Venetian rule in the Ionian Islands to south, including their Greek and Italian names in parentheses: Cythera and Lefkada were additionally called ' or ' and " respectively by the Ottomans. During the Roman Empire, the Ionian Islands were variously part of the provinces of Achaea and Epirus vetus. These would form, with the exception of Cythera, the Byzantine theme of Cephallenia in the late 8th century. From the late 11th century, the Ionian Islands became a battleground in the Byzantine–Norman Wars. The island of Corfu was held by the Normans in 1081–1085 and 1147–1149, while the Venetians unsuccessfully besieged it in 1122–1123. The island of
Ithaca Ithaca Ithaca, Ithaki or Ithaka (; Greek: Ιθάκη, "Ithakē" ) is a Greek island located in the Ionian Sea, off the northeast coast of Kefalonia and to the west of continental Greece. Ithaca's main island has an area of and had a population in 2011 of 3,231. It is the second-smallest of seven main Ionian Islands, after Paxi. Ithaca is a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. The capital is Vathy (or Vathi). Modern Ithaki is historically linked with Homer's Ithaca, the home of Odysseus, whose twenty-year absence is part