(photo: F. Boissannas)
‘Then to the Aeolian isle we came, where dwelt Aeolus, son of Hippotas, dear to the immortal gods, in a floating island, and all around it is a wall of unbreakable bronze, and the cliff runs up sheer.’’ Odyssey 9.82ff. (online text: Eng., Grk.)
[here and below quotes are selective; follow links for complete passages]
Aeolus – Lamius, Laestrygonians: cf. Strabo and Horacae 3.17
Ancient Localization
“The Athenians and Rhegians that were now in Sicily made war the same winter on the islands called the islands of Aeolus with thirty galleys. ” (see also 3.115)
(online text: Eng., Grk.)
Polybius, Histories 34.2
“For instance, Aeolus, who taught the way of getting through the straits, where there are currents setting both ways, and the passage is rendered difficult by the indraught of the sea, came to be called and regarded as the dispenser and king of the winds;…”
(online text: Eng., Grk.)
Ovid, Metamorphoses 14.223
“ ‘Then Macareus told him of Aeolus, / the son of Hippotas, whose kingdom is / the Tuscan sea…’ ”
(online text: Eng., Lat.) (see also 14.85ff.)
Parthenius, Love Romances 2
“While Ulysses was on his wanderings round about Sicily, in the Etruscan and Sicilian seas, he arrived at the island of Meligunis, where King Aeolus made much of him because of the great admiration he had for him by reason of his famous wisdom.”
(online texts: Eng., Grk.)
Strabo, Geography 1.2.7-11, 6.1.5, 6.2.10
1.2.9: “Homer’s narrative is founded on history. He tells us that king Aeolus governed the Lipari Islands, that around Mount Aetna and Leontini dwelt the Cyclopae…”
(online text: Eng., Grk.)
1.2.11: “As for Strongyle, it is so called from its shape, and it too is fiery; it falls short in the violence of its flame, but excels in the brightness of its light; and this is where Aeolus lived, it is said.”
(online text: Eng., Grk.)
6.1.5: “Off this coast lie the islands of the Liparaei, at a distance of two hundred stadia from the Strait. According to some, they are the islands of Aeolus, of whom the poet makes mention in the Odyssey.”
(online text: Eng., Grk.)
6.2.10: “…certain of the men in Liparae, when the weather made sailing impossible, predicted, he says, the wind that was to blow, and they were not mistaken; from this fact, then, it is clear that that saying of the Poet which is regarded as most mythical of all was not idly spoken, but that he hinted at the truth when he called Aeolus ‘steward of the winds.’ ”
(online text: Eng., Grk.)
Pomponius Mela, Description of the World 2.120
“nearer Italy, Galata and those seven that they call the Isles of Aeolus]…”
(online text: Eng., Lat.)
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 3.92
“On this side of Sicily, facing the river Metaurus, at a distance of nearly 25 miles from Italy, are the seven islands called the Æolian, as also the Liparæan islands; by the Greeks they are called the Hephæstiades, and by our writers the Vulcanian Isles; they are called “Æolian” because in the Trojan times Æolus was king there.”
(online text: Eng., Lat.)
Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 1.574ff.
” Meantime fierce Boreas from his eyrie in Pangaeus spied the sails set to the wind in the midst of the deep, and straightway turns his rapid course to Aeolia and the Tyrrhene caves.”
(online text: Eng., Lat.)
Diodorus of Sicily, Library of History 4.67.6, 5.7-9
4.67.6: “Now Aeolus took possession of the islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea which are called after him “Aeolian” and founded a city to which he gave the name Lipara.”
(online text: Eng., Grk.)
5.7-9: “Aeolus, the son of Hippotes, came to Lipara with certain companions and married Cyanê, the daughter of Liparus; and after he had formed a government in which his followers and the natives shared equally he became king over the island… This is the Aeolus to whom, the myth relates, Odysseus came in the course of his wanderings.”
(online text: Eng., Grk.)
Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.11.3
“…[the People of Lipara] built a city on Cape Pachynum in Sicily, but were hard pressed in a war with the Elymi and Phoenicians, and driven out, but occupied the islands, from which they expelled the inhabitants if they were not still uninhabited, still called, as they are called by Homer, the Islands of Aeolus.”
(online text: Eng., Grk.)
