Nisyros volcano- The key to understanding the volcanic metaphors of Odysseus’ journeys, Circe (circle); the Cyclops, a giant with one eye who throws rocks.
Atlantis, the Sybilline Oracles, and Corcyra © Nicholas Costa 2024
The following reference at first sight appears to be out of place. Every location mentioned in the Sibylline text is in Asia Minor so why the reference to Corcyra which is in the Ionian sea?
“Shall Lesbos be forever overthrown. Alas, Corcyra, city beautiful, alas for thee, cease from thy revelry.”
Is it a memory of mass emigration following the c1327 BC disaster from an original location which was somewhere near the coast of Asia Minor in the Aegean prior to the move to the well known Corcyra (Corfu), located in the Ionian Sea? Why was Corcyra referred to and coupled with Asia Minor and the Dodecanese when it is in a completely different location? In the Odyssey they are referred to as the Phaecians.
Notably the Phaeacians according to the Odyssey did not know Odysseus and called him a “stranger”. This is odd if the location of the story was Corcyra in the Ionian sea. Odysseus was king of the majority of the Ionian Islands neighbouring Corcyra, not only of Ithaca, but also “of Cephallenia, Neritum, Crocylea, Aegilips, Same and Zacynthus” (Iliad, II.) so if Scheria was Corfu it would be highly unlikely that the citizens of a neighbouring Ionian Island did not know him. Furthermore, when he revealed his identity, he stated to the nobles that:
“[…] if I outlive this time of sorrow, I may be counted as your friend, though I live so far away from all of you” (Odyssey, IX, 17) indicating thereby that Scheria was a long way from Ithaca.
In support of this is the fact that Cycladic islanders did not fight at Troy, as seen in its absence in the Catalogue of Ships (The silence of Homer’s Cyclades-Tracing the footsteps of the Catalogue of Ships, and beyond, James Hua, 2019).
Significantly there is extant a reference which perhaps indicates the existence near the Dodecanese of a location referred to in antiquity as “ancient Corcyra”:
“I am getting ready to sail to Italy, for I am on my way to my friends from whom I have been absent for so long. I am in search of a navigator to conduct me and bring me to the Cyclades and ancient Corcyra. But I beg for your help too, my friend Menippus, author of the learned circular tour and versed in all geography.” (Greek Anthology § 9.559 Crinagoras)
(Crinagoras of Mytilene, (70 BC–18 AD) was a court poet in Rome. Menippus of Pergamum was his contemporary, an ancient Greek geographer who wrote a periplus on the Black and the Mediterranean seas.)
This is usually read as merely referencing a journey to Italy from Lesbos. However was “ancient Corcyra” a sideways reference to Scheria ?????? (also known as Phaeacia a region in Greek mythology) first mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey as the home of the Phaeacians.
According to Homer Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians stated that his people, descendants of giants,once lived on the island Hyperia near their brother cyclopes. Since that time, the Phaeacians had chosen to leave Hyperia and colonize Scheria (Ody.7.58). They had been forced to leave their homeland because of the savage actions of these giants. Giants/ Cyclopes were evidently metaphors for volcano’s and earthquakes.
Amorgos
Notably there is one island in the Cyclades now named Amorgos which according to Pliny was once called Hyperia. (Natural History 1-11, 4.23.2) which is a prime candidate for the location of Scheria even though the extant sources use the earlier name of Hyperia. Amorgos is the easternmost island of the Cyclades island group and the nearest island to the neighboring Dodecanese island group in Greece. According to Pliny (§ 5.31.2) after the Trojan war Ephesus was known as “Ortygia and Morges” the latter name echoing that of Amorgos.
(The confusion might be explained by Sibylline Oracle III. 530. which notably states that Homer, was “the blind old man who writes lies”. He is accused of plagiarizing and making errors from the Sibyl whose oracles he was the first to use.)
Homer states that the island was shaped like a shield:
“land appeared, where it was closest to him, and it looked like a shield in the misty water.” (Ody .5.280).
Notably shields from this period were long and thin and not round as popularly imagined, which matches the shape of the island. Curiously on present day Amorgos there is an area known as Aspis, the Shield which is the site of an ancient temple dedicated to Aphrodite.
Shields from Akrotiri fresco
Homer states that Odysseus was washed up at the mouth of a river:
“But when he swam and reached the mouth of a fair-flowing river, there the place seemed best,
free of rocks, and there was shelter from the wind.” (Odyssey .5.440) Amorgos has two main rivers, only flowing after very heavy rains.
Homer further states:
“So, while long-suffering divine Odysseus slept there worn out by sleep and exhaustion, Athena came to the district and city of Phaeacian men, who once upon a time dwelt in broad-lawned Hypereia.” (Odyssey, OD.6.1 )
Relocation due to volcanic eruption
Plutarch writes: Nausithous, (king of the Phaeacians who reigned in the generation before Odysseus was washed ashore on their home island of Scheria):
“forsaking the spacious country of Hyperia because the Cyclops bordered upon it, and removing to an island far distant from all other people, chose there, Remote from all commerce t’ abide, By sea’s surrounding waves denied;” and yet he procured a very pleasant way of living to his own citizens” (Plutarch, On Exile/Banishment, or Flying One’s Country, Moralia, 603b).
Immediately beyond this point her refers to the Cyclades. This is consistent with the 1327 BC disaster recorded by the Hittites which destroyed Ephesus/ Apasa.
Hyperia/ Hyperion
The Greeks knew of a Titan named as Hyperion who is often confused as a doppelganger for Helios the sun god. However in the current context Diodorus Siculus’ statement is of great relevance. He states that Hyperion was the name of the first person to understand the movement of the sun and moon, and their effect on the seasons:
“Of Hyperion we are told that he was the first to understand, by diligent attention and observation, the movement of both the sun and the moon and the other stars, and the seasons as well, in that they are caused by these bodies, and to make these facts known to others; and that for this reason he was called the father of these bodies, since he had begotten, so to speak, the speculation about them and their nature.”(Diodorus Siculus, 5.67.1)
This information links Hyperion directly Atlas:
“[Atlas] perfected the science of astrology and was the first to publish to mankind the doctrine of the sphere. and it was for this reason that the idea was held that the entire heavens were supported upon the shoulders of Atlas, the myth darkly hinting in this way at his discovery and description of the sphere.” (Diodorus Siculus, 3. 60.2)
and therefore directly the region of Lydia/Luwia and Ephesus.
Homer states that King Alcinous said that Phaeacians carried Rhadamanthus to Euboea, “which is the furthest of any place” and came back on the same day (Odyssey, 7.320). This would be an impossibility if the Phaeacians were located in Corfu at the time or even Ephesus, but eminently possible from Amorgos given its position in the Aegean. Amorgos notably is remembered as a Minoan colony. It was one of the most important Cycladic centers. Due to its position near the ancient Ionian towns, such as Miletus, Halicarnassus and Ephesus, Amorgos notably became one of the first places from which the Ionians passed through to the Cycladic Islands and onto the Greek mainland.
Aethiopians
Notably Homer is the earliest surviving source to mention “Aethiopians” (????????, ?????????) He distinguishes between them stating that they are to be found at the east and west extremities of the world, divided by the sea into “eastern” (at the sunrise) and “western” (at the sunset).
In Book 1 of the Iliad, Thetis visits Olympus to meet Zeus, but the meeting is postponed, as Zeus and other gods are absent, visiting the land of the Aethiopians.
And in Book 1 of the Odyssey, Athena convinces Zeus to let Odysseus finally return home only because Poseidon is away in Aethiopia and unable to object. Everybody makes the assumption that the Ethiopia referred to is the one in the far south beyond Egypt. As demonstrated in Atlantis, the Amazons, and the Birth of Athene, Aethiopia was equally a metaphor for the region affected by the volcanic eruption of 1327 BC. It signified ‘burnt face’. Hesiod (c.?8th century BC) refers to Memnon as the “King of the Aethiopians.” (Theogony, 984–85) which was in fact a metaphor the region around Luwia which had been affected by the eruption. This is why Homer depicts Poseidon as coming from Aethiopia when he locates him in the mountains of the Solymi in Lycia (Ody.5.285). This notably was the home of the Chimaera now known as being Yanarta? (Turkish for “flaming stone”). This is a geographical feature near the Olympos valley and national park in Antalya Province in southwestern Turkey.
Like wise if one considers the threatened end of the Phaeacians given the proximity of Amorgos to the volcanoes of Nisyros and Thera.
The Odyssey contains reference to the 1327 BC eruption/ airburst which devastated Ephesus:
“Then Alcinous addressed their company and said: “Lo now, verily the oracles of my father, uttered long ago, have come upon me. He was wont to say that Poseidon was wroth with us because we give safe convoy to all men. [175] He said that some day, as a beautiful ship of the Phaeacians was returning from a convoy over the misty deep, Poseidon would smite her, and would fling a great mountain about our town. So that old man spoke, and lo, now all this is being brought to pass. But now come, as I bid let us all obey.” (Ody. 13.170-175)
Ironically in trying to escape as implied by Homer’s text they had actually placed themselves in even greater danger by moving to Amorgos given its proximity to both Nisyros and Thera compared to Ephesus!
Distances
Ephesus to Nisyros Distance: 128.31 mi (206.49 km)
Ephesus to Amorgos Distance: 130.14 mi (209.44 km)
Amorgos to Nisyros: Distance: 72.53 mi (116.72 km)
Thera to Amorgos: Distance: 38.28 mi (61.61 km)
It would appear that it was the Phaeacians’ meeting with Odysseus that actually prompted their final move to Corcyra.
Ephesus to Corcyra 313.1 mi (579.86 km)