 | |
| Author | Robbert Bittlestone |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
Publication date | 2005 |
Odysseus Unbound: The Search for Homer's Ithaca is a 2005 book by Robert Bittlestone, with appendices by the philologistJames Diggle and the geologistJohn Underhill. The book investigates the location ofHomer's Ithaca, arguing thatPaliki, a peninsula ofKefalonia, was an island at the time of theTrojan War, and that it was the island referred to as Ithaca in theOdyssey.[1]
The accuracy of Homer's geography has been disputed since antiquity, and Bittlestone's book is one of several published by non-academic authors in the 1990s and 2000s that attempts to identify Homer's Ithaca based on the geographical evidence given in theOdyssey.[2] Bittlestone's argument that Paliki should be identified with Homer's Ithaca has received favourable reviews, withMary Beard considering that there is "a very fair chance indeed" that he is correct,[3] andPeter Green calling it "almost certainly correct".[4]
However, reviewers criticised the hyperbolic claims made for the book. G. L. Huxley and Christina Haywood both criticisedOdysseus Unbound for not taking the argument that Homer's Ithaca was the same island asmodern Ithaca seriously enough,[5][6] and Huxley argues that even if Bittlestone's case that Paliki was once a separate island from Kefalonia is accepted, the book does not prove that it is the location of Homer's Ithaca.[5] Haywood concludes that Bittlestone "was carried too far by his enthusiasm",[7] while Beard, though convinced by the argument that Paliki was an island in the Mycenaean period, concludes that "the end of the book descends into fantasy", and criticises Bittlestone for his excessive concern with speculatively identifying every geographical feature of Ithaca mentioned in theOdyssey with a real location on Paliki.[3]
