The Odyssey is a poem about distance — sea-miles, lost years, the gap between a man and his home. Some of that is easier to see than to read. These plates map the poem from the outside: where Odysseus sailed and what it cost him, how the gods lined up for and against him, the shape of the family waiting in Ithaca, and the deep stack of cities buried under the mound at Troy.
Each picture is drawn in the same hand and pulled straight from the guides that explain it. Browse them here, then follow any one back to the full story behind it.
The Journey Home
Every stop from Troy to Ithaca, mapped on the real Mediterranean coast.
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The Search for a Father
Telemachus sails to Pylos and rides to Sparta looking for news of Odysseus.
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The Whole Story in Time
The Trojan legend and the ten-year journey home on one timeline.
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The Trojan War in Time
The legend and the dug-up archaeological record, side by side.
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Nine Cities of Troy
Our dated cutout on the real cross-section of the mound at Hisarlık.
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The Toll-Gate of the Sea
Why a ten-year war was really fought over Troy and its strait.
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24 Books at a Glance
The whole poem in three movements: son, wanderer, homecoming.
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Told Out of Order
Story-time versus the order the poem actually tells it in.
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The Toll of the Voyage
Six hundred men to one: the cost of getting home.
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The Gods' Family Tree
How the gods are related, and why Poseidon's grudge is personal.
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The Gods Take Sides
Who steers Odysseus home, who blocks him, and who holds the scales.
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Monsters to Scale
The beasts of the wandering, sized up against a man and a ship.
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The House of Odysseus
The royal family tree and the household ranged around it.
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The Galloping Meter
How the verse moved, and the stock epithets that fed it.
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