Greek PantheonIsland
Thrinacia
The island of the sun god Helios in Odyssey 12, pasture of his immortal cattle, where Odysseus's starving crew slaughtered the herds and were destroyed by Zeus's thunderbolt at sea.
About Thrinacia
Helios's cattle
Thrinacia in Odyssey 12 is the island of the Sun, with seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, unharmed until Odysseus sleeps and Eurylochus talks the starving crew into slaughter. The hides crawl; the meat lows on the spits. Helios demands vengeance; Zeus wrecks the ship. Sicily later claimed the name. There is no Helios cult described on the beach. The stop is a taboo about property of a god who sees everything.
On the map
Thrinacia 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 12
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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