Ithaka lay in the shadow of Mount Samos, situated towards the western end of Neriton (Peljesacs Peninsula) on whose summit the celebrated Orpheus was often depicted, sitting, strumming his lyre, from whence he left the world a legacy of diverse works—perhaps better called "songs"—of which now only a vague memory remains: an Argonautica (that served as a basis for a later Odyssey); a Lithica, a treatise on stones, and a number of prayers. Thus, Ithaka was, from earliest times onward, a city intimately associated with learning (one might think of a university town). In addition to lore regarding Orpheus is that of Kadmos, about whom, it was said, invented the method of writing and reading in the manner we do so today (as distinguished from the use of glyphs that represent diverse syllables).

The beginnings of the Iliad and Odyssey—perhaps originally a single continuum, to judge from various structural and narrative points of contact—occur in Ithaka: of the Iliad, it can be inferred with reasonable certainty that information about the Danaaan enemy that had come to conquer Troy and encamped scarcely 4 or 5 kilometers from Ithaka was collected by a group of bards—perhaps called omerones—and cast into the Catalogue of Ships (II, 494-759); as regards the Odyssey, there can be little doubt that Odysseus himself was the prime informant of the twelve misadventures that befell him upon his return from the Trojan War (xxiii, 310-343).