It was in 1900 that Dr. Dörpfeld first proclaimed, to the German Institute at Athens, that Leukas and not Thiaki was the Ithaka of Homer. In 1902 he read to theArchäologische Gesellschaftof Berlin a paper on the subject, which in 1903 was published inMélanges Perrot. To this paper Wilamowitz gave a scathing and even contemptuous reply in 1903, and Dörpfeld rejoined in hisLeukas, 1905, which also contains his original essay. Since then the controversy has raged without intermission, but it has

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... en almost confined to Germany. This country has not so far contributed any comprehensive paper on the subject, and it would not be easy, so many are the matters that the dispute embraces, and so warm and minute has the discussion become, to prepare a statement with less than a considerable volume at one's disposal. I therefore propose to confine myself here to one of the points in the controversy, and I select that which the Leukadists, as they are called for short, regard as supplying the best evidence in their favour, and which is consequently noticed in nearly all papers and treatises on the subject. This includes the incident of the return voyage of Telemachus from Pylos to Ithaka, his escape from the ambush laid for him by the Wooers at the island Homer calls Asteris, and the identification of that island on the modern map.