Long ago, in a little island called Ithaca, on the west coast of
Greece, there lived a king named Laertes. His kingdom was small
and mountainous. People used to say that Ithaca "lay like a shield
upon the sea," which sounds as if it were a flat country. But in
those times shields were very large, and rose at the middle into
two peaks with a hollow between them, so that Ithaca, seen far off
in the sea, with her two chief mountain peaks, and a cloven valley
between them, looked exactly like a shield. The country was so
rough that men kept no horses, for, at that time, people drove,
standing up in little light chariots with two horses; they never
rode, and there was no cavalry in battle: men fought from
chariots. When Ulysses, the son of Laertes, King of Ithaca grew
up, he never fought from a chariot, for he had none, but always on
foot.
If there were no horses in Ithaca, there was plenty of cattle. The
father of Ulysses had flocks of sheep, and herds of swine, and wild
goats, deer, and hares lived in the hills and in the plains. The
sea was full of fish of many sorts, which men caught with nets, and
with rod and line and hook.