ABSTRACT
The opportunities and dangers of seafaring were a prominent theme in ancient life, art, and literature. Shipwreck, a well-recognised risk in real life, was an important component of the plots of comedies, novels, and other narrative literature, including the famous account of St. Paul's shipwreck off Malta. Nautical and maritime imagery was widely used; sea storm and shipwreck scenarios feature in many authors from Homer to Late Antiquity. In fact, storm and shipwreck narratives are found in the cultural environment of the Near East long before Homer. It is reasonable to assume that they were part of storytelling repertoires that belonged to traditions of which Homer and the Cyclic poets are late representatives. This line of tradition becomes first visible in their works, especially in the Odyssey. The Odusia transported the image of the sea as it was seen in the Odyssey both indirectly through figurative language and directly by explicit evaluative statements.
