For centuries, scholars and enthusiasts have debated where Odysseus truly traveled during his legendary journey back to Ithaca. Among the most intriguing theories is the notion that the hero ventured beyond the Mediterranean, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and reached the shores of what is now known as America. But what evidence supports this extraordinary claim, and does it truly align with Homer’s descriptions in the Odyssey?
Why Odysseus might have reached America
The claim that Odysseus made it all the way to the Americas is based on several key arguments. The first is the sheer length of his journey. According to Homer’s Odyssey, it took Odysseus ten years to return from Troy to Ithaca. For some, this raises the question of whether such a lengthy voyage could have taken place entirely within the relatively limited confines of the Mediterranean. The extraordinary duration of his wanderings has led some researchers to suggest that Odysseus may have traveled much farther than traditionally believed.
The second, and more significant, argument stems from Homer’s apparent reference to Odysseus’ crossing of an ocean. After Odysseus reaches the island of Aeaea, Circe instructs him to travel to the River Acheron, where the entrance to the underworld lies. She tells him:
“But when you drive through Ocean with your ship, there will be a rough headland and groves of Persephone, tall poplars and willows losing their fruit. Land your ship at that spot, by deep-eddying Ocean.”
According to this interpretation, Odysseus had to cross Ocean, or Oceanus, the world-encircling river described in ancient Greek cosmology, in order to get to the underworld. Some researchers have argued that this reference points to a journey across the Atlantic Ocean, placing the entrance to the underworld somewhere along the coast of America.
Interestingly, this interpretation is not solely a modern invention. Although they had no knowledge of America, several ancient writers also believed Odysseus’ travels extended beyond the Mediterranean world. The Greek geographer Strabo, for example, argued that Homer’s descriptions placed this episode, as well as the islands of Calypso and the Phaeacians of Scheria, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.
Objections to the theory
Although the theory that Odysseus reached America has some initial appeal, it also faces several significant objections. One of the strongest challenges concerns the distance involved. According to Homer’s account, Odysseus travels from Circe’s island to the entrance of the underworld in a single day. A journey across the Atlantic Ocean, however, would have required weeks rather than hours.
Could Circe’s island have already been located far across the ocean? In theory, this is possible, but the Odyssey would presumably have acknowledged such an extraordinary journey when describing how Odysseus reached the island. It raises a further question: why would Homer mention Odysseus crossing Oceanus only for the final stage of the voyage while leaving the much greater part of an Atlantic crossing unexplained?
Strabo’s interpretation of the Phaeacians’ island of Scheria as being located in the Atlantic Sea is also questionable. In Homer’s account, the Phaeacians return Odysseus to Ithaca in a single night, suggesting that their island was located relatively close to his homeland. The traditional identification of Scheria with Corfu fits this description and aligns with the island’s proximity to Ithaca.
Strabo similarly argued that Ogygia, the island of Calypso, lay in the Atlantic because Homer describes it as being far out near the “navel of the sea.” However, this description does not necessarily require an Atlantic location. The traditional identification of Ogygia with Malta is also compatible with Homer’s account.
Furthermore, Circe’s instructions for Odysseus’ return journey place Thrinacia as the final stop before Ithaca, suggesting that the two locations were relatively close. Yet after a storm near Thrinacia, Odysseus drifts at sea before eventually reaching Ogygia. A drift from a location near western Greece to the Atlantic Ocean would not be possible. Once again, Malta seems to be the more likely candidate based on the geographical descriptions of the Odyssey.
The real Oceanus Odysseus crossed
If Odysseus did not cross the Atlantic Ocean and make it all the way to America, then how is Homer’s reference to his crossing Oceanus, the world-encircling river, to be interpreted? The answer may lie in the fact that the Odyssey is one of the earliest surviving epic poems of ancient Greece. Homer’s understanding of the world was not necessarily the same as that of later Greek writers and geographers.
Evidence suggests that the early Greek conception of Oceanus differed from later interpretations. Rather than imagining it as a vast body of water beyond the Mediterranean, the Greeks may have originally viewed Oceanus as the water surrounding Greece itself, with the Mediterranean lying beyond it. In this sense, it was “world-encircling” because it surrounded the Greek world as they knew it.
The Odyssey itself provides clues supporting this interpretation. In the passage describing Odysseus’ journey from Ithaca to the underworld in the west, Homer states that the ship passed Oceanus and the White Rock (Leukas Rock). This refers to Cape Lefkada, the southernmost point of Lefkada, located west of Ithaca.
Significantly, Oceanus is mentioned prior to Leukas Rock, suggesting that Oceanus refers to the waters immediately surrounding Greece rather than a distant ocean beyond the Mediterranean. In this interpretation, Odysseus’ ship began its journey through Oceanus before passing Cape Lefkada and entering the open Ionian Sea to the west.
So if Odysseus did not travel to America, where did he go instead?
With this interpretation in mind, how should we understand Homer’s account of Odysseus’s crossing of Oceanus? If the hero did not travel across the Atlantic and reach America, then where did this part of his journey actually take place?
The fourth-century BC Argonautica identifies Circe’s island as Paxos, a location situated near the actual River Acheron in western Greece, where an ancient oracle of the dead once existed. This connection provides a compelling explanation for the setting described by Homer in the Odyssey, and it can be concluded that Homer’s underworld episode was based in this region.
In accordance with this interpretation, the Oceanus that Odysseus crossed was not the Atlantic Ocean but the stretch of water between Paxos and the Greek mainland. Rather than venturing across the world to America, Odysseus’ journey in this part of the Odyssey led him to Thesprotia in western Greece.
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