View of Plakotos & Homer's tomb, The north, Ios

Ios · The north · Πλακωτός, Τάφος του Ομήρου

Plakotos, where Homer is said to lie

At the northern tip of Ios, on the hill of Psathopyrgos above the bay of Plakotos, a stone doorway and a few walls among the rocks are known as the tomb of Homer. Herodotus, Pausanias and Strabo all tell the story that the poet died on Ios, and the islanders minted coins with his head in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. Below the hill are the remains of an ancient aqueduct and a Hellenistic tower. The view runs over an empty, wind-scoured coast to the open sea.

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The hill at the northern tip where, the ancient writers said, Homer died

The story of Plakotos & Homer's tomb

The legend is old and oddly specific. Homer, it was said, landed on Ios, where his mother Clymene came from, and met some fishermen's boys on the shore. Asked what they had caught, they answered: what we caught we left behind, and what we did not catch we carry with us. They meant the lice they had been picking. The poet could not solve the riddle, and died soon after, of grief or of illness, and was buried on the island. In 1771 a Dutch count, Pasch van Krienen, dug here looking for the grave, and the travellers Theodore and Mabel Bent came in 1884. Whatever lies under the stones, it is a fine place to be buried.

Good to know

Before you go to Plakotos & Homer's tomb

Getting there

A road runs north from Chora; leave the car where it ends and walk the last stretch up the hill on a path.

When to go

Late afternoon, when the light goes gold over the sea and the north wind drops.

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