nautical miles from Troy to Ithaca, in a straight line
A week by galley. Ten years by Homer.
Each gridline is a longer unit of time. Sources: Harry Mount, BOAT International; Tim Severin; Hal Roth.
Eight of the ten years are two islands
Each square is one month, grouped by where it went. Source: durations as stated in the Odyssey.
Told out of order
The poem opens in year ten, on Calypso’s island. The monster tales are a flashback, told by Odysseus at a banquet. The map every reader builds was drawn from memory, by the man who got lost.
The route, as tradition draws it
- Excavated anchor
- Real, mappable place
- Excavated, link disputed
- Tradition only
- Rival identifications
Solid line: places we can find. Dashed: everything after Cape Malea. Coordinates are traditional associations, not proven sites.
Troy
Leaves the sacked city with 12 ships and about 720 men.
Cicones
Raids Ismaros. 72 men are killed, six from each ship.
Cape Malea
A north wind drives him off the map for nine days.
“After this he leaves the sphere of Geography and enters Wonderland.”
W. B. Stanford, 1947
Laestrygonians
Cannibal giants sink eleven of the twelve ships.
Underworld
Tiresias warns him about the Sun’s cattle.
Phaeacians
Tells the whole tale at their court.
Circe
A year on her island.
Sirens
Bound to the mast to hear the song.
Aeolus
The bag of winds, opened in sight of home.
Lotus-Eaters
The fruit that makes men forget home.
Cyclops
Polyphemus eats six men.
Scylla
Six men, one for each head.
Thrinacia
The crew eat the Sun’s cattle; the last ship is lost.
Calypso
Seven years on Ogygia.
Ithaca
Home, twenty years after he left.
“Homer has many opportunities to call Ithaca an island, but he never does so.”
James Diggle, 2026, on the Paliki theory
Five schools, five Mediterraneans
How far west each reconstruction carries him after Cape Malea.
Sources: Strabo; Bérard, 1929; Bradford, 1963; Severin, 1987.
“You will find the scene of the wanderings of Odysseus when you find the cobbler who sewed up the bag of the winds.”
Eratosthenes, via Strabo
One harbour cost more men than the rest of the voyage
Loss events from Odyssey Books 9–12. Headcount reconstructed at about 60 men a ship.
The losses Homer names
| Cicones | 72 men |
| Cyclops | 6 men |
| Laestrygonians | 11 ships |
| Scylla | 6 men |
| Thrinacia | last ship |
The wine-dark sea
Oînops póntos appears seventeen times in Homer. Gladstone asked in 1858: why wine, and not blue?
Sources and method
- Homer, Odyssey, Books 5, 9–13.
- Geography of the Odyssey
- Stanford (1947); Strabo for Eratosthenes.
- Bérard, Bradford, Severin.
- Mount, BOAT International; Hal Roth.
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Ten years, pinned to one board
Odysseus’s voyage home from Troy, laid out like a case file. Follow the tour, or drag the board and zoom in on anything.
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A two-week trip
Troy to Ithaca is 565 nautical miles. A Bronze Age galley could do it in a week or two. Homer takes ten years.
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Where the years went
Seven years with the nymph Calypso and one with the sorceress Circe. The adventures everyone remembers fit in a single sailing season.
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Told out of order
Homer hides the arithmetic by starting in year ten and letting Odysseus tell the middle himself.
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The route, as tradition draws it
Each string runs from a landfall to the place tradition puts it. Only the solid gold stretch is geography we can stand on.
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The hinge
Troy and Ismaros are excavated. Then a north wind catches him off Cape Malea, and from there every landfall has rivals.
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Five rival maps
Severin keeps him near Greece. Bérard sends him to Gibraltar. Eratosthenes thought the search was hopeless two thousand years ago.
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The cost
Twelve ships and about 720 men leave Troy. One man comes home. A single harbour, the Laestrygonians’, takes eleven ships.
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Was it ever real?
Even home is contested. Bittlestone put Homer’s Ithaca on Paliki; in 2026 Diggle and Underhill answered that it was no island at all.
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The wine-dark sea
A colour we can all picture and none of us can quite name.
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The whole case
That’s the tour. The board is yours: drag it, zoom into any card, or start again. Sources are pinned on the right.