Sailing to Ithaca?

In his poem ‘Sailing to Ithaca’, Konstantinos Cavafy  uses Odysseus’ adventures home from the Trojan wars  as a lyrical metaphor for the human journey. Ithaca  is an image for final destinations. This island in the  Ionian archipelago, uncomfortably rugged and separated  by a wide, mesmerising passage from Kefalonia, fits Homer’s  story and Cavafy’s poem perfectly. Perpetually basking in a blazing luminous light, Ithaca boasts fine if unexceptional archaeological sites. With its well-signposted walking trails  and numerous fish tavernas, the island is scarcely less than magical. Yet is Ithaca, in fact, Odysseus’ island, where Penelope faithfully weaved, steadfastly waiting for her mischievous  prince in their well-appointed palace? 

Well, in 1797, the nationalist activist Rigas Velestinlis  (1757-1798) published the first Greek map of his homeland, calling the island we know as Ithaca, Doulichion. Velestinlis was using the name for the island in Strabo’s 1st-century Geography. This fact and the seismic geology of neighbouring Kefalonia – known to Strabo as Sami – has led a British foundation to question where Odysseus’ palace was located. Was it Paliki, the western arcadia of Kefalonia? Owning Odysseus barely exists on the islands themselves. Ithaca assumes it is the Ithaca, and Kefalonia chooses instead to champion its spectacular if spare landscape and crystalline bays. 

Ithaca assumes it is Ithaca

Across the rich screen of this island, ancient and modern names offer themselves to the mind like the translation of flesh into spectral appearances. Busts and statues of Odysseus grace every public space. Old ones convey an anonymous gravitas; modern versions project a lithe, whip-smart survivor. Guided Homer trails are marketed by fliers stapled to telegraph poles. So far so good. Yet the pantheon of archaeologists who have worked on this island are at best no more than faded archive images on sun-bleached site panels. Ithaca’s archaeology itself is left very much to your imagination. Contrast this with Ithaca’s walking paths: these rate  as some of the best signposted trails in the Mediterranean.