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the Eastern Mediterranean, well-known by ancient Greeks, Homer describes
the sea routes followed by his heroes returning from Troja so accurately
that one can trace them on a map.
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Crossing of the Aegean from east to west by the respective squadrons
of Nestor Menelaus, Odysseus, Ajax, on Tim Severin's Argo in 1985 and
jean Cuisenier’s Tzarambo in 2000.
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"To listen to the old Achaean king narrating his return as if
one would read a sea log today, it took Nestor and his squadron only
five days to reach Pylos in Messinia. That is to say : one day from
the Achaean harbour on the Hellespont to Tenedos (Bozcaada) ; one
day from Tenedos to Lesbos (Mytilene) ; one day from Lesbos at Cape
Gereste (southern end of the Euboea) ; one day and one night from
Cape Gereste to Argos (Gulf of Nauplie) via Cape Sounion ; one day
from the Gulf of Nauplie to Pylos via Cape Malea.
This oral "sea log" of the wise Nestor sounded like a sequence
of nautical instructions to the audience of the poem, to whom it was
first adressed,: a model of the measures to take when crossing the
Aegean from north-east to south-east in direct route, the list of
the seamarks to recognize and the predictable duration of the travels
between the successive ports of call. For anybody who learns this
today through the reading of the Odyssey this text also provides indisputable
information : captains of the homeric times and probably long before
them captains of the mycenian times were quite capable, when the opportunity
should arise, to set off on crossings on the open sea and by night.
They did not hesitate to make this choice deliberately when signs
in the sky led them to expect favorable conditions".
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Jean Cuisenier, Le Périple d’Ulysse, pp. 186-188 |
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