The path of Ulysses.

Athena and the departure of Telemachus

The only son of Ulysses, Telemachus plays a leading part in the Odyssey. His father’s absence pushes him to set out in search of news of him. Helping him is Athena, in the guise of “Mentor”, who guides him to Pylos, Sparta and then back to Ithaca.

On the walls beneath the arch that leads towards the old town, just before via Lebina, Athena is painted together with the boat on which Telemachus will depart.

Ulysses and the raft

The Odyssey describes the building of the raft in such detail that it almost reads like a technical manual. Many scholars speak of a real vessel: Ulysses’ trials at sea remain a deep piece of symbolism.

On the first stretch of via Lebina Ulysses is in the foreground with his characteristic cap, while to his left the raft can be glimpsed at sea with its makeshift sail.

Polyphemus

“A coarse and brutish one-eyed shepherd”: that is how the ninth book of the Odyssey describes one of the most widely pictured figures in the collective imagination. Fittingly, one of the most famous depictions is the marble group found in the Villa of Tiberius, now in Sperlonga’s archaeological museum.

In the via Lebina mural Polyphemus is shown drinking the doctored wine offered by Ulysses, who had given his name as “Nobody”.

Aeolus

Aeolus is the king and keeper of the winds, another central figure in the trials Ulysses suffers on his way to Ithaca. In the famous episode he gives Ulysses a jar holding the winds unfavourable to sailing: his companions, who do not know what is inside, make the mistake of opening it just as long-desired Ithaca appears on the horizon.

Poseidon

A god of the ancient Greeks, the Odyssey describes his wrath at Ulysses’ outrage against his son Polyphemus. For scholars that wrath stands for “the divine persecutor who causes the trials and misfortunes of the human hero”.

On the walls of via Lebina he is shown gripping his trident, with which “he shakes the earth and makes its springs gush”. Behind him a heavy sea rages beneath dark clouds.

Scylla and Charybdis

They are the monsters of the Strait of Messina: the beings that devour men or suck ships down to ruinous wreck. Thanks to Circe’s warnings Ulysses passes unharmed between the two, and survives the perilous song of the Sirens as well.

Here Scylla and Charybdis face each other menacingly: a visitor climbing from the lower end sees them on either side.

Nausicaa

Beautiful, young and carefree, Nausicaa is described in the Odyssey as a girl on the threshold of adulthood. It is she who helps Ulysses, providing the vessel that will let him return to Ithaca.

In via Lebina she is painted with a clay vessel for carrying water and a blue dress, like the blue sea behind her, where glimpses of the island’s headland can be seen.

Penelope

The emblem of faithfulness, a symbol of home and of the return to family, to the point that scholars have almost catalogued her as the female equivalent of Odysseus. In Homer’s lines she is forever weaving by day and unpicking by night the shroud of her father-in-law Laertes, to delay choosing a new husband.

In via Lebina she is portrayed with her face resting on her palm, scanning the horizon in hope.

Ulysses and the bow

It is one of the closing scenes of the return to Ithaca. The contest of the bow, which none of Penelope’s suitors can string, is one more trial for Odysseus: a bow only he will be able to draw, and one he enters the contest for only with Penelope’s own help.

Here the figure of Ulysses with the bow sits beneath the last arch, the one that brings the visitor to the foot of the steps of the former church, today the municipal auditorium.

The village, from above.

The same headland the trail runs across, filmed from the drone and from the ground: ninety seconds between the lake, the tower and the Grotto of Tiberius, where the marble group of Polyphemus was found.