Destinations: The Long Voyage Home

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A brochure in the day’s pile of junk mail offered an irresistible opportunity: a Mediterranean cruise following Odysseus’s path (more or less) home from Troy. My wife and I took the bait. Aboard the Clelia II, we sailed around a Mediterranean world that juxtaposes past and present, history and legend, and particular and universal like no other place on earth.

Day 1, Troy

From Istanbul the Clelia II made for Homer’s Troy on the northwestern coast of Anatolia. I grew up in the small upstate New York city of Troy, so ancient Troy has always fascinated me. Homeric and classical names abound in upstate New York: Athens, Utica, Syracuse, Ilion, Ithaca, Rome. My high school teams were the Trojans, our yearbook was the Dardanian, and one of my classmates was known as Helen of Troy, though her name was the only similarity to the original.

Inevitably, perhaps, Troy was somewhat disappointing. Overlooking the Hellespont, which separates the Aegean Sea from the Sea of Marmara, Troy was undoubtedly important strategically. But the site is a jumble. In the late 19th century, Heinrich Schliemann cut a gash through the mound of Hissarlik in his search for ancient Troy.^a The untrained eye is bewildered by the relationships between Troy II (where Schliemann mistakenly thought he had found the treasure of Priam), Troy VI and VIIa (the two main contenders for the Late Bronze Age city of the Iliad), and the city’s other occupation levels. They seem to run into each other without clear differentiation.^b

It was here that Odysseus, “the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy,” began his voyage home. In high spirits we reboarded the Clelia II and sailed on—to Nauplion on the Peloponnesus, gateway to Mycenae and Tiryns.

Day 2, Mycenae

and Tiryns. Mycenae, home of the Greek king Agamemnon, has precisely what Troy lacks: unity and coherence. The location of ancient Mycenae, “rich in gold,” was always known because the Lion Gate, the entrance to the city’s acropolis, has always been 068visible aboveground. The view from the acropolis is thrilling: In the distance is the bay of Argos, from which Agamemnon first set sail for Troy; ten years later he returned to Mycenae only to be murdered by his faithless wife, Clytemnestra. All around rise mountain peaks where Clytemnestra set watch fires burning, so that she would be alerted to the return of her unwanted lord. Below the acropolis sit royal tombs where, it is said, Agamemnon and his kin are buried. (In 1876 Schliemann claimed to have found the famous Mask of Agamemnon at the bottom of a burial shaft in one of Mycenae’s grave circles.)

Not far from Mycenae is “wall-girt” Tiryns, as Homer described the city. Its huge walls led the ancient Greeks to think that the city must have been built by the Cyclopes (one-eyed giants). Like the ancient Mayans of the Yucatan Peninsula, who came to believe that their temples and cities had been built by gods, later generations of Greeks apparently remembered the earlier Mycenaeans only in their myths and stories. Little is known about the fall of Mycenaean civilization; it seems to have collapsed in the social upheaval that swept across the eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Late Bronze Age (about 1200 B.C.E.).

Days 3 and 4, Malta

Traditionally, Malta is the island where Odysseus tarried for seven years with the nymph Calypso. (After leaving Troy, Odysseus did come within sight of his home at Ithaca; but his nemesis, the sea god Poseidon, sent a fierce storm to sink his ship, drown his crew and wash him up on Calypso’s island.)

As the site of a mysterious ancient civilization, however, Malta is fascinating in its own right. Some of the island’s temples and megalithic structures date to about 3300 B.C.E.—well before the Egyptian pyramids and half a millennium earlier than Stonehenge.

Who were these ancients? Some of the temple walls bear carvings of a double ax head and a bull, suggesting Cretan influence, although Crete lies across hundreds of miles of open water to the east. The Cretans, like the later Phoenicians, were great sailors. And we know from anthropological and archaeological evidence in the South Pacific that the Polynesians sailed thousands of miles in open 069boats. So there is nothing fanciful or incredible about the theory of a Malta-Crete connection in ancient times.

Malta’s storied history can be seen in the faces of its people, a colorful mosaic bearing the imprint of all those conquerors, traders and travelers who passed this way. Even in recent times the island has been sought after and fought over. When the Napoleonic Wars ended, Malta became a British colony and remained so until gaining its independence in 1964. During World War II, it was a mainstay of the British position, lying athwart the shipping routes between the western and eastern Mediterranean and Europe and North Africa. For several years, the island was bombed almost every day by the Germans and Italians. After World War II, Britain’s King George VI awarded the entire population of Malta the Order of St. George.

Days 5, 6 and 7, Tunisia

From Malta, it’s a short sail to Tunis. According to tradition, Tunisia is the land of the lotus-eaters, where members of Odysseus’s crew lapsed into a psychedelic haze.

It was also the adopted homeland of the ancient Phoenicians, who founded Carthage in the early first millennium B.C.E. Legend has it that after the Trojan War, Aeneas traveled to Carthage, engaged in a torrid affair with Queen Dido and then sailed on to Italy (leaving Carthage’s monarch in the throes of raging passion), where his descendants founded Rome. All this is told by Virgil in the Aeneid.

After the bloody Punic Wars, the Romans did their best to expunge all traces of Carthage. Some things remain, however, including the chilling sight of the burial place of children sacrificed by the Phoenicians to their god Baal. Not long ago, Carthage again became the scene of a sacrifice of the young. For here lies the American military cemetery for the dead of World War II’s North African campaign. I had a favorite uncle who was a tank gunner in Patton’s army, which fought through North Africa in 1942, invaded Sicily in 1943, led the breakout from Normandy in 1944, relieved Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, and liberated much of Czechoslovakia. It was sad for me to look out over the thousands of crosses and Stars of David marking the graves of my uncle’s comrades in arms.

One curiosity: Our guide continually referred to ancient Carthaginians as “Punics.” Why, I wondered, didn’t he call them “Phoenicians,” which the inhabitants of ancient Carthage would surely have preferred? The answer was simple: The Romans won the war and so it was their terminology that prevailed.

The evening we were to sail for Sicily, a storm blew in. Some of the passengers on the Clelia II had done destroyer duty in World War II; they agreed that the wind was a “Beaufort 8” (a Beaufort 14 is a hurricane) and that it was too dangerous to sail. Our Greek captain was of the same opinion. Therefore, we remained in port an extra day.

It’s an ill wind that blows no good. The delay gave us the opportunity to visit Dougga, an hour’s drive west of Tunis. Although Dougga dates back to the time of the Berbers, who preceded the Phoenicians, it is best known as a Roman city from the second and third centuries C.E. The Romans built a vast complex of temples, baths and villas, and filled them with beautiful mosaics. Dougga 070sits in an important wheat-farming region; North Africa was known as the granary of the Roman Empire. This wheat was the “bread” of the “bread and circuses,” with which the Roman emperors kept the masses well fed and entertained.

Days 8, 9 and 10, Sicily

Once the Beaufort 8 subsided, we sailed to Sicily—the home of the giant cannibals, the Laistrygonians, who attacked Odysseus and his crew in one of their first adventures. This was our fifth country in little more than a week.

Disembarking at Trapani, on the western coast, we made for Segesta, which was settled by the Greeks in classical times. Segesta contains a massive Doric temple, which was built a few years after the Parthenon (completed in 432 B.C.E.) and may have been modeled on it. Like many Greek settlements, Segesta offers a dazzling view of the countryside and Homer’s wine-dark sea.

The Clelia II carried us around the northern coast of Sicily to the Aeolian Islands, the home of Aeolus, the Lord of the Winds in the Odyssey. Here Odysseus received the bag of winds that was supposed to blow his ship safely home; instead, his crew opened the bag, releasing the winds in every direction. The islands contain two live volcanoes, named Vulcano and Stromboli, that lie smoking on the horizon.

The jewel of the Aeolians is Lipari, which was inhabited as early as Neolithic times. Archaeologists are excavating Lipari’s acropolis. Excavated material is housed near the site in a museum, which is a gem. It contains scores of theatrical masks made on the island and used in performances of classical Greek plays. The museum also has a wonderful collection of amphoras and other objects found in the sea and rescued from the shipwrecks that dot the Aeolians, some dating back to the second millenium B.C.E.

Following Odysseus’s route south from the Aeolians, we passed through the straits of Messina, the Scylla and Charybdis of Greek mythology. No monsters were in sight, but the seas are rough in the straits, and our captain navigated them with caution.

From Messina, we visited Taormina, another of the great Greek sites in 071Sicily. It was one of the first Greek colonies in Sicily, going back to the eighth century B.C.E. Taormina has one of the largest amphitheaters in the ancient world. The Romans used it for gladiatorial contests, animal hunts and theatrical productions, providing the second ingredient of “bread and circuses.” The most dramatic view from the amphitheater is of Mt. Etna, over 11,000 feet high and still snow-clad in April. Etna’s volcanic soil is so fertile that the local farmers do not need to use artificial fertilizer.

Day 11, Corfu

The Clelia II headed around the boot of Italy into the Ionian Sea. Corfu was the kingdom of the Phaeacians, where an exhausted Odysseus washed up on shore after leaving Calypso. He was found by the princess Nausicaa, who brought him to her parents’ palace. There Odysseus recounted the story of his wanderings since leaving Troy.

Day 12, Ithaca

At last! Odysseus returned to Ithaca on a Phaeacian ship. Two spots on Ithaca have been identified as the site of Odysseus’s palace. Neither of them is very impressive, nothing like Mycenae. The island is mountainous and scrubby.

Nonetheless, this was the place of Odysseus’s nostos, or “homecoming.” Nostoi also means “homecoming song,” and the Odyssey ends here, as did our voyage. At our last meeting aboard the Clelia II, we listened to the poem “Ithaka” by the great Greek poet G.C. Cavafy (1863–1933).

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As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them.
You’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body …

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind …

Keep Ithaka always in your mind
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

From C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems, rev. ed., trans. Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1992), pp. 36–37.

A brochure in the day’s pile of junk mail offered an irresistible opportunity: a Mediterranean cruise following Odysseus’s path (more or less) home from Troy. My wife and I took the bait. Aboard the Clelia II, we sailed around a Mediterranean world that juxtaposes past and present, history and legend, and particular and universal like no other place on earth. Day 1, Troy From Istanbul the Clelia II made for Homer’s Troy on the northwestern coast of Anatolia. I grew up in the small upstate New York city of Troy, so ancient Troy has always fascinated me. Homeric and […]