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Key Details
Type
IslandMythology
Greek Pantheon
Coordinates
38.8°N, 15.2°E
About This Location
A bag of winds
Odyssey 10 opens on Aeolia, a floating island of bronze wall, where Aeolus Hippotades feasts Odysseus a month and bags the storm-winds, leaving only Zephyr to blow him home. Ithaca is in sight when the crew open the bag. The island then refuses him. There is no Aeolus temple in Homer. Later Aeolian Lipari claimed the king. The place is a meteorological palace whose one gift is squandered in sight of home.
Primary Sources
“He gave me a bag made of the hide of an ox, and in it he had bound the ways of the blustering winds.”
More from Greek Pantheon
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MountainThe highest mountain in Greece and the mythological home of the twelve Olympian gods.
The Underworld
RealmThe gloomy realm of the dead ruled by Hades, located deep beneath the earth.
Delphi
Sacred SiteThe site of the oracle of Apollo, considered the center of the world (omphalos) by the ancient Greeks.
Tartarus
UnderworldThe deepest abyss of the underworld, a dungeon of torment where the Titans were imprisoned and the wicked punished for eternity.
Elysian Fields
RealmA paradise at the end of the earth where heroes and the virtuous were sent after death to live in eternal bliss.
River Styx
Body Of WaterThe principal river of the underworld, upon which even the gods swore binding oaths. Charon ferried the dead across its dark waters.