Ten years · Twelve ships · One survivor
The Wandering
ΟΔΥΣΣΕΙΑ · ΠΛΑΝΗ
Homer's hero sails from a real war to a real island, and everything between is argued over. This chart lays the Odyssey across the actual Mediterranean — where the poem's places have been located, how good the evidence is, and what the voyage costs him at each stop.
You will find the track of Odysseus' wanderings the day you find the cobbler who stitched the bag of the winds. Eratosthenes, c. 240 BCE — quoted by Strabo, who disagreed
The muster · twelve ships out of Troy
600still alive / 12 ships
Year 0 of 10
Troy fallsCirce · 1 yrCalypso · 7 yrsIthaca
Homer never counts his crews. Fifty oarsmen a ship is the standard estimate from the Iliad's ship catalogue — so the arithmetic here is honest, but rounded.