Poseidon's Rage

Historian Bettany Hughes is on the final leg of her Odyssey-inspired voyage and heading to the beautiful western islands that will lead her to Ithaca. She travels through the Corinth Canal - a feat of engineering that required the removal of 12 million cubic metres of earth. Follow her from the Peloponnesian city of Corinth, once a recruiting ground for Greek soldiers to fight in the Trojan War, then to Corfu, the "paradise on Earth" where Odysseus found salvation and a way to get back home. Here, her old friend Count Flamburiari reveals the island's close connections to Britain. From there, Bettany sails to Ithaca, Odysseus's home island, finally completing her 1,700-mile voyage across the Greek Islands. Like the Homeric hero she's been tracing, she encounters unsettling events that are, quite literally, earth-shaking. An earthquake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale awakes her in the night.