Pharmakos

And Athena, the daugter of Zeus, came near to them in the likeness of Mentor, both in form and voice.

That is why Halitherses spoke for Mentor at the assembly, Mentor was on his way to Odysseus. Most probably Mentor walked with the citizens untill he reached the back road of Dolios house. This means that the citizens were the first to arrive at Capo Dukato.

Odyssey Book 24 line 453-455 Barry B Powell
Geographica Book 10.2 part 9-10 Strabo

Similar rite performed in Rome at the Tarpeian Rock

It was an ancestral custom among the Leucadians, every year at the sacrifice performed in honor of Apollo, for some criminal to be flung from this rocky look-out for the sake of averting evil,

Strabo is telling us about the person that was to be flung from the leap annually. It was either a beggar like Ipsos or Odysseus, sometimes voluntarily. Or a criminal, a murderer like Odysseus, a misfit of society (see the button 'Apollo rite'). This is why Ipsos started the fight against Odysseus in the first place. In classical tradition the sacrifice is called Pharmakos (see the button 'Pharmakos'). Notice the spectators on a distance.

They must have been divided into two groups. One group wend to where the temple is, being spectators of the rites. The second and smaller group, the participants of the rites, who wend to the altar to show their new-born baby, their newly wedded wifes or their son that reached maturity to the god Apollo.

Spectators