Between Torre Faro, in Sicily, and Punta Pezzo, in Calabria, the Strait of Messina is barely more than three kilometers wide. It is here, since antiquity, that Charybdis and Scylla are placed.
Homer makes it a two-jawed trap in Book XII of the Odyssey. Oceanographers describe one of the strongest tidal currents in the Mediterranean here.
Our old page stacked lists and mixed Homer, Ovid, and “thematic excursions” never verified. We have redone the file starting from the text, then measurements, then what is known about diving at Scilla.
What does the Odyssey say in Book XII?
In Book XII, the sorceress Circe warns Ulysses that two hazards await him, separated by an arrow’s range. On one side, Scylla watches from a cave perched on a cliff. On the other, under a large fig tree, Charybdis swallows the black water three times a day and spits it out three times. Circe advises to sail close to Scylla.
Her reasoning is cold. It is better to lose six men than the entire crew. Ulysses follows the advice, and Scylla takes six of his best companions, who shout his name as she devours them at the entrance of her cave.
The portrait of Scylla, in the Greek text, is precise and quite far from modern illustrations, since Homer gives her twelve deformed feet, six enormous necks, and at the end of each neck, a head armed with three rows of teeth. Her voice resembles that of a young puppy. Her mother’s name is Crataeis. No human weapon can kill her, says Circe, and fighting is useless. Ulysses arms himself anyway, out of reflex.
But the story does not end at the first passage.
After the sacrilege of the Sun’s cattle, which his companions slaughter despite the ban, Zeus strikes the ship with lightning. Ulysses, the sole survivor, drifts again toward Charybdis. He clings to the fig tree like a bat, waits for the whirlpool to return his mast and keel, then drifts for nine days before reaching Calypso’s island.
Where does the dog-headed Scylla come from?
She mainly comes from Ovid, in Book XIV of the Metamorphoses, written at the beginning of our era, several centuries after Homer. In his version, Scylla is a young woman loved by the sea god Glaucus. Circe, enamored with Glaucus, poisons the cove where Scylla bathes, and dogs sprout from the young woman’s waist.
Our old version attributed this metamorphosis to the Odyssey. That was false.
Homer tells no transformation. His Scylla is a monster by birth, without a past as a nymph or jealous rival. The name Glaucus never appears there. Ovid adds the love revenge, the dogs at the waist, and a petrified end, since Scylla ends changed into a rock. The tentacles seen in some video games come from neither.
For Charybdis, it is even less clear.
Late authors make her a daughter of Poseidon and Gaia, punished by Zeus for her gluttony. Thus the Homeric monster, a simple sucking force, receives a biography afterward, like many figures from the list of Greek sea deities we have already reviewed. If you cite a source, specify which one (Homer, Ovid, or a late commentator).
What really happens in the Strait of Messina?
The strait connects two basins whose tides are out of phase, the Tyrrhenian Sea to the north and the Ionian Sea to the south. When one rises, the other falls. Water then rushes from one basin to the other, and the strongest tidal currents there reach 300 centimeters per second or more, according to the study by Mosetti and Panza published in 1992.
Three meters per second is more than ten kilometers per hour.
The current direction reverses several times a day with the semi-diurnal tide rhythm. The same study reports internal waves with an amplitude greater than 100 meters and strong turbulence near the northern mouth, on the Scilla and Cape Peloro side. On the surface, these water encounters form eddies that the people of Messina call “garofali.” They are real. They do not swallow ships.
However, for a Greek rowing boat, a current capable of pushing it faster than it rows and sending it toward rocks was more than enough to feed a legend. Homer’s “three times a day” resembles a sailor’s observation, distorted by oral transmission. We cannot go further without speculating.
In short, the monster has a solid physical basis.
Can you dive at Scilla today?
Yes, diving centers operate in Scilla and along the Costa Viola, but the strait imposes its own rules. The current changes direction with the tide and can be strong, so the diver depends on the chosen time much more than on the weather forecast. Before booking, check the supervision, the water entry strategy, and the recovery plan.
The wildlife justifies the trip, without promising anything in return.
Between Scilla and Favazzina, researchers filmed with an underwater robot a meadow of black coral consisting of several thousand colonies (Antipathella subpinnata), mixed with sea fans, between 50 and 100 meters deep, according to Bo and his colleagues in 2009. The tops of the studied pinnacles are around 45 to 50 meters. The colonies grow on the northern slopes of the pinnacles, those that face directly the current coming from the Strait of Messina. These depths exceed the usual limits of recreational diving. To learn more about this species, our fact sheet on black coral details its biology.
For what level? Impossible to decide from here, due to the lack of published and dated depths for each coastal site. Yet it is the current of the day that sets the real difficulty. Ask the center for the maximum planned depth, the targeted slack tide time, the presence of a boat following the dive group, and the required surface marker buoy. Our guide on the diving surface marker buoy explains why it is so important in a drifting current.
A photo of a red sea fan tells nothing about the current of the dive.
If the center does not announce a schedule aligned with the tide, your cost will be easy to measure, since you may have to reschedule the dive, pay for an extra night on site, or give up the planned site.
What does “falling from Charybdis into Scylla” mean?
The expression refers to escaping one danger only to immediately fall into another, often worse. It comes from a Latin verse from the 12th century, “Incidis in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim,” taken from the Alexandreis by Gautier de Châtillon. French adopted it as is, with the two monsters in the same order.
It is often used incorrectly, as a simple synonym for a series of misfortunes, whereas the Latin verse speaks of a choice.
And yet the original meaning is more subtle. In Homer, Ulysses chooses Scylla. He accepts a certain and limited loss to avoid a total loss. It is a trade-off. The sailors of Messina made the same calculation facing the current, and the strait pilots still do with their tide charts.
Other monsters of this kind can be found among the most impressive mythological creatures, from the Kraken to the Leviathan, and Plato’s Atlantis shows another way to create a marine myth, as we recounted in our dossier on Atlantis and its research.
The current decides more than the legend. In Messina, it already decided for Ulysses, and it will also decide your next dive if you choose to see Scilla up close.
FAQ
Where are Charybdis and Scylla located?
Tradition places them in the Strait of Messina, between Sicily and Calabria. Scylla corresponds to the rock of Scilla, on the Calabrian side. Charybdis is associated with the whirlpools near Cape Peloro, on the Sicilian side.
How many heads does Scylla have?
Six, according to the twelfth canto of the Odyssey, each at the end of a long neck and armed with three rows of teeth. Homer also gives her twelve deformed feet. The dog heads at the waist come from Ovid, in the Metamorphoses.
Does the whirlpool of Charybdis exist?
There are whirlpools and strong tidal currents in the strait, caused by the phase opposition between the Tyrrhenian and Ionian tides. The strongest currents exceed 3 meters per second according to Mosetti and Panza (1992). No whirlpool swallows modern ships.
Can you dive in the Strait of Messina?
Diving centers operate in Scilla and on the Costa Viola. Dives depend on the tide, as the current changes direction several times a day. Ask for the targeted schedule, maximum depth, and surface recovery device before booking.
Sources
- Considerations on hydrodynamics in the Strait of Messina (F. Mosetti and G. F. Panza, Rendiconti Lincei, 1992)
- Characteristics of a black coral meadow in the twilight zone of the central Mediterranean Sea (M. Bo et al., Marine Ecology Progress Series, 2009)
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