The World of Homer

The ‘Homeric question' raises many conflicting opinions about the person and works of Homer. It is thus impossible to reproduce on a map an exact picture of Homer’s world. Some regions mentioned by the author are given in green; this does not mean that they were localised in his imagination as they are given on the map. Many places named in the Iliad and Odyssey cannot be strictly located.Opinions differ for example, upon the site of Ithaca. Was it modern Ithaco, or Cephallenia Leucas, or even Corcyro. The map gives the opinion of V. Berard (Dans le sillage d'Ulysse).

Western outlets of Mediterranean Sea and Ocean very vaguely indicated in Homeric poems. The Ocean surrounds the entire earth; it is for Homer a divinity (I1: 20,7), a mighty stream? and the source of all seas, rivers, and streams (I1: 21, 195-6). From it rise the sun, all the constellations (except the Great Bear) and the dawn, and in it they set (I1 5, 6, 7, 422; 8, 485; 19,1-2, etc.)

Troy and the adjacent coast form the background of the Iliad. There the Greeks,commanded by Agamemnon,king of Mycenae, fought the Trojans end their allies. The historical background of the Homeric epics is the Mycenaean period.
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Alex E
