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Zacynthus

Accepted10/12HighIonian islandsHomeric name(s): Ζάκυνθος

The fixed point in the Ionian puzzle. Every reconstruction of Odysseus' kingdom, however radical, agrees on where Zacynthus is.

Homer names four islands in Odysseus' domain — Ithaca, Dulichium, Same and wooded Zacynthus — and the suitors come from all of them. Three of the four have been argued over for two centuries. Zacynthus has not.

That matters methodologically: it is a control. Any theory that moves Ithaca has to keep Zacynthus where it is and still make the poem's relative directions work.

Identifications proposed

  • Modern Zakynthos

    Proposed by: Continuous identification; Strabo, Geography 10.2

    Accepted10/12High

    The one island in Odysseus' kingdom whose name and position were never contested: 'wooded Zacynthus' is the southernmost of the group, it has carried the name continuously, and Mycenaean burials confirm Bronze Age occupation.

    37.7900, 20.9000· Island

    • Primary textStrabo, Geography 10.2
    • ArchaeologyMycenaean-period cemeteries and settlement traces on Zakynthos, reported in Ionian island archaeology
    • Primary textHomer, Odyssey (trans. A. T. Murray, Loeb, 1919)
    Confidence
    10/12 · High confidence
    Textual
    2
    Archaeological
    2
    Scholarly
    3
    Geographic
    3

Why this class

Accepted: continuous naming, agreed position, Bronze Age occupation. Textual scores 2 because 'wooded' is nearly all the poem says about it.

What is disputed

Nothing about the island. Its role in the debate is as the fixed leg of every rival reconstruction of the Ionian geography.

Sources

  • Primary textHomer, Iliad (trans. A. T. Murray, Loeb, 1924)
  • Primary textHomer, Odyssey (trans. A. T. Murray, Loeb, 1919)
  • Primary textStrabo, Geography 10.2
  • ArchaeologyMycenaean-period cemeteries and settlement traces on Zakynthos, reported in Ionian island archaeology