Map of Ithaca City
Yes, there is another way to calculate the amount of souls in the city, that is by only using Eumaios' pigs.
Like we have seen earlier one pig a day is available for the citizens of Ithaca. As they are ordinary people and not feasting every day like the suitors, grown-ups consume 0,4kg only twice a month, that is about 7% of the pork the suitors are consuming. In that case there must be about 1664 grown-ups in the City and about 25% children (0-12 years old). That will make a total of 2218 inhabitants. An average family of 7 persons will need about 317 houses. This is very simular to our first calculation, 327. So let's use 320 houses for our next calculation.
The land needed to grow food and built a house for a family would be 500 square meters, in total 160.000 square meters for the city. That is 400 by 400 meters or a circle of about 500 meter wide. This fits the area behind Spartias Hill perfectly. At the right, the yellow outlines the fields as they are nowadays at Spartias, assuming nothing has changed in 3200 years. The dots represent the possible houses. I put over 300 of them on the map, but lost count. Anyhow, this is how Ithaca City could have looked like in Odysseus days.
Like we have seen earlier one pig a day is available for the citizens of Ithaca. As they are ordinary people and not feasting every day like the suitors, grown-ups consume 0,4kg only twice a month, that is about 7% of the pork the suitors are consuming. In that case there must be about 1664 grown-ups in the City and about 25% children (0-12 years old). That will make a total of 2218 inhabitants. An average family of 7 persons will need about 317 houses. This is very simular to our first calculation, 327. So let's use 320 houses for our next calculation.
The land needed to grow food and built a house for a family would be 500 square meters, in total 160.000 square meters for the city. That is 400 by 400 meters or a circle of about 500 meter wide. This fits the area behind Spartias Hill perfectly. At the right, the yellow outlines the fields as they are nowadays at Spartias, assuming nothing has changed in 3200 years. The dots represent the possible houses. I put over 300 of them on the map, but lost count. Anyhow, this is how Ithaca City could have looked like in Odysseus days.
The circle is 500m wide