Iliad Book 2, mapped
The Catalogue of Ships, Mapped
Iliad Book 2’s Catalogue of Ships (lines 494–759) names every Achaean contingent at Troy — dozens of leaders, cities, and ship counts, read in a block that most editions leave as a wall of proper names. The Homer Reader turns it into an explorable map: every contingent is a pin.
What the map shows
- Click a pin for a card listing that contingent’s leader(s), ship count, and home places — with a direct jump to its lines in the text.
- Every place identification is graded by a certainty tier — certain, traditional, speculative, or mythical — so the map is honest about how much the ancient geography is actually known versus inferred by later tradition.
- The Catalogue is one of four maps in the reader, alongside the Troad, Odysseus’s wanderings, and the real Greece of the poems; place names in the reading text link to the same pins.
Read the roster itself in Iliad Book 2, or open the map directly.
Questions
What is the Catalogue of Ships?
The long roster near the start of Iliad Book 2 (lines 494–759) that lists every Achaean contingent that sailed to Troy: its leader, its home cities, and how many ships it sent.
How reliable are the place identifications on the map?
Each place carries a certainty tier — certain, traditional, speculative, or mythical — and any identification made by later tradition rather than the poem itself names that tradition. The map never states an identification with more confidence than the evidence supports.
Can I jump from the map to the text?
Yes — every contingent’s card links straight to its lines in Iliad Book 2, and the explorer covers three other maps besides the Catalogue: the Troad, Odysseus’s wanderings, and the real Greece of the poems.