“A Herd of Deer Chased by the Hunters”

This chapter explores the ideological assumptions underlying stories of travel to Ithaca, beginning with Odysseus's mythological return and ending with consideration of visitation in the modern world. Ithaca is an ambiguous place in both the ancient and modern world, subject not only to larger forces but also to willful and often contradictory representations. Narratives about Ithaca from antiquity and post-antiquity offer various and proprietary representations of the island. Tennyson's "Ulysses" indicates Ithaca's potential for ambiguity by conflating the mythological and modern Ithaca. Modern visitors to Ithaca, whether foreign officials or amateur classicists, provide ethnographical portraits of the island. Ithaca's economy is often documented with a recurring concern over its apparent decline. It is generally agreed that modern Ithaca engages in agriculture, pastoralism, fishing, and some exportation of goods. Ithaca's vulnerability, especially under venetian rule, may have made continuity of population and culture impossible, but by geography and language the modern inhabitants of Ithaca are rightful possessors of Homer's Ithaca.