Loading...
Key Details
Type
CaveMythology
Greek Pantheon
Coordinates
37.75°N, 15°E
About This Location
Polyphemus's fold
The cave in Odyssey 9 is a dairy and a prison: Polyphemus, son of Poseidon, eats six men, Odysseus names himself Nobody, blinds the eye, and rides out under the sheep. Homer places the Cyclopes on a lawless shore opposite a goat island; later tradition says Sicily. There is no hero-cult of the cave. Poseidon's anger in the rest of the poem starts here. The architecture is a single blocked door and a sharpened olive stake.
Primary Sources
“He broke off a piece of the door-stone and sat in the doorway, and milked his ewes and goats.”
More from Greek Pantheon
Mount Olympus
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.