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  Magna Graecia: Greek Art From South Italy and Sicily > About the Exhibition > The Epic Landscape of Magna Graecia
 
 

The Epic Landscape of Magna Graecia

The dramatic landscapes and seascapes encountered by the Greek colonists still have the power to stir the imagination. The ancient traditions of Homer's epic wanderer Odysseus live on in South Italy and Sicily in modern place names.
On opposite sides of the strait of Messina, the multi-headed monster Skilla and the deadly whirlpool Charybdis are believed to have threatened the hero, Odysseus.


Off the eastern coast of Sicily lie the "Islands of the Cyclopes," said to be the giant boulders heaved at Odysseus' ships by the one-eyed giant Polyphemos in a fit of blind rage.
Polyphemos is believed to have lived in a nearby cave.
The island home of Aeolus, the keeper of the winds, was thought to be among the Lipari Islands in northern Sicily.
Mt. Etna, a dominating presence in the landscape of eastern Sicily, was mentioned by the epic poet Hesiod.

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