The Last Odyssey (Sigma Force #15) - James Rollins
Notes from the Historical Record
History is a fluid enterprise. Stories of events change depending on the viewpoint. It is often the victor who gets to tell the tale and cement myth into fact.
Take the twin epics of Homer—the Iliad and the Odyssey—two lyric poems that recount the Trojan War and its aftermath. These stories were believed to have been composed during the eighth century B.C., though most historians today doubt Homer even existed. This bard who sung tales of gods and monsters was likely just a convenient pseudonym, representing the many minstrels who recounted this turbulent story.
Still, to what degree were these two epics based on historical events and how much was pure fantasy?
For centuries, historians dismissed even the existence of Troy—a great city besieged by the Greeks and brought low by the trickery of the Trojan Horse, as recounted in the Iliad. Troy was believed to be a mythical place, a fantasy brought to life by Homer. Then in the late nineteenth century, a German amateur archaeologist named Heinrich Schliemann dug into a large hill at the Turkish site of Hisarlik and exposed the ruins of a great city. It would take many years, but eventually this buried complex was indeed identified as the lost city of Troy.
And just like that, myth became history.
But what about Homer’s Odyssey, the story of the great war hero Odysseus and his treacherous ten-year journey back to his island home of Ithaca? Here is a tale of hardship and ruin, of colossal monsters and witches, of god-sent storms and sirens who drove men mad. Surely none of this tale could be based on fact. Still, historians and archeologists continue to sift through the Odyssey, searching for clues, trying to map the route of Odysseus’s ship, even assigning geographical sites to places mentioned in this epic poem.
Case in point. A little over a decade ago, a British management consultant named Robert Bittlestone used modern-day geological tools to identify the site of Odysseus’s hometown of Ithaca, where the great warrior would return at the end of his epic journey. Archeologists had already dismissed the present-day island of Ithaca as this site, as the island failed to match Homer’s description in the Odyssey. Instead, Bittlestone proposed a new theory supported by evidence, pinpointing the Greek peninsula of Paliki as the true location of ancient Ithaca. His evidence was so convincing that James Diggle, a Cambridge University professor of Greek and Latin, declared, “It’s irresistible, and supported by geology . . . once you go over the terrain, there is an extraordinary match.”* Bittlestone’s conclusions were also supported by other scholars of ancient antiquity.*
Thus we have proof that the events recounted in the Odyssey have a true historical starting point (the city of Troy) and an end point (Ithaca). Such discoveries beg the question: What about everything in between? How much of Homer’s epic poems of gods and monsters could also be true?
It is now readily accepted that, despite the question of Homer’s identity, these stories do seem to recount a great war that truly happened. In fact, these two epics shine a light into an era known as the Greek Dark Ages, a turbulent time that saw the collapse of three Bronze Age civilizations: the Greek Mycenaeans, the Anatolian Hittites, and the Egyptians. How and why did this happen? Recent discoveries reveal that a series of battles did sweep the Mediterranean region. The fighting was so widespread that some historians declared this to be the first great global war, even calling it World War Zero. Much of this dark struggle still remains shrouded in mystery, though some archaeologists now believe there was a fourth civilization involved in this fighting, a civilization that defeated the other three—then vanished into the past.
If true, who were these lost people? Could Homer’s stories offer clues to their origin and where they went? The answers can be found within these pages and will shed light on a new world war threatening us today. So, consider yourselves forewarned—not all stories of gods and monsters are fiction.
Notes from the Scientific Record
We are a curious lot, us humans. Unfortunately, our curiosity sometimes leads us into more trouble than it does benefit us. Especially when it comes to inventions. The wheel came into widespread use around 3500 B.C., and since then, we’ve not stopped innovating to both improve our lives and to better understand it. The old adage “necessity is the mother of all invention” remains as true today as it did back in 3500 B.C.