The Circeo

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Circe's kingdom

The Circeo is the mountain that dominates this portion of the coast.
It is not exceptionally high (540 m) but its shape and its mighty emerge from the sea, they put it in great relief.

His fame dates back to the times of Ulysses and the Trojan war.
The Odyssey narrates that Ulysses and his companions stopped there and they remained there, prisoners of the Circe sorceress, who had turned them into pigs.

Circe's palace was on the island of Eea, which has always been identified with the Circeo mountain.
This is actually connected to the mainland by a thin strip of land, very low and remained swamp until the last century.

In addition to the prominent position, the Circeo is characterized by its profile: a person's body is clearly recognized, lying facing the sky.
In particular, the features of a face are very well recognized: nose, mouth, eyes, forehead, both from the terrestrial side and from that of the sea.

The nose is about 60 meters long, the forehead a hundred, and so on: enormous dimensions when compared to those of the famous Mount Rushmore, where the faces of the 4 American presidents, are altogether only 20 meters high.

There are no certain studies on the origin of the myth of Circe, but it is likely that it was born from the imagination of the ancient Greek sailors, who often sailed in this area and who needed landmarks to calculate their position at sea .

They were people who could see a Cart or a Lion in the dots of a few stars (now we can hardly distinguish only the major ones).

They had a fervent imagination: they saw divinities, monsters and wonders everywhere.
Such a well-defined face, not even feminine, could certainly recognize it from a thousand miles away!