Greek PantheonIsland
Aeaea (Circe's Island)
Aeaea, the island of the goddess Circe in Odyssey 10, where her drugs turned Odysseus's men into pigs until Hermes gave him the herb moly, and where he stayed a year before seeking the dead.
About Aeaea (Circe's Island)
Aeaea, the house in the glade
Circe's Aeaea in Odyssey 10 is a stone house, wolves and lions under spell, and a drug that turns men into pigs. Hermes gives moly; Odysseus beds the goddess, stays a year, and leaves with instructions for the dead and for the sea-road home. There is no civic cult of Aeaea. Later poets put the island off Italy. The stop is pharmacological and didactic: the witch becomes a guide.
On the map
Aeaea (Circe's Island) among other places of the Greek Pantheon.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Homer, Odyssey 10
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.
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