The Cicones and the Lotus-Eaters

Also called: Lotophagi, Lotus-eaters, Cicones

A legend handed down over the centuries.

A Greek myth told in Book 9 of the Odyssey. Leaving Troy, Odysseus and his men sack a city of the Cicones but are driven off, then storms carry them to the land of the Lotus-Eaters. The men who taste the lotus forget their homes and have to be dragged back to the ships.

This Greek myth is the first adventure Odysseus recounts to the Phaeacians in Book 9 of Homer’s Odyssey. Leaving Troy with twelve ships, Odysseus first sacked Ismarus, a city of the Cicones in Thrace. While his men feasted on the shore and would not leave, the Cicones returned with help from their neighbours and drove them off; each ship lost six men.

Rounding Cape Malea, they were blown off course by the north wind for nine days and came to the land of the Lotophagi, who live on the fruit of the lotus. The men who tasted it forgot all thought of returning home and wished to stay, and Odysseus dragged them weeping to the ships and bound them there. Since antiquity this land has been placed on the Libyan coast (the island of Djerba in modern Tunisia). The English "lotus-eater", one lost in idle pleasure, comes from this story.