Aeaea

Aeaea, Ææa or Eëä (/iːˈiːə/ ee-EE-ə or /əˈiːə/ ə-EE-ə; Ancient Greek: Αἰαία, romanized: Aiaíā [ai̯.ǎi̯.aː]) was a mythological island said to be the home of the goddess-sorceress Circe.

Before leaving Aeaea, Odysseus was given instructions by Circe about how to cross the ocean[1] and assisted by the North Wind to reach the underworld: When your ship has traversed the stream of Oceanus, you will reach the fertile shore of Persephone's country with its groves of tall poplars and willows that shed their fruit untimely; here beach your ship upon the shore of Oceanus, and go straight on to the dark abode of Hades.Homer describes Aeaea as covered with a mixture of pasture and dense woodland of oak and beech.

[3]( 4.654–661) In the same poem, Aeëtes remarks on the great distance between Colchis (on the Black Sea, in modern Georgia) and Aeaea in these terms: I noted it once after taking a ride in my father Helius' chariot when he was taking my sister Circe to the western land and we came to the coast of the Tyrrhenian mainland, where she dwells to this day, very far from the Colchian land Aeaea was later identified by classical Roman writers with Mount Circeo on Cape Circeo (Cape Circaeum) on the western coast of Italy – about 100 kilometers south of Rome – which at that time may have looked like an island owing to the marshes and sea surrounding its base, but which now is a small peninsula.

She married a king of Sarmatia, whom she poisoned, after which she fled into Italy ..."[4] Robert Graves (The Greek Myths) points out Aeaea as the island of Lošinj, near the Istrian peninsula in the north Adriatic Sea.

The narrow beach and the forests dedicated to Persephone would be there, in Acquedolci, and Sicily is the home of Circe's father Helios's sacred herds of oxen and sheep.