ABSTRACT
Odysseus was driven far off course and wandered the seas for ten years before finally rejoining his wife Penelope in his native Ithaca; we will follow his adventures as they are described in the Odyssey, marking each successive landfall. (i) According to Nestor’s account of the Greek returns in the Odyssey, Odysseus initially set off with Menelaos’ section of the fleet, but parted with it as a result of unspecified disagreements when it called in at the island of Tenedos nearby (see p. 483), and headed back towards Troy with his followers.73 (ii) Odysseus mentions nothing of this in his own narrative, merely stating that the wind bore him from Troy to Ismaros, a town of the CICONIANS (Kikones) in south-western Thrace. At the outset, he had twelve ships under his command. He launched a frankly piratical raid on Ismaros, and captured the women of the city and quantities of treasure; but when his men insisted on delaying to feast and drink, the Ciconians of the surrounding area gathered to make a counter-attack, and expelled the Greeks, causing many losses.74
During the sack of the city, Odysseus protected MARON, son of Euanthos, the local priest of Apollo, along with his wife and child; and Maron repaid him by giving him some treasure and twelve jars of sweet wine,75 which would prove invaluable, as we will see shortly, when his own life came under threat from the Kyklops Polyphemos. (iii) After leaving the land of the Ciconians, Odysseus and his followers were driven southwards for two days and nights to Cape Malea at the south-eastern tip of the Peloponnese; and as they were trying to sail round the cape to make for Ithaca (off the west coast of mainland Greece), they were caught by the savage North Wind and were driven across the sea for nine days and nights to the land of the LOTOS-EATERS. As with all the places visited by Odysseus during his more distant wanderings, their land is located in a purely mythical realm in Homer’s account, even if later tradition placed it on the Libyan coast.76 When Odysseus sent some of his men to investigate, the Lotos-eaters received them graciously and offered them some of their lotos-fruit, which caused those who ate it to forget their homecoming and friends and to desire nothing more than to sit there chewing the honey-sweet fruit. On discovering what had happened to them, Odysseus dragged them back to their ships by force and made a hasty departure.77
