335-6) and has the largest contingent of suitors, fifty two in total, who are led by Amphinomus, Penelope's favourite owing to his good nature (Od.
Disguised as the beggar Aethon of Crete, Odysseus claims that he arrived on Ithaca en route from Thesprotia to Dulichium, where he was to be received by its king.
[4] However, Strabo maintains that Dulichium was one of the Echinades, and identifies it with Dolicha (ἡ Δολίχα), an island which he describes as situated opposite Oeniadae and the mouth of the Achelous, and distant 100 stadia from the promontory of Araxos in Elis.
It is observed by Leake that Petalas, being the largest of the Echinades, and possessing the advantage of two well-sheltered harbours, seems to have the best claim to be considered the ancient Dulichium.
It is, indeed, a mere rock, but being separated only by a strait of a few hundred meters from the fertile plains at the mouth of the Achelous and river of Oenia, its natural deficiencies may have been there supplied, and the epithets of grassy and abounding in wheat, which Homer applies to Dulichium[7]—Δουλιχίου πολυπύρου, ποιήεντος—may be referred to that part of its territory.