Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: SunkenCiv

“Ogygia was an ancient name for Egypt.”

But Egypt is not an island, and Ulysses visits Crete early on in his travels, which is right next to Egypt. So it makes no sense for him to get stranded on Ogygia in the mid-point of his journey after he left the area of Egypt heading west/northwest before being blown off course.

“The Odyssey comes off as an ancient romance novel.”

There’s a bit of that but it seems to me that there are veiled references to real places in it, but that the more “fantastic” places are ones that Greek sailors may have heard about, but probably never visited themselves.


10 posted on 12/27/2022 2:20:11 PM PST by Boogieman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies ]


To: Boogieman
It's a work of fiction, so trying to find the "real" places is probably not going to be fruitful. One place given for Scylla and Charybdis is the Strait of Messina (off Sicily, iow), but they're mythical critters or what have you. Tourism is very old, and having a tourist trap / attraction was just as important in antiquity as it is now. I've heard tell that Stephen Foster was photographed a number of times in a number of towns, pointing to the one, the only, Old Mill Stream. :^)

11 posted on 12/27/2022 2:54:11 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies ]

To: Boogieman

And whoops, Ogyges was a king of Attic Greece, he even had a flood named after him. I’d remembered Ogygian Thebes, but it was Greek, just to be contrary.

https://religion.fandom.com/wiki/Ogyges
https://religion.fandom.com/wiki/Ancient_Greek_flood_myths#Ogyges


13 posted on 12/27/2022 3:05:30 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson