Mylai and Its Peninsula: Between History and Myth

This paper investigates how Mylai and its peninsula are depicted in Greek and Roman literary sources. It begins with an analysis of passages from historians such as Thucydides and Polybius, which insist on the strategic importance of the site from a military point of view. Following this, special attention is paid to other kinds of literary testimonies, which emphasise the physical environment of the area – in particular, the mythical tales that make Mylai one of the stops on the sea adventures of Odysseus and Orestes. In the end, it is pointed out that, regardless of their historical reliability, literary sources are the primary evidence to address the still numerous and unsolved topographic problems posed by the settlement of Mylai.