Ancient Greek Transportation In Homer's Odyssey

Ancient Greek Transportation and The Odyssey
Silvia Hwang

In The Odyssey, Homer tells the reader only that Odysseus had a fast, black ship; most historians agree that he was on one of the warships he used to travel to Troy. After a victorious war, Odysseus struggles to sail back home to Ithaca. But was sailing the best way to travel? Transportation is an important aspect of any kind of civilization. While the Greeks were very advanced in sailing technologies, they were not as good with other methods of transportation. Thus, it was wise for Odysseus to sail to Ithaca, but warships were not the best method. Books about ancient Greek life tell us about the methods of transportation the Greeks most likely used. Because it was so long time ago, …show more content…
In his book, Sienkewicz states that failure to develop a more efficient type is sometimes taken as a measure of the lack of importance of land transport to ancient Greeks. Many people think of chariots when talking about transportation in Greece. Chariots were light vehicles with two wheels, usually drawn by a pair of horses and were designed to travel very fast. However, they were not used for general transportation, but rather for warfare and racing. Horses, too, were useless for long-distance travel, because people were not familiar with metal shoes. Stirrups and saddles had not been invented, which made horseback riding extremely painful and dangerous. The most common means of transporting goods over land was by wagons, which were pulled by oxen. However, they were way too slow. The top speed of an ox is about one and a half miles an hour, and the maximum distance that it can travel in a day is about eleven miles, so goods traveled extremely slowly. After the long war, Odysseus and his solders needed a fast way to get home. Chariots, horses, and wagons would not be appropriate for them. It was therefore sensible of Odysseus to travel by a