchises prays, and the fleet sails on past Ithaca to Leucate.
Virgil, Aeneid 3.588–718Achaemenides and the Cyclops; the death of AnchisesAt dawn a starving man staggers from the woods and begs the Trojans for mercy, saying he is Achaemenides, a companion of Odysseus (Ulysses) left behind in the cave of the Cyclops. He describes the giant's cannibal feasts and how the Greeks blinded him. Polyphemus then appears, blinded, and the Trojans flee as the Cyclopes gather on the shore. They sail around Sicily's coast and land at Drepanum, where Anchises dies.