Ithaca in the ancient sources

Ancient Sources / Figures / Ithaca

31 passages from 4 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.

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.