
An Interactive Map of Ulysses’ 10-Year Journey in Homer’s Odyssey - Red_Tarsius
http://esripm.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/index.html?appid=4fc9153f4d9248b9bab7011e3950b552&webmap=962ca9da38bf4c5e9439a6acf3dd1b3e
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cafard
The edition of the Odyssey I have (the red Macmillan) has sharp comments here
and there in the notes about "those who think they can map wonderland."

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noncoml
I find it a bit difficult to believe that he was actually "lost". For example,
after hitting "4" why did he continue going west?

A more believable story would be that he was just an adventurous guy roaming
around the Mediterranean and looting seaside villages.

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ghostDancer
Just didn't want to go back home with wife and went partying/looting with
friends but then someone rewrote the story to make it look better, add some
gods and monsters and you have a best seller made of the stuff legends are
made of.

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cavDXF
I chuckled a bit!

It is probable that the Odyssey is some kind of navigational diary. In ancient
times, ships could only sail the Mediterranean clockwise, alas westward. So it
might've made sense he traveled westward.

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alexsb92
Could you expand regarding the clockwise/westward travel? I'm curious what you
mean by it and why there were limitations on the travel directions.

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cavDXF
Ah I'm sorry, i got it a bit wrong. Currents and winds in the Mediterranean
are mostly counter-clockwise.

Ancient seafaring was difficult and mostly bound to land. I mean, that they
had to travel along the Coast for most of the time and usually tried to avoid
high waters. It WAS possible to cross from one side to the other in certain
places, e.g. from Sicily to Tunisia, as it is less than 300km apart, but it
was generally avoided elsewhere.

Also, sea travel was depended a lot on weather and season. Greeks and Romans
were usually advised NOT to travel during winter as winds were rough and
unsteady. Even short distance travels took unusually long and were dangerous.
The most famous example is of St. Paul who was shipwrecked in Malta at one
point. And counter-intuitive at all: The Greeks were actually not very good at
seatravel. They always were jealous of the Phoenicians for doing better sea-
trade than they.

The Odyssey falls broadly in the category of Periplus. I forgot what a lot of
people interpreted into Homer's story, but i guess he just wanted to say
"Follow the rules, don't try to sail against the currents or bad things will
happen!"

This is why maybe he sailed westward in the story and not straight back...

For a little more detail see:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_maritime_history#The_M...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_maritime_history#The_Mediterranean)

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_e
I find it a bit difficult to believe that he was actually "lost". For example,
using the same data, tensorflow has not learned the concept of being lost yet.

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_e
The above comment was sarcasm. There is so much to the story that is unknown.
People have already commented on just a sample of known unknowns. There are
infinite paths to uncovering the unknown unknowns. Is it possible that the
whole story is fiction for the purpose of teaching a lesson?

