In Homer, Mount Neriton is the iconic peak of Ithaca, the wooded shoulder of land Odysseus uses as shorthand for his island whenever he names his home to strangers. It is the thing you see from the sea, the silhouette that means you have arrived. Teilo’s retelling keeps Ithaca itself vivid (the rough hills, the olive terraces, the harbors) but doesn’t pause to name the mountain by name. The geography is felt rather than mapped. When Odysseus speaks of Ithaca in the hall of Alcinous, it is the wildness and the weather that he reaches for, not the labeled summit. The mountain is in the silhouette of every “hills of Ithaca” line in the chapters; it just doesn’t carry its Homeric tag.
Mount Neriton
Ithaca's wooded mountain in Homer. The landmark Odysseus names when he says where he is from.