The Odyssey

Sicily was identified as the Island of the Cyclops—a rich, fertile land inhabited by non-Greek people, whose customs and agricultural practices are different from those of Greece.

Lotus-Eaters share a plant that makes those who eat it forget all thoughts of going home. In

The Myceneans had a system of writing known as Linear B, a syllabic script that was used by scribes to make administrative records on clay tablets. But when Mycenean civilization fell—perhaps due to invasion by non-Greek people or, more likely, because of civil warfare and possibly climate change—the great palaces were destroyed and, with them, the

Cyclopic people have no red-cheeked ships and no shipwright among them who could build boats, to enable them to row across to other cities, as most people do, crossing the sea to visit one another. With boats they could have turned this island into a fertile colony, with proper harvests. By the gray shore there lie well-watered meadows, where vines