Ithaka: Ithaki or Leukada?

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: If Aquinas had had to present the theory of Dörpfeld: Ulisses' Ithaca was Leucada · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Ithaka: Ithaki or Leukada?

The Real Location of Odysseus’ Ithaca
Caleb Howells | 19 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWXPD8YICPw

2:19 what if you interpret "furthest off into the gloom" as "furthest west" if you consider the contrast with the other islands ("dawn"="east")?

2:30 To be more precise.

Kephalonia stretches further west on it's west point. However, another one is further west on the east point, when arriving from Pelopponesos.

One would pretty obviously want to sail inside the islands as they shield from winds outside.

It is also further off when arriving from the Pelopponesos.

Dörpfeld rejected Kephalonia, because he found it very convincing that traditional Kephalonia = Ulysses' Kephalonia.

[Tried* to add:]

My bad, Zakynthos = Zakynthos.

3:28 Ah, Leukada. Sounds much better.

4:39 Unlike you and like most, Dörpfeld accepts that Homer lived 3 to 4 C. after the Trojan War.

This means the harbour could be an anachronism.

On Dörpfeld's theory, the inhabitants of Ulysses' Ithaca were Ionians, and they fled to modern Thiaki when the Dorians arrived. On that view, it makes sense they would reconstruct the cultural environment, including a cave to Aphrodite.

Here is part of Dörpfeld's argument:

η πoυ τις νησων ευδειελoς ηε τις ακτη
κειθ' 'αλι κεκλιμενη εριβωλακο ηπειροιο;

Ulysses asks "is this an island or a cape"?

6:13 You have a point. I'd have taken "sun and dawn" as hen dia dys, but take them as two separate directions, Leukada still remains an option.

8:01 According to Dörpfeld, the inhabitants fled from Ithaka to Dolichion.

So, modern Ithaki = Ulysses' Dolichion.

Or that may be my bad memory, it's thirteen years since I read Dörpfeld in a library, and wiki attributes to Dörpfeld the idea that Same was modern Ithaka rather than modern Kephalonia. In that case modern Kephalonia would have been Dolichion.

9:09 What do you do with Dörpfeld's argument that Homer's Ithaka had some reminiscence of a peninsula as per:

η πoυ τις νησων ευδειελoς ηε τις ακτη
κειθ' 'αλι κεκλιμενη εριβωλακο ηπειροιο;

Dörpfeld thought it referred to the area between Leukada and the mainland with so little water Ulysses was unsure if it could count as making it a separate island?

I thought that Dörpfeld's strongest argument. Along with Dolichion not being a small island but one comparable to the other ones mentioned.**

* All of my comments disappeared.
** Ithaki has two major part joined by an Isthmus, which could explain the lines, they do not explain the disappearance of Dolichion.