On the route of Ulysses. As the pumice-stone, ...
Two and a half millennia ago, in the' VlII century.C., Homer told in his poem, "The Odyssey," the voyage of Ulysses.
It is known that these famous travels began in Troy and ended up in Ithaca.
Allow us a few minutes of theory, after we follow the journey of Ulysses in the central Mediterranean sea to Calabria.
On the reconstruction of the voyage of Ulysses, there are more than seventy theories, different from each other, advanced in twenty-five centuries that separate us from the events. You want that Ulysses was in Italy, in Palestine, in Spain, in the Crimea, Tenerife, etc
Obviously, Odysseus was not able to visit all these places because his journey, according to Homer, lasted no more than sixty days; while the eight years of stay are distributed in twelve stages, that marked his adventure.
From the island of Ogigia to the Land of the Feaci
All the attempts made up to now to reconstruct geographically the voyage of Ulysses, taking account of the data provided by Homer, are unsuccessful, particularly for the identification of this place.
The land of the Phaeacians has been localized in the different theories in Palestine, Tunisia, Andalusia, Istria, Cyrenaica, Malta, Crete, Corfu, Trapani, and also in Germany.
You are not able to respond, however, to the question of how Ulysses, after the first passage by Scylla and Charybdis, he was rejected again in addition and, however, could be conducted in the Home by the Phaeacians, without crossing it a third time.
According to Homer, the land of the Phaeacians, a view from Greece, lies once in front and once behind Scylla and Charybdis.
So far it is always assumed that the sea that drove Ulysses to the land of the Phaeacians was the same through which he went home. But this supposition, of course, the most reliable, is not supported by any words of Homer. If, on the contrary, we put together the two figures of Homer, and we seek a country in a sea lie at the same time behind and in front of the Strait we will be induced to think of Calabria, whose western coast lies the Tyrrhenian sea and the eastern Ionian sea. It is right there yes will come, if with the route to the East, you come from Lipari, and thence we must sail to reach Ithaca, path, likewise, toward the East, as indicated by the text of homer.
If this amazing explanation is the right one in the course of his journey Odysseus must, however, have crossed a tract of land. This fact never observed in reality, what Homer says: in the vicinity of the land of the Phaeacians the wave and the storm crashing against the raft and just swim Ulysses manages to put on safely reaching the coast. Beyond was obliged to go on foot before he marched to a hillside, the day after brought about the valleys road, with wagons, driven by mules, to the capital city of the Phaeacians, and yet another day went down to the port and, then, finally, a ship, and brought it back home.
Clearly Homer refers to the two coasts are different and related to each other by a certain distance.
Some of the interpretations traditional to speak of the island of the Phaeacians, but the Greek text does not contain the word island, to the contrary, is called by Homer Scheria (S c h e r (a ), which would tell the mainland (continent or country).
In fact, after being in numerous islands (Malta, Sicily, Ustica, Lipari), the Ulysses finally reached in Calabria on the mainland. This explanation is new, but simple at the same time, solves a lot of contradictions in the interpretation of the text. It identifies as well the happy land of the Phaeacians from the time of Homer, the Magna graecia of antiquity, and with the Calabria of today. May not that be was in Calabria, the land of the Phaeacians: the duration that the text of the homeric poems indicates allows the passage from one coast to the other in Calabria. This step is the one in the director Tauriana - Oppido Mella, connecting the Tyrrhenian with the Ionian sea through the ridge of the mountain chain, not a coincidence that the romans chose to pass by there a variant of the Via Annia Popilia - tyrrhenian/ionian
Homer writes that Ulysses, in the mercy of the waves on a raft was first thrown on a coast with steep rocks and ledges, (we identified between Rovaglioso and Trachina placed in front of Lipari, the rest of the current still today carry the pumice from the volcanoes of the Aeolian islands on our coasts), Ulysses he then sought shelter on the shallow shores, perhaps the beach Trachina or Stony, and you also know that stay in a safe place, a cave not far from the sea. We know that the only cave in the area, however, popular in the proto-historic period by the peoples of the sea is that of Trachina. From it one could control the sea without being seen and get away of wild animals.
In the court of king Alcinous, Odysseus told of the various stages of its perilous journey: Troy, Cape Malea; Small Sirti with the land of the lotus eaters; the Cyclops; Malta; the island of Aeolus; the rock of Marsala with the port of Lestrigòni; the Monte Erice as the steep rock of the Branch; Ustica, as the island of Circe; the Imera such as the houses of Hades and Persephone; the strait of Messina as Scylla and Charybdis, with the rock of the Sirens; one of the islands of Lipari as the island of Calypso, and finally the last important station, the Calabria, that is, the ancient Magna Greece as the land of the Phaeacians, called by Homer Scheria, and that is the territory of Palmi in the Costa Viola.
