Aeolia (mythical island)

A photograph of the Aeolian Islands, showing Lipari in the middle, Salina to the left, and Panarea to the right. Overhead is a blue but cloudy sky. — A view of some modern Aeolian Islands, standing on Vulcano, with Lipari in the middle, Salina at the left, Panarea at the right

Aeolia (Ancient Greek: 'Αἰολία), the island kingdom of Aeolus, the ruler of the winds, visited by Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey. In the Odyssey, Aeolus' Aeolia was purely mythical, a floating island surrounded by "a wall of unbreakable bronze" where the "cliffs run up shear".^[1]

Homer does not say anything about where the island was located, but later writers came to associate Aeolia with one, or another, of the Lipari Islands (also called the Aeolian Islands), north of eastern Sicily.^[2] The Greek geographer Strabo, reports that Strongyle (modern Stromboli), one of the Lipari Islands, was said to be Aeolus' island.^[3] Others associated the island of Lipara (modern Lipari) with Aeolia.^[4]

Notes

^ Hard, p. 494; Tripp, s.v. Aeolus 2; Grimal, s.v. Aeolia 1; Smith, s.v. Aeolus; Homer, Odyssey 10.1–4.
^ Hard, p. 494; Tripp, s.v. Aeolus 2; Grimal, s.v. Aeolia 1; Smith, s.v. Aeolus.
^ Strabo, 6.2.11.
^ See Virgil, Aeneid 8.416; Pausanias, 10.11.3.

References

Grimal, Pierre, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996. ISBN 978-0-631-20102-1. Internet Archive.
Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004, ISBN 9780415186360. Google Books.
Homer, The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Strabo, Geography, translated by Horace Leonard Jones; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. (1924). LacusCurtis, Online version at the Perseus Digital Library, Books 6–14.
Tripp, Edward, Crowell's Handbook of Classical Mythology, Thomas Y. Crowell Co; First edition (June 1970). ISBN 069022608X.
Virgil, Aeneid, Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.

[1] Hard, p. 494; Tripp, s.v. Aeolus 2; Grimal, s.v. Aeolia 1; Smith, s.v. Aeolus; Homer, Odyssey 10.1–4.

[2] Hard, p. 494; Tripp, s.v. Aeolus 2; Grimal, s.v. Aeolia 1; Smith, s.v. Aeolus.

[3] Strabo, 6.2.11.

[4] See Virgil, Aeneid 8.416; Pausanias, 10.11.3.

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