Fortunate Isles

The Fortunate Isles or Isles of the Blessed[1] (Greek:

, makrn nsoi) were semi-legendary
islands in the Atlantic Ocean, variously treated as a simple
geographical location and as a winterless earthly paradise
inhabited by the heroes of Greek mythology. The related idea of Brasil and other islands in Celtic mythology are sometimes conated with the Greek place. These
boundaries were dierent in the ancient world, then it
is the western Mediterranean to the island of Sicily, the
Aeolian Islands, the Aegadian Islands or other smaller islands of Sicily. Later these islands were thought to lie
in the Western Ocean near the encircling River Oceanus;
Madeira, Canary Islands, Azores, Cape Verde, Bermuda
and Lesser Antilles have sometimes been cited as possible matches.

It was from these men that Sertorius learned facts so beguiling that he made it his lifes ambition to nd the islands and retire there.
Pliny the Elder's Natural History adds to the obligate
description that they abound in fruit and birds of every
kind the unexpected detail These islands, however,
are greatly annoyed by the putrefying bodies of monsters,
which are constantly thrown up by the sea.
Ptolemy used these islands as the reference for the measurement of geographical longitude and they continued to
play the role of dening the prime meridian through the
Middle Ages.[3] Modern geography names these islands
as Macaronesia.
Lucio Russo in L' America dimenticata[4] puts forward the
bold hypothesis that the Fortunate Isles were actually the
Lesser Antilles and that Hipparchus knew their longitude
with remarkable precision.

Legend

According to Greek mythology, the islands were reserved

for those who had chosen to be reincarnated thrice, and
managed to be judged as especially pure enough to gain
entrance to the Elysian Fields all three times. Feature
of the fortunate islands is the connection with the god
Cronus; the cult of Cronus had spread and connected to
Sicily, in particular in the area near Agrigento where it
was revered and in some areas associated with the cult of
the phoenician god Baal.

3 See also
Greek mythology in popular culture
Hesperides
Snake Island (Black Sea), Isle of the Blessed in
Greek legend.
Annwn

Brittia

Accounts

Elysium
Flavius Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana (v.2)
says, And they also say that the Islands of the Blessed are
to be xed by the limits of Libya where they rise towards
the uninhabited promontory. In this geography Libya
was considered to extend westwards through Mauretania
as far as the mouth of the river Salex, some nine hundred
stadia, and beyond that point a further distance which
no one can compute, because when you have passed this
river Libya is a desert which no longer supports a population.

Mag Mell
Tr na ng
Avalon, The Isle of the Blessed
Aman, the blessed realm of Tolkien's works.
Buyan
Macaronesia

Plutarch, who refers to the fortunate isles several times

in his writings, locates them rmly in the Atlantic in his
vita of Sertorius. Sertorius, when struggling against a
chaotic civil war in the closing years of the Roman Republic, had tidings from mariners of certain islands a few
days sail from Hispania:

Vinland
Great Ireland
Avalon
1

4 NOTES

Notes

[1] Variously also rendered as the Fortunate Islands, the Islands of the Blessed, the Isles of the Blest, and the Islands of the Blest.
[2] Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, ch. viii.
[3] Wright, John Kirtland (1923). Notes on the Knowledge
of Latitudes and Longitudes in the Middle Ages. Isis 5
(1): 7598. doi:10.1086/358121. JSTOR 223599.
[4] Lucio Russo, L' America dimenticata. I rapporti tra le
civilt e un errore di Tolomeo (2013)

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

5.1

Text

Fortunate Isles Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortunate%20Isles?oldid=655121054 Contributors: Error, Renato Caniatti, Wetman,

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