No More Learning

One man rows, the other stands on the prow,
spear in hand, while the look-out has to signal the appearance of a
sword-fish. (This fish, when swimming, has about a third of its body
above water. ) As it passes the boat, the fisher darts the spear from his
hand, and when this is withdrawn, it leaves the sharp point with which
it is furnished sticking in the flesh of the fish: this point is
barbed, and loosely fixed to the spear for the purpose; it has a long
end fastened to it; this they pay out to the wounded fish, till it is
exhausted with its struggling and endeavours at escape. Afterwards they
trail it to the shore, or, unless it is too large and full-grown, haul
it into the boat. If the spear should fall into the sea, it is not lost,
for it is jointed of oak and pine, so that when the oak sinks on account
of its weight, it causes the other end to rise, and thus is easily
recovered. It sometimes happens that the rower is wounded, even through
the boat, and such is the size of the sword with which the galeote is
armed, such the strength of the fish, and the method of the capture,
that [in danger] it is not surpassed by the chase of the wild boar. From
these facts (he says) we may conclude that Ulysses’ wanderings were
close to Sicily, since Homer describes Scylla[122] as engaging in a
pursuit exactly similar to that which is carried on at Scyllæum. As to
Charybdis, he describes just what takes place at the Strait of Messina:

“Each day she _thrice_ disgorges,”[123]

instead of _twice_, being only a mistake, either of the scribe or the
historian.

17. The customs of the inhabitants of Meninx[124] closely correspond to
the description of the Lotophagi. If any thing does not correspond, it
should be attributed to change, or to misconception, or to poetical
licence, which is made up of history, rhetoric, and fiction. Truth is
the aim of the historical portion, as for instance in the Catalogue of
Ships,[125] where the poet informs us of the peculiarities of each
place, that one is rocky, another the furthest city, that this abounds
in doves, and that is maritime. A lively interest is the end of the
rhetorical, as when he points to us the combat; and of the fiction,
pleasure and astonishment. A mere fabrication would neither be
persuasive nor Homeric; and we know that his poem is generally
considered a scientific treatise, notwithstanding what Eratosthenes may
say, when he bids us not to judge poems by the standard of intellect,
nor yet look to them for history.

It is most probable that the line

“Nine days by cruel storms thence was I borne
Athwart the fishy deep,”[126]

should be understood of merely a short distance, (for cruel storms do
not blow in a right course,) and not of being carried beyond the ocean,
as if impelled by favourable winds. “And,” says Polybius, “allowing the
distance from Malea[127] to the Pillars to be 22,500 stadia, and
supposing the rate of passage was the same throughout the nine days, the
voyage must have been accomplished at the speed of 2500 stadia per diem:
now who has ever recorded that the passage from Lycia or Rhodes to
Alexandria, a distance of 4000 stadia, has been made in two days? To
those who demand how it was that Ulysses, though he journeyed thrice to
Sicily, never once navigated the Strait, we reply that, long after his
time, voyagers always sedulously avoided that route. ”

18. Such are the sentiments of Polybius; and in many respects they are
correct enough; but when he discusses the voyage beyond the ocean, and
enters on minute calculations of the proportion borne by the distance to
the number of days, he is greatly mistaken. He alleges perpetually the
words of the poet,

“Nine days by cruel storms thence was I borne;”

but at the same time he takes no notice of this expression, which is his
as well,

“And now borne sea-ward from the river stream
Of the Oceanus;”[128]

and this,

“In the island of Ogygia, the centre of the sea,”[129]

and that the daughter of Atlas[130] dwells there. And the following
concerning the Phæacians,

“Remote amid the billowy deep, we hold
Our dwelling, utmost of all human kind,
And free from mixture with a foreign race. ”[131]

These passages clearly refer to the Atlantic Ocean,[132] but though so
plainly expressed, Polybius slily manages to overlook them. Here he is
altogether wrong, though quite correct about the wandering of Ulysses
having taken place round Sicily and Italy, a fact which Homer
establishes himself. Otherwise, what poet or writer could have persuaded
the Neapolitans to assert that they possessed the tomb of
Parthenope[133] the Siren, or the inhabitants of Cumæ, Dicæarchia,[134]
and Vesuvius [to bear their testimony] to Pyriphlegethon, the Marsh of
Acherusia,[135] to the oracle of the dead which was near Aornus,[136]
and to Baïus and Misenus,[137] the companions of Ulysses. The same is
the case with the Sirenussæ, and the Strait of Messina, and Scylla, and
Charybdis, and Æolus, all which things should neither be examined into
too rigorously, nor yet [despised] as groundless and without foundation,
alike remote from truth and historic value.

19. Eratosthenes seems to have had something like this view of the case
himself, when he says, “Any one would believe that the poet intended the
western regions as the scene of Ulysses’ wanderings, but that he has
departed from fact, sometimes through want of perfect information, at
other times because he wished to give to scenes a more terrific and
marvellous appearance than they actually possessed. ” So far this is
true, but his idea of the object which the poet had in view while
composing, is false; real advantage, not trifling, being his aim. We may
justly reprehend his assertion on this point, as also where he says,
that Homer places the scene of his marvels in distant lands that he may
lie the more easily. Remote localities have not furnished him with near
so many wonderful narrations as Greece, and the countries thereto
adjacent; witness the labours of Hercules, and Theseus, the fables
concerning Crete, Sicily, and the other islands; besides those connected
with Cithærum, Helicon,[138] Parnassus,[139] Pelion,[140] and the whole
of Attica and the Peloponnesus. Let us not therefore tax the poets with
ignorance on account of the myths which they employ, and since, so far
from myth being the staple, they for the most part avail themselves of
actual occurrences, (and Homer does this in a remarkable degree,) the
inquirer who will seek how far these ancient writers have wandered into
fiction, ought not to scrutinize to what extent the fiction was carried,
but rather what is the truth concerning those places and persons to
which the fictions have been applied; for instance, whether the
wanderings of Ulysses did actually occur, and where.

20. On the whole, however, it is not proper to place the works of Homer
in the common catalogue of other poets, without challenging for him a
superiority both in respect of his other [excellences] and also for the
geography on which our attention is now engaged.

If any one were to do no more than merely read through the Triptolemus
of Sophocles, or the prologue to the Bacchæ of Euripides, and then
compare them with the care taken by Homer in his geographical
descriptions, he would at once perceive both the difference and
superiority of the latter, for wherever there is necessity for
arrangement in the localities he has immortalized, he is careful to
preserve it as well in regard to Greece, as to foreign countries.

“They
On the Olympian summit thought to fix
Huge Ossa, and on Ossa’s towering head
Pelion with all his forests. ”[141]

“And Juno starting from the Olympian height
O’erflew Pieria and the lovely plains
Of broad Emathia;[142] soaring thence she swept
The snow-clad summit of the Thracian hills[143]
Steed-famed, nor printed, as she pass’d, the soil,

* * * * *

From Athos[144] o’er the foaming billows borne. ”[145]

In the Catalogue he does not describe his cities in regular order,
because here there was no necessity, but both the people and foreign
countries he arranges correctly. “Having wandered to Cyprus, and
Phœnice, and the Egyptians, I came to the Ethiopians, and Sidonians, and
Erembi, and Libya. ”[146] Hipparchus has drawn attention to this. But the
two tragedians, where there was great necessity for proper arrangement,
one[147] where he introduces Bacchus visiting the nations, the
other[148] Triptolemus sowing the earth, have brought in juxta-position
places far remote, and separated those which were near.

“And having left the wealthy lands of the Lydians and Phrygians, and the
sunny plains of the Persians and the Bactrian walls, and having come
over the stormy land of the Medes, and the Happy Arabia. ”[149] And the
Triptolemus is just as inaccurate.

Further, in respect to the winds and climates, Homer shows the wide
extent of his geographical knowledge, for in his topographical
descriptions he not unfrequently informs us of both these matters. Thus,

“My abode
Is sun-burnt Ithaca.
Flat on the deep she lies, farthest removed
Toward the west, while situate apart,
Her sister islands face the rising day. ”[150]

And,

“It has a two-fold entrance,
One towards the north, the other south. ”[151]

And again,

“Which I alike despise, speed they their course
With right-hand flight towards the ruddy east,
Or leftward down into the shades of eve. ”[152]

Ignorance of such matters he reckons no less than confusion.

“Alas! my friends, for neither west
Know we, nor east; where rises or where sets
The all-enlightening sun. ”[153]

Where the poet has said properly enough,

“As when two adverse winds, blowing from Thrace,
Boreas and Zephyrus,”[154]

Eratosthenes ill-naturedly misrepresents him as saying in an absolute
sense, that the west wind blows from Thrace; whereas he is not speaking
in an absolute sense at all, but merely of the meeting of contrary winds
near the bay of Melas,[155] on the Thracian sea, itself a part of the
Ægæan. For where Thrace forms a kind of promontory, where it borders on
Macedonia,[156] it takes a turn to the south-west, and projects into
the ocean, and from this point it seems to the inhabitants of Thasos,
Lemnos, Imbros, Samothracia,[157] and the surrounding sea, that the west
winds blow. [158] So in regard to Attica, they seem to come from the
rocks of Sciros,[159] and this is the reason why all the westerly winds,
the north-west more particularly, are called the Scirones. Of this
Eratosthenes was not aware, though he suspected as much, for it was he
who described this bending of the land [towards the south-west] which we
have mentioned. But he interprets our poet in an absolute sense, and
then taxes him with ignorance, because, says he, “Zephyr blows from the
west, and off Spain, and Thrace does not extend so far. ” Does he then
think that Homer was not aware that Zephyr came from the west,
notwithstanding the careful manner in which he distinguishes its
position when he writes as follows:

“The east, the south, the heavy-blowing Zephyr,
And the cold north-wind clear. ”[160]

Or was he ignorant that Thrace did not extend beyond the Pæonian and
Thessalian mountains. [161] To be sure he was well acquainted with the
position of the countries adjoining Thrace in that direction, and does
he not mention by name both the maritime and inland districts, and tells
us of the Magnetæ,[162] the Malians,[163] and other Grecian
[territories], all in order, as far as Thesprotis;[164] also of the
Dolopes[165] bordering on Pæonia, and the Sellæ who inhabit the
territory around Dodona[166] as far as the [river] Achelous,[167] but he
never mentions Thrace, as being beyond these. He has evidently a
predilection for the sea which is nearest to him, and with which he is
most familiar, as where he says,

“Commotion shook
The whole assembly, such as heaves the flood
Of the Icarian deep. ”[168]

21. Some writers tell us there are but two principal winds, the north
and south, and that the other winds are only a slight difference in the
direction of these two. That is, (supposing only two winds, the north
and south,) the south wind from the commencement of the summer quarter
blows in a south-easterly direction; and from the commencement of the
winter quarter from the east. The north wind from the decline of the
summer, blows in a westerly direction, and from the decline of the
winter, in a north-westerly direction.

In support of this opinion of the two winds they adduce Thrasyalces and
our poet himself, forasmuch as he mentions the north-west with the
south,

“From the north-west south,”[169]

and the west with the north,

“As when two adverse winds, blowing from Thrace,
Boreas and Zephyrus. ”[170]

But Posidonius remarks that none of those who are really acquainted with
these subjects, such as Aristotle, Timosthenes, and Bion the
astronomer, entertain so mistaken an opinion in regard to the winds.
They say that the north-east (Cæcias) blows from the commencement of
summer, and that the south-west wind (Libs), which is exactly opposite
to this, blows from the decline of winter. And again, the south-east
wind (Eurus), which is opposite to the north-west wind (Argestes), from
the commencement of winter. The east and west winds being intermediate.

When our poet makes use of the expression “stormy zephyr,” he means the
wind which is now called by us the north-west; and by the “clear-blowing
zephyr” our west wind; our Leuconotus is his Argestes-notus, or clearing
south wind,[171] for this wind brings but few clouds, all the other
southern winds bringing clouds and rain,[172]

“As when whirlwinds of the west
A storm encounter from the clearing south. ”[173]

Here he alludes to the stormy zephyr, which very frequently scatters the
feathery clouds brought up by the Leuconotus, or, as it is called by way
of epithet, the clearing south.

The statements made by Eratosthenes in the first book of his Geography,
require some such correction as this.

22. Persisting in his false views in relation to Homer, he goes on to
say, “He was ignorant that the Nile separated into many mouths, nay, he
was not even acquainted with the name of the river, though Hesiod knew
it well, for he even mentions it. ”[174] In respect of the name, it is
probable that it had not then been given to the river, and as to the
mouths, if they were obscure and little known, will not every one excuse
him for not being aware whether there were several or merely one? At
that time, the river, its rising, and its mouths were considered, as
they are at the present day, amongst the most remarkable, the most
wonderful, and most worthy of recording of all the peculiarities of
Egypt: who can suppose that those who told our poet of the country and
river of Egypt, of Egyptian Thebes, and of Pharos, were unaware of the
many embouchures of the Nile; or that being aware, they would not have
described them, were it not that they were too generally known? “But is
it not inconceivable that Homer should describe Ethiopia, and the
Sidonians, the Erembi, and the Exterior Sea,[175]—should tell us that
Ethiopia was divided into two parts, and yet nothing about those things
which were nearer and better known? ” Certainly not, his not describing
these things is no proof that he was not acquainted with them. He does
not tell us of his own country, nor yet many other things. The most
probable reason is, they were so generally known that they did not
appear to him worth recording. [176]

23. Again, they are entirely wrong when they allege as a mark of Homer’s
ignorance, that he describes the island of Pharos[177] as entirely
surrounded by the sea. On the contrary, it might be taken advantage of
as a proof that our poet was not unacquainted with a single one of the
points concerning Egypt which we have just been speaking of: and thus we
demonstrate it:—Every one is prone to romance a little in narrating
his travels, and Menelaus was no exception to the rule. He had been to
Ethiopia,[178] and there heard much discussion concerning the sources of
the Nile, and the alluvium which it deposited, both along its course and
also at its mouths, and the large additions which it had thereby made to
the mainland, so as fully to justify the remark of Herodotus[179] that
the whole of Egypt was a gift from the river; or if not the whole, at
all events that part of it below the Delta, called Lower Egypt. He had
heard too that Pharos was entirely surrounded by sea, and therefore
misrepresented it as entirely surrounded by the sea, although it had
long ago ceased so to be. Now the author of all this was Homer, and we
therefore infer that he was not ignorant concerning either the sources
or the mouths of the Nile.

24. They are again mistaken when they say that he was not aware of the
isthmus between the sea of Egypt and the Arabian Gulf, and that his
description is false,

“The Ethiopians, utmost of mankind,
These eastward situate, those toward the west. ”[180]

Nevertheless he is correct, and the criticism of the moderns is quite
out of place: indeed, there is so little truth in the assertion that
Homer was ignorant of this isthmus, that I will venture to affirm he was
not only acquainted with it, but has also accurately defined it. But
none of the grammarians, not even the chiefs of their number,
Aristarchus and Crates, have understood the words of our poet on this
subject. For they disagree as to the words which follow this expression
of Homer,

“The Ethiopians, utmost of mankind,
These eastward situate, those towards the west,”[181]

Aristarchus writing,

“These towards the west, and those towards the east,”

and Crates,

“As well in the west as also in the east. ”

However, in regard to their hypotheses, it makes no difference whether
the passage were written this way or that. One of them, in fact, takes
what he considers the mathematical view of the case, and says that the
torrid zone is occupied by the ocean,[182] and that on each side of this
there is a temperate zone, one inhabited by us and another opposite
thereto. And as we call the Ethiopians, who are situated to the south,
and dwell along the shores of the ocean, the most distant on the face of
the inhabited globe; so he supposed that on the other side of the
ocean,[183] there were certain Ethiopians dwelling along the shores, who
would in like manner be considered the most distant[184] by the
inhabitants of the other temperate zone; and thus that the Ethiopians
were double, separated into two divisions by the ocean. He adds, “as
well in the west as also in the east,” because as the celestial zodiac
always corresponds to the terrestrial, and never exceeds in its
obliquity the space occupied by the two Ethiopias, the sun’s entire
course must necessarily be within this space, and also his rising and
setting, as it appears to different nations according to the sign which
he may be in.

He (Crates) adopted this version, because he considered it the more
astronomical. But it would have maintained his opinion of the division
of the Ethiopians into two parts, and at the same time have been much
more simple, had he said that the Ethiopians dwelt on either side of the
ocean from the rising to the setting of the sun. In this case what
difference does it make whether we follow his version, or adopt the
reading of Aristarchus,

“These towards the west, and those towards the east? ”

which also means, that whether east or west, on either side of the
ocean, Ethiopians dwell. But Aristarchus rejects this hypothesis. He
says, “The Ethiopians with whom we are acquainted, and who are farthest
south from the Greeks, are those described by the poet as being
separated into two divisions. But Ethiopia is not so separated as to
form two countries, one situated towards the west, the other towards the
east, but only one, that which lies south of the Greeks and adjoins
Egypt; but of this the poet was ignorant, as well as of other matters
enumerated by Apollodorus, which he has falsely stated concerning
various places in his second book, containing the catalogue of the
ships. ”

25. To refute Crates would require a lengthened argument, which here
perhaps may be considered out of place. Aristarchus we commend for
rejecting the hypothesis of Crates, which is open to many objections,
and for referring the expression of the poet to our Ethiopia. But the
remainder of his statement we must discuss. First, his minute
examination of the reading is altogether fruitless, for whichever way it
may have been written, his interpretation is equally applicable to both;
for what difference is there whether you say thus—In our opinion there
are two Ethiopias, one towards the east, the other to the west; or
thus—For they are as well towards the east as the west? Secondly, he
makes false assumptions. For admitting that the poet was ignorant of the
isthmus,[185] and that he alludes to the Ethiopia contiguous to Egypt,
when he says,

The Ethiopians separated into two divisions;[186]

what then? Are they not separated into two divisions, and could the poet
have thus expressed himself if he had been in ignorance? Is not Egypt,
nay, are not the Egyptians, separated into two divisions by the Nile
from the Delta to Syene,[187]

These towards the west, those towards the east?

And what else is Egypt, with the exception of the island formed by the
river and overflowed by its waters; does it not lie on either side of
the river both east and west?

Ethiopia runs in the same direction as Egypt, and resembles it both in
its position with respect to the Nile, and in its other geographical
circumstances. It is narrow, long, and subject to inundation; beyond the
reach of this inundation it is desolate and parched, and unfitted for
the habitation of man; some districts lying to the east and some to the
west of [the river]. How then can we deny that it is separated into two
divisions? Shall the Nile, which is looked upon by some people as the
proper boundary line between Asia and Libya,[188] and which extends
southward in length more than 10,000 stadia, embracing in its breadth
islands which contain populations of above ten thousand men, the largest
of these being Meroe, the seat of empire and metropolis of the
Ethiopians, be regarded as too insignificant to divide Ethiopia into two
parts? The greatest obstacle which they who object to the river being
made the line of demarcation between the two continents are able to
allege, is, that Egypt and Ethiopia are by this means divided, one part
of each being assigned to Libya, and the other to Asia, or, if this will
not suit, the continents cannot be divided at all, or at least not by
the river.

26. But besides these there is another method of dividing Ethiopia. All
those who have sailed along the coasts of Libya, whether starting from
the Arabian Gulf,[189] or the Pillars,[190] after proceeding a certain
distance, have been obliged to turn back again on account of a variety
of accidents; and thus originated a general belief that it was divided
midway by some isthmus, although the whole of the Atlantic Ocean is
confluent, more especially towards the south. Besides, all of these
navigators called the final country which they reached, Ethiopia, and
described it under that name. Is it therefore at all incredible, that
Homer, misled by such reports, separated them into two divisions, one
towards the east and the other west, not knowing whether there were any
intermediate countries or not? But there is another ancient tradition
related by Ephorus, which Homer had probably fallen in with. He tells us
it is reported by the Tartessians,[191] that some of the Ethiopians, on
their arrival in Libya,[192] penetrated into the extreme west, and
settled down there, while the rest occupied the greater part of the
sea-coast; and in support of this statement he quotes the passage of
Homer,

The Ethiopians, the farthest removed of men, separated into two
divisions.

27. These and other more stringent arguments may be urged against
Aristarchus and those of his school, to clear our poet from the charge
of such gross ignorance. I assert that the ancient Greeks, in the same
way as they classed all the northern nations with which they were
familiar under the one name of Scythians, or, according to Homer,
Nomades, and afterwards becoming acquainted with those towards the
west, styled them Kelts and Iberians; sometimes compounding the names
into Keltiberians, or Keltoscythians, thus ignorantly uniting various
distinct nations; so I affirm they designated as Ethiopia the whole of
the southern countries towards the ocean. Of this there is evidence, for
Æschylus, in the Prometheus Loosed,[193] thus speaks:

There [is] the sacred wave, and the coralled bed of the Erythræan
Sea, and [there] the luxuriant marsh of the Ethiopians, situated
near the ocean, glitters like polished brass; where daily in the
soft and tepid stream, the all-seeing sun bathes his undying
self, and refreshes his weary steeds.

And as the ocean holds the same position in respect to the sun, and
serves the same purpose throughout the whole southern region,[194]
he[195] therefore concludes that the Ethiopians inhabited the whole of
the region.

And Euripides in his Phaeton[196] says that Clymene was given

“To Merops, sovereign of that land
Which from his four-horsed chariot first
The rising sun strikes with his golden rays;
And which its swarthy neighbours call
The radiant stable of the Morn and Sun. ”

Here the poet merely describes them as the common stables of the Morning
and of the Sun; but further on he tells us they were near to the
dwellings of Merops, and in fact the whole plot of the piece has
reference to this. This does not therefore refer alone to the [land]
next to Egypt, but rather to the whole southern country extending along
the sea-coast.

28. Ephorus likewise shows us the opinion of the ancients respecting
Ethiopia, in his Treatise on Europe. He says, “If the whole celestial
and terrestrial globe were divided into four parts, the Indians would
possess that towards the east, the Ethiopians towards the south, the
Kelts towards the west, and the Scythians towards the north. ” He adds
that Ethiopia is larger than Scythia; for, says he, it appears that the
country of the Ethiopians extends from the rising to the setting of the
sun in winter; and Scythia is opposite to it.

It is evident this was the opinion of Homer, since he places Ithaca

Towards the gloomy region,[197]

that is, towards the north,[198] but the others apart,

Towards the morning and the sun,

by which he means the whole southern hemisphere: and again when he says,

“speed they their course
With right-hand flight towards the ruddy east,
Or leftward down into the shades of eve. ”[199]

And again,

“Alas! my friends, for neither west
Know we, nor east, where rises or where sets
The all-enlightening sun. ”[200]

Which we shall explain more fully when we come to speak of Ithaca. [201]

When therefore he says,

“For to the banks of the Oceanus,
Where Ethiopia holds a feast to Jove,
He journey’d yesterday,”[202]

we should take this in a general sense, and understand by it the whole
of the ocean which washes Ethiopia and the southern region, for to
whatever part of this region you direct your attention, you will there
find both the ocean and Ethiopia. It is in a similar style he says,

“But Neptune, traversing in his return
From Ethiopia’s sons the mountain heights
Of Solymè, descried him from afar. ”[203]

which is equal to saying, “in his return from the southern
regions,”[204] meaning by the Solymi, as I remarked before, not those of
Pisidia, but certain others merely imaginary, having the same name, and
bearing the like relation to the navigators in [Ulysses’] ship, and the
southern inhabitants there called Ethiopians, as those of Pisidia do in
regard to Pontus and the inhabitants of Egyptian Ethiopia. What he says
about the cranes must likewise be understood in a general sense.

“Such clang is heard
Along the skies, when from incessant showers
Escaping, and from winter’s cold, the cranes
Take wing, and over ocean speed away.
Woe to the land of dwarfs! prepared they fly
For slaughter of the small Pygmæan race. ”[205]

For it is not in Greece alone that the crane is observed to emigrate to
more southern regions, but likewise from Italy and Iberia,[206] from
[the shores of] the Caspian, and from Bactriana. But since the ocean
extends along the whole southern coast, and the cranes fly to all parts
of it indiscriminately at the approach of winter, we must likewise
believe that the Pygmies[207] were equally considered to inhabit the
whole of it.

And if the moderns have confined the term of Ethiopians to those only
who dwell near to Egypt, and have also restricted the Pygmies in like
manner, this must not be allowed to interfere with the meaning of the
ancients. We do not speak of all the people who fought against Troy as
merely Achæans and Argives, though Homer describes the whole under those
two names. Similar to this is my remark concerning the separation of the
Ethiopians into two divisions, that under that designation we should
understand the whole of the nations inhabiting the sea-board from east
to west. The Ethiopians taken in this sense are naturally separated into
two parts by the Arabian Gulf, which occupies a considerable portion of
a meridian circle,[208] and resembles a river, being in length nearly
15,000 stadia,[209] and in breadth not above 1000 at the widest point.
In addition to the length, the recess of the Gulf is distant from the
sea at Pelusium only three or four days’ journey across the isthmus. On
this account those who are most felicitous in their division of Asia and
Africa, prefer the Gulf[210] as a better boundary line for the two
continents than the Nile, since it extends almost entirely from sea to
sea, whereas the Nile is so remote from the ocean that it does not by
any means divide the whole of Asia from Africa. On this account I
believe it was the Gulf which the poet looked upon as dividing into two
portions the whole southern regions of the inhabited earth. Is it
possible, then, that he was unacquainted with the isthmus which
separates this Gulf from the Egyptian Sea? [211]

29. It is quite irrational to suppose that he could be accurately
acquainted with Egyptian Thebes,[212] which is separated from our
sea[213] by a little less than 5000[214] stadia; and yet ignorant of the
recess of the Arabian Gulf, and of the isthmus there, whose breadth is
not more than 1000 stadia. Still more, would it not be ridiculous to
believe that Homer was aware the Nile was called by the same name as the
vast country [of Egypt], and yet unacquainted with the reason why?
especially since the saying of Herodotus would occur to him, that the
country was a gift from the river, and it ought therefore to bear its
name. Further, the best known peculiarities of a country are those which
have something of the nature of a paradox, and are likely to arrest
general attention. Of this kind are the rising of the Nile, and the
alluvial deposition at its mouth. There is nothing in the whole country
to which travellers in Egypt so immediately direct their inquiries, as
the character of the Nile; nor do the inhabitants possess any thing else
equally wonderful and curious, of which to inform foreigners; for in
fact, to give them a description of the river, is to lay open to their
view every main characteristic of the country. It is the question put
before every other by those who have never seen Egypt themselves. To
these considerations we must add Homer’s thirst after knowledge, and his
delight in visiting foreign lands, (tastes which we are assured both by
those who have written histories of his life, and also by innumerable
testimonies throughout his own poems, he possessed in an eminent
degree,) and we shall have abundant evidence both of the extent of his
information, and the felicity with which he described objects he deemed
important, and passed over altogether, or with slight allusion, matters
which were generally known.

30. These Egyptians and Syrians[215] whom we have been criticising fill
one with amazement. They do not understand [Homer], even when he is
describing their own countries, but accuse him of ignorance where, as
our argument proves, they are open to the charge themselves. Not to
mention a thing is clearly no evidence that a person is not acquainted
with it. [216] Homer does not tell us of the change in the current of the
Euripus, nor of Thermopylæ, nor of many other remarkable things well
known to the Greeks; but was he therefore unacquainted with them? He
describes to us, although these men, who are obstinately deaf, will not
hear: they have themselves to blame.

Our poet applies to rivers the epithet of “heaven-sent. ” And this not
only to mountain torrents, but to all rivers alike, since they are all
replenished by the showers. But even what is general becomes particular
when it is bestowed on any object _par excellence_. Heaven-sent, when
applied to a mountain torrent, means something else than when it is the
epithet of the ever-flowing river; but the force of the term is doubly
felt when attributed to the Nile. For as there are hyperboles of
hyperboles, for instance, to be “lighter than the shadow of a cork,”
“more timid than a Phrygian hare,”[217] “to possess an estate shorter
than a Lacedæmonian epistle;” so excellence becomes more excellent, when
the title of “heaven-sent” is given to the Nile. The mountain torrent
has a better claim to be called heaven-sent than other rivers, but the
Nile exceeds the mountain torrents, both in its size and the lengthened
period of its overflow. Since, then, the wonders of this river were
known to our poet, as we have shown in this defence, when he applies
this epithet to the Nile, it must only be understood in the way we have
explained. Homer did not think it worth mentioning, especially to those
who were acquainted with the fact, that the Nile had many mouths, since
this is a common feature of numerous other rivers. Alcæus[218] does not
mention it, although he tells us he had been in Egypt. One might infer
the fact of its alluvial deposit, both from the rising [of the river]
and what Homer tells us concerning Pharos. For his account, or rather
the vulgar report concerning Pharos, that it was distant from the
mainland a whole day’s voyage, ought not to be looked upon as a
downright falsehood.

It is clear that Homer was only acquainted with the rising and deposit
of the river in a general way, and concluding from what he heard that
the island had been further removed in the time of Menelaus from the
mainland, than it was in his own, he magnified the distance, simply that
he might heighten the fiction. Fictions however are not the offspring of
ignorance, as is sufficiently plain from those concerning Proteus, the
Pygmies, the efficacy of charms, and many others similar to these
fabricated by the poets. They narrate these things not through ignorance
of the localities, but for the sake of giving pleasure and enjoyment.
But [some one may inquire], how could he describe [Pharos], which is
without water as possessed of that necessary?

“The haven there is good, and many a ship
Finds watering there from rivulets on the coast. ”[219]

[I answer,] It is not impossible that the sources of water may since
have failed. Besides, he does not say that the water was procured from
the island, but that they went thither on account of the safety of the
harbour; the water was probably obtained from the mainland, and by the
expression the poet seems to admit that what he had before said of its
being wholly surrounded by sea was not the actual fact, but a hyperbole
or fiction.

31. As his description of the wanderings of Menelaus may seem to
authenticate the charge of ignorance made against him in respect to
those regions, it will perhaps be best to point out the difficulties of
the narrative, and their explanation, and at the same time enter into a
fuller defence of our poet. Menelaus thus addresses Telemachus, who is
admiring the splendour of his palace:

“After numerous toils
And perilous wanderings o’er the stormy deep,
In the eighth year at last I brought them home.
Cyprus, Phœnicia, Sidon, and the shores
Of Egypt, roaming without hope, I reach’d,
In distant Ethiopia thence arrived,
And Libya. ”[220]

It is asked, What Ethiopians could he have met with on his voyage from
Egypt? None are to be found dwelling by our sea,[221] and with his
vessels[222] he could never have reached the cataracts of the Nile.
Next, who are the Sidonians? Certainly not the inhabitants of Phœnicia;
for having mentioned the genus, he would assuredly not particularize the
species. [223] And then the Erembi; this is altogether a new name. Our
contemporary Aristonicus, the grammarian, in his [observations] on the
wanderings of Menelaus, has recorded the opinions of numerous writers on
each of the heads under discussion. It will be sufficient for us to
refer to them very briefly.
They who assert that Menelaus went by sea to
Ethiopia, tell us he directed his course past Cadiz into the Indian
Ocean;[224] with which, say they, the long duration of his wanderings
agrees, since he did not arrive there till the eighth year. Others, that
he passed through the isthmus[225] which enters the Arabian Gulf; and
others again, through one of the canals. At the same time the idea of
this circumnavigation, which owes its origin to Crates, is not
necessary; we do not mean it was impossible, (for the wanderings of
Ulysses are not impossible,) but neither the mathematical hypothesis,
nor yet the duration of the wandering, require such an explanation; for
he was both retarded against his will by accidents in the voyage, as by
[the tempest] which he narrates five only of his sixty ships survived;
and also by voluntary delays for the sake of amassing wealth. Nestor
says [of him],

“Thus he, provision gathering as he went,
And gold abundant, roam’d to distant lands. ”[226]

[And Menelaus himself],

“Cyprus, Phœnicia, and the Egyptians’ land
I wandered through. ”[227]

As to the navigation of the isthmus, or one of the canals, if it had
been related by Homer himself, we should have counted it a myth; but as
he does not relate it, we regard it as entirely extravagant and unworthy
of belief. We say unworthy of belief, because at the time of the Trojan
war no canal was in existence. It is recorded that Sesostris, who had
planned the formation of one, apprehending that the level of the sea was
too high to admit of it, desisted from the undertaking. [228]

Moreover the isthmus itself was not passable for ships, and Eratosthenes
is unfortunate in his conjecture, for he considers that the strait at
the Pillars was not then formed, so that the Atlantic should by that
channel communicate with the Mediterranean, and that this sea being
higher than the Isthmus [of Suez], covered it; but when the Strait [of
Gibraltar] was formed, the sea subsided considerably; and left the land
about Casium[229] and Pelusium[230] dry as far over as the Red Sea.

But what account have we of the formation of this strait, supposing it
were not in existence prior to the Trojan war? Is it likely that our
poet would make Ulysses sail out through the Strait [of Gibraltar] into
the Atlantic Ocean, as if that strait already existed, and at the same
time describe Menelaus conducting his ships from Egypt to the Red Sea,
as if it did not exist. Further, the poet introduces Proteus as saying
to him,

“Thee the gods
Have destined to the blest Elysian Isles,
Earth’s utmost boundaries. ”[231]

And what this place was, namely, some far western region, is evident
from [the mention of] the Zephyr in connexion with it:

“But Zephyr always gently from the sea
Breathes on them. ”[232]

This, however, is very enigmatical.

32. But if our poet speaks of the Isthmus of Suez as ever having been
the strait of confluence between the Mediterranean and the Red Seas, how
much more credit may we attribute to his division of the Ethiopians into
two portions, being thus separated by so grand a strait! And what
commerce could he have carried on with the Ethiopians who dwelt by the
shores of the exterior sea and the ocean? Telemachus and his companions
admire the multitude of ornaments that were in the palace,

“Of gold, electrum, silver, ivory. ”[233]

Now the Ethiopians are possessed of none of these productions in any
abundance, excepting ivory, being for the most part a needy and nomad
race. True, [you say,] but adjoining them is Arabia, and the whole
country as far as India. One of these is distinguished above all other
lands by the title of Felix,[234] and the other, though not dignified by
that name, is both generally believed and also said to be pre-eminently
Blessed.

But [we reply], Homer was not acquainted with India, or he would have
described it. And though he knew of the Arabia which is now named Felix,
at that time it was by no means wealthy, but a wild country, the
inhabitants of which dwelt for the most part in tents. It is only a
small district which produces the aromatics from which the whole
territory afterwards received its name,[235] owing to the rarity of the
commodity amongst us, and the value set upon it. That the Arabians are
now flourishing and wealthy is due to their vast and extended traffic,
but formerly it does not appear to have been considerable. A merchant or
camel-driver might attain to opulence by the sale of these aromatics and
similar commodities; but Menelaus could only become so either by
plunder, or presents conferred on him by kings and nobles, who had the
means at their disposal, and wished to gratify one so distinguished by
glory and renown. The Egyptians, it is true, and the neighbouring
Ethiopians and Arabians, were not so entirely destitute of the luxuries
of civilization, nor so unacquainted with the fame of Agamemnon,
especially after the termination of the Trojan war, but that Menelaus
might have expected some benefits from their generosity, even as the
breastplate of Agamemnon is said to be

“The gift
Of Cinyras long since; for rumour loud
Had Cyprus reached. ”[236]

And we are told that the greater part of his wanderings were in
Phœnicia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, around Cyprus, and, in fact, the whole
of our coasts and islands. [237] Here, indeed, he might hope to enrich
himself both by the gifts of friendship and by violence, and especially
by the plunder of those who had been the allies of Troy. They however
who dwelt on the exterior ocean, and the distant barbarians, held out no
such encouragement: and when Menelaus is said to have been in Ethiopia,
it is because he had reached the frontiers of that country next Egypt.
But perhaps at that time the frontiers lay more contiguous to Thebes
than they do now. At the present day the nearest are the districts
adjacent to Syene and Philæ,[238] the former town being entirely in
Egypt, while Philæ is inhabited by a mixed population of Ethiopians and
Egyptians. Supposing therefore he had arrived at Thebes, and thus
reached the boundary-line of Ethiopia, where he experienced the
munificence of the king, we must not be surprised if he is described as
having passed through the country. [239] On no better authority Ulysses
declares he has been to the land of the Cyclops, although he merely left
the sea to enter a cavern which he himself tells us was situated on the
very borders of the country: and, in fact, wherever he came to anchor,
whether at Æolia, Læstrygonia, or elsewhere, he is stated to have
visited those places. In the same manner Menelaus is said to have been
to Ethiopia and Libya, because here and there he touched at those
places, and the port near Ardania above Parætonium[240] is called after
him “the port of Menelaus. ”[241]

33. When, after mentioning Phœnicia, he talks of Sidon, its metropolis,
he merely employs a common form of expression, for example,

He urged the Trojans and Hector to the ships. [242]

For the sons of magnanimous Œneus were no more, nor was he himself
surviving; moreover, fair-haired Meleager was dead. [243]

He came to Ida—and to Gargarus. [244]

He possessed Eubœa, Chalcis, and Eretria. [245]

Sappho likewise [says],

Whether Cyprus, or the spacious-harboured Paphos. [246]

But he had some other cause besides this for mentioning Sidon
immediately after having spoken of the Phœnicians: for had he merely
desired to recount the nations in order, it would have been quite
sufficient to say,

Having wandered to Cyprus, Phœnice, and the Egyptians, I came to
the Ethiopians. [247]

But that he might record his sojourn amongst the Sidonians, which was
considerably prolonged, he thought it well to refer to it repeatedly.
Thus he praises their prosperity and skill in the arts, and alludes to
the hospitality the citizens had shown to Helen and Alexander. Thus he
tells us of the many [treasures] of this nature laid up in store by
Alexander. [248]

“There his treasures lay,
Works of Sidonian women, whom her son,
The godlike Paris, when he crossed the seas
With Jove-begotten Helen, brought to Troy. ”[249]

And also by Menelaus, who says to Telemachus,

“I give thee this bright beaker, argent all,
But round encircled with a lip of gold.
It is the work of Vulcan, which to me
The hero Phædimus presented, king
Of the Sidonians, when on my return
Beneath his roof I lodged. I make it thine. ”[250]

Here the expression, “work of Vulcan,” must be looked upon as a
hyperbole: in the same way all elegant productions are said to be the
work of Minerva, of the Graces, or of the Muses. But that the Sidonians
were skilful artists, is clear from the praises bestowed [by Homer] on
the bowl which Euneos gave in exchange for Lycaon:

“Earth
Own’d not its like for elegance of form.
Skilful Sidonian artists had around
Embellish’d it, and o’er the sable deep
Phœnician merchants into Lemnos’ port
Had borne it. ”[251]

34. Many conjectures have been hazarded as to who the Erembi were: they
who suppose the Arabs are intended, seem to deserve the most credit.

Our Zeno reads the passage thus:—

I came to the Ethiopians, the Sidonians, and the Arabians.

But there is no occasion to tamper with the text, which is of great
antiquity; it is a far preferable course to suppose a change in the name
itself, which is of frequent and ordinary occurrence in every nation:
and in fact certain grammarians establish this view by a comparison of
the radical letters. Posidonius seems to me to adopt the better plan
after all, in looking for the etymology of names in nations of one stock
and community; thus between the Armenians, Syrians, and Arabians there
is a strong affinity both in regard to dialect, mode of life,
peculiarities of physical conformation, and above all in the contiguity
of the countries. Mesopotamia, which is a motley of the three nations,
is a proof of this; for the similarity amongst these three is very
remarkable. And though in consequence of the various latitudes there may
be some difference between those who dwell in the north[252] and those
of the south,[253] and again between each of these and the inhabitants
of the middle region,[254] still the same characteristics are dominant
in all. Also the Assyrians and Arians have a great affinity both to
these people and to each other. And [Posidonius] believes there is a
similarity in the names of these different nations. Those whom we call
Syrians style themselves Armenians and Arammæans, names greatly like
those of the Armenians, Arabs, and Erembi. Perhaps this [last] term is
that by which the Greeks anciently designated the Arabs; the etymon of
the word certainly strengthens the idea. Many deduce the etymology of
the Erembi from ἔραν ἐμβαίνειν, (to go into the earth,) which [they say]
was altered by the people of a later generation into the more
intelligible name of Troglodytes,[255] by which are intended those Arabs
who dwell on that side of the Arabian Gulf next to Egypt and Ethiopia.
It is probable then that the poet describes Menelaus as having visited
these people in the same way that he says he visited the Ethiopians; for
they are likewise near to the Thebaid; and he mentions them not on
account of any commerce or gain, (for of these there was not much,) but
probably to enhance the length of the journey and his meed of praise:
for such distant travelling was highly thought of. For example,—

“Discover’d various cities, and the mind
And manners learn’d of men in lands remote. ”[256]

And again:

“After numerous toils
And perilous wanderings o’er the stormy deep,
In the eighth year at last I brought them home. ”[257]

Hesiod, in his Catalogue,[258] writes,

And the daughter of Arabus, whom gracious Hermes and Thronia,
descended from king Belus, brought forth.

Thus, too, says Stesichorus. Whence it seems that at that time the
country was from him named Arabia, though it is not likely this was the
case in the heroic period. [259]

35. There are many who would make the Erembi a tribe of the Ethiopians,
or of the Cephenes, or again of the Pygmies, and a thousand other
fancies. These ought to be regarded with little trust; since their
opinion is not only incredible, but they evidently labour under a
certain confusion as to the different characters of history and fable.
In the same category must be reckoned those who place the Sidonians and
Phœnicians in the Persian Gulf, or somewhere else in the Ocean, and make
the wanderings of Menelaus to have happened there. Not the least cause
for mistrusting these writers is the manner in which they contradict
each other. One half would have us believe that the Sidonians are a
colony from the people whom they describe as located on the shores of
the [Indian] Ocean, and who they say were called Phœnicians from the
colour of the Erythræan Sea, while the others declare the opposite. [260]

Some again would transport Ethiopia into our Phœnicia, and make Joppa
the scene of the adventures of Andromeda;[261] and this not from any
ignorance of the topography of those places, but by a kind of mythic
fiction similar to those of Hesiod and other writers censured by
Apollodorus, who, however, couples Homer with them, without, as it
appears, any cause. He cites as instances what Homer relates of the
Euxine and Egypt, and accuses him of ignorance for pretending to speak
the actual truth, and then recounting fable, all the while ignorantly
mistaking it for fact. Will any one then accuse Hesiod of ignorance on
account of his _Hemicynes_,[262] his _Macrocephali_,[263] and his
Pygmies; or Homer for his like fables, and amongst others the Pygmies
themselves; or Alcman[264] for describing the _Steganopodes_;[265] or
Æschylus for his _Cynocephali_,[266] _Sternophthalmi_,[267] and
_Monommati_;[268] when amongst prose writers, and in works bearing the
appearance of veritable history, we frequently meet with similar
narrations, and that without any admission of their having inserted such
myths. Indeed it becomes immediately evident that they have woven
together a tissue of myths not through ignorance of the real facts, but
merely to amuse by a deceptive narration of the impossible and
marvellous. If they appear to do this in ignorance, it is because they
can romance more frequently and with greater plausibility on those
things which are uncertain and unknown. This Theopompus plainly
confesses in the announcement of his intention to relate the fables in
his history in a better style than Herodotus, Ctesias, Hellanicus, and
those who had written on the affairs of India.

36. Homer has described to us the phenomena of the ocean under the form
of a myth; this [art] is very desirable in a poet; the idea of his
Charybdis was taken from the ebb and flow of the tide, and was by no
means a pure invention of his own, but derived from what he knew
concerning the Strait of Sicily. [269] And although he states that the
ebb and flow occurred thrice during the four and twenty hours, instead
of twice,

“(Each day she thrice disgorges, and each day
Thrice swallows it,”)[270]

we must suppose that he said this not through any ignorance of the fact,
but for tragic effect, and to excite the fear which Circe endeavours to
infuse into her arguments to deter Ulysses from departing, even at a
little expense of truth. The following is the language Circe makes use
of in her speech to him:

“Each day she thrice disgorges, and each day
Thrice swallows it. Ah! well-forewarn’d beware
What time she swallows, that thou come not nigh,
For not himself, Neptune, could snatch thee thence. ”[271]

And yet when Ulysses was ingulfed in the eddy he was not lost. He tells
us himself,

“It was the time when she absorb’d profound
The briny flood, but by a wave upborne,
I seized the branches fast of the wild fig,
To which bat-like I clung. ”[272]

And then having waited for the timbers of the wreck he seized hold of
them, and thus saved himself. Circe, therefore, had exaggerated both the
peril, and also the fact of its vomiting forth thrice a day instead of
twice. However, this latter is a hyperbole which every one makes use of;
thus we say thrice-happy and thrice-miserable.

So the poet,

“Thrice-happy Greeks! ”[273]

Again,

“O delightful, thrice-wished for! ”[274]

And again,

“O thrice and four times. ”[275]

Any one, too, might conclude from the passage itself that Homer even
here hinted at the truth, for the long time which the remains of the
wreck lay under water, which Ulysses, who was all the while hanging
suspended to the branches, so anxiously desired to rise, accords much
better with the ebb and flow taking place but twice during the night and
day instead of thrice.

“Therefore hard
I clench’d the boughs, till she disgorged again
Both keel and mast. Not undesired by me
They came, though late; for at what hour the judge,
After decision made of numerous strifes
Between young candidates for honour, leaves
The forum, for refreshment’s sake at home,
Then was it that the mast and keel emerged. ”[276]

Every word of this indicates a considerable length of time, especially
when he prolongs it to the evening, not merely saying at that time when
the judge has risen, but having adjudicated on a vast number of cases,
and therefore detained longer than usual. Otherwise his account of the
return of the wreck would not have appeared likely, if he had brought it
back again with the return of the wave, before it had been first carried
a long way off.

37. Apollodorus, who agrees with Eratosthenes, throws much blame upon
Callimachus for asserting, in spite of his character as a grammarian,
that Gaudus[277] and Corcyra[278] were among the scenes of Ulysses’
wandering, such an opinion being altogether in defiance of Homer’s
statement, and his description of the places as situated in the exterior
ocean. [279]

This criticism is just if we suppose the wandering to have never
actually occurred, and to be merely the result of Homer’s imagination;
but if it did take place, although in other regions, Apollodorus ought
plainly to have stated which they were, and thus set right the mistake
of Callimachus. Since, however, after such evidence as we have produced,
we cannot believe the whole account to be a fiction, and since no other
more likely places have as yet been named, we hold that the grammarian
is absolved from blame.

38. Demetrius of Skepsis is also wrong, and, in fact, the cause of some
of the mistakes of Apollodorus. He eagerly objects to the statement of
Neanthes of Cyzicus, that the Argonauts, when they sailed to the
Phasis,[280] founded at Cyzicus the temples of the Idæan Mother. [281]
Though their voyage is attested both by Homer and other writers, he
denies that Homer had any knowledge whatever of the departure of Jason
to the Phasis. In so doing, he not only contradicts the very words of
Homer, but even his own assertions. The poet informs us that Achilles,
having ravaged Lesbos[282] and other districts, spared Lemnos[283] and
the adjoining islands, on account of his relationship with Jason and his
son Euneos,[284] who then had possession of the island. How should he
know of a relationship, identity of race, or other connexion existing
between Achilles and Jason, which, after all, was nothing else than that
they were both Thessalians, one being of Iolcos,[285] the other of the
Achæan Pthiotis,[286] and yet was not aware how it happened that Jason,
who was a Thessalian of Iolcos, should leave no descendants in the land
of his nativity, but establish his son as ruler of Lemnos? Homer then
was familiar with the history of Pelias and the daughters of Pelias, of
Alcestis, who was the most charming of them all, and of her son

“Eumelus, whom Alcestis, praised
For beauty above all her sisters fair,
In Thessaly to king Admetus bore,”[287]

and was yet ignorant of all that befell Jason, and Argo, and the
Argonauts, matters on the actual occurrence of which all the world is
agreed. The tale then of their voyage in the ocean from Æeta, was a mere
fiction, for which he had no authority in history.

39. If, however, the expedition to the Phasis, fitted out by Pelias, its
return, and the conquest of several islands, have at the bottom any
truth whatever, as all say they have, so also has the account of their
wanderings, no less than those of Ulysses and Menelaus; monuments of the
actual occurrence of which remain to this day elsewhere than in the
writings of Homer. The city of Æa, close by the Phasis, is still pointed
out. Æetes is generally believed to have reigned in Colchis, the name is
still common throughout the country, tales of the sorceress Medea are
yet abroad, and the riches of the country in gold, silver, and iron,
proclaim the motive of Jason’s expedition, as well as of that which
Phrixus had formerly undertaken. Traces both of one and the other still
remain. Such is Phrixium,[288] midway between Colchis and Iberia, and
the Jasonia, or towns of Jason, which are every where met with in
Armenia, Media, and the surrounding countries. Many are the witnesses to
the reality of the expeditions of Jason and Phrixus at Sinope[289] and
its shore, at Propontis, at the Hellespont, and even at Lemnos. Of Jason
and his Colchian followers there are traces even as far as Crete,[290]
Italy, and the Adriatic. Callimachus himself alludes to it where he
says,

”[The temple of] Apollo and [the Isle of] Anaphe,[291]
Near to Laconian Thera. ”[292]

In the verses which commence,

“I sing how the heroes from Cytæan Æeta,
Return’d again to ancient Æmonia. ”[293]

And again concerning the Colchians, who,

“Ceasing to plough with oars the Illyrian Sea,[294]
Near to the tomb of fair Harmonia,
Who was transform’d into a dragon’s shape,
Founded their city, which a Greek would call
The Town of Fugitives, but in their tongue
Is Pola named. ”

Some writers assert that Jason and his companions sailed high up the
Ister, others say he sailed only so far as to be able to gain the
Adriatic: the first statement results altogether from ignorance; the
second, which supposes there is a second Ister having its source from
the larger river of the same name, and discharging its waters into the
Adriatic, is neither incredible nor even improbable. [295]

40. Starting from these premises, the poet, in conformity both with
general custom and his own practice, narrates some circumstances as they
actually occurred, and paints others in the colours of fiction. He
follows history when he tells us of Æetes and Jason also, when he talks
of Argo, and on the authority of [the actual city of Æa], feigns his
city of Ææa, when he settles Euneos in Lemnos, and makes that island
friendly to Achilles, and when, in imitation of Medea, he makes the
sorceress Circe

“Sister by birth of the all-wise Æetes,”[296]

he adds the fiction of the entrance of the Argonauts into the exterior
ocean as the sequel to their wanderings on their return home. Here,
supposing the previous statements admitted, the truth of the phrase “the
renowned Argo,”[297] is evident, since, in that case, the expedition
was directed to a populous and well-known country. But if, as
[Demetrius] of Skepsis asserts, on the authority of Mimnermus, Æetes
dwelt by the Ocean, and Jason was sent thither far east by Pelias, to
bring back the fleece, it neither seems probable that such an expedition
would have been undertaken into unknown and obscure countries after the
Fleece, nor could a voyage to lands desert, uninhabited, and so far
remote from us, be considered either glorious or renowned.

[Here follow the words of Demetrius. ]

“Nor as yet had Jason, having accomplished the arduous journey,
carried off the splendid fleece from Æa, fulfilling the dangerous
mission of the insolent Pelias, nor had they ploughed the
glorious wave of the ocean. ”

And again:

“The city of Æetes, where the rays of the swift sun recline on
their golden bed by the shore of the ocean, which the noble Jason
visited. ”




CHAPTER III.


1. Eratosthenes is guilty of another fault in so frequently referring to
the works of men beneath his notice, sometimes for the purpose of
refuting them; at others, when he agrees with them, in order to cite
them as authorities. I allude to Damastes, and such as him, who even
when they speak the truth, are utterly unworthy of being appealed to as
authorities, or vouchers for the credibility of a statement. For such
purposes the writings of trustworthy men should only be employed, who
have accurately described much; and though perhaps they may have omitted
many points altogether, and barely touched on others, are yet never
guilty of wilfully falsifying their statements. To cite Damastes as an
authority is little better than to quote the Bergæan,[298] or Euemerus
the Messenian, and those other scribblers whom Eratosthenes himself
sneers at for their absurdities. Why, he even points out as one of the
follies of this Damastes, his observation that the Arabian Gulf was a
lake;[299] likewise the statement that Diotimus, the son of Strombicus
and chief of the Athenian legation, sailed through Cilicia up the
Cydnus[300] into the river Choaspes,[301] which flows by Susa,[302] and
so arrived at that capital after forty days’ journey. This particular he
professes to state on the authority of Diotimus himself, and then
expresses his wonder whether the Cydnus could actually cross the
Euphrates and Tigris in order to disgorge itself into the Choaspes. [303]

2. However, this is not all we have to say against him. Of many places
he tells us that nothing is known, when in fact they have every one been
accurately described. Then he warns us to be very cautious in believing
what we are told on such matters, and endeavours by long and tedious
arguments to show the value of his advice; swallowing at the same time
the most ridiculous absurdities himself concerning the Euxine and
Adriatic. Thus he believed the Bay of Issus[304] to be the most easterly
point of the Mediterranean, though Dioscurias,[305] which is nearly at
the bottom of the Pontus Euxinus, is, according to his own calculations,
farther east by a distance of 3000 stadia. [306] In describing the
northern and farther parts of the Adriatic he cannot refrain from
similar romancing, and gives credit to many strange narrations
concerning what lies beyond the Pillars of Hercules, informing us of an
Isle of Kerne there, and other places now nowhere to be found, which we
shall speak of presently.

Having remarked that the ancients, whether out on piratical excursions,
or for the purposes of commerce, never ventured into the high seas, but
crept along the coast, and instancing Jason, who leaving his vessels at
Colchis penetrated into Armenia and Media on foot, he proceeds to tell
us that formerly no one dared to navigate either the Euxine or the seas
by Libya, Syria, and Cilicia. If by _formerly_ he means periods so long
past that we possess no record of them, it is of little consequence to
us whether they navigated those seas or not, but if [he speaks] of times
of which we know any thing, and if we are to place any trust in the
accounts which have come down to us, every one will admit that the
ancients appear to have made longer journeys both by sea and land than
their successors; witness Bacchus, Hercules, nay Jason himself, and
again Ulysses and Menelaus, of whom Homer tells us. It seems most
probable that Theseus and Pirithous are indebted to some long voyages
for the credit they afterwards obtained of having visited the infernal
regions; and in like manner the Dioscuri[307] gained the appellation of
guardians of the sea, and the deliverers of sailors. [308] The
sovereignty of the seas exercised by Minos, and the navigation carried
on by the Phœnicians, is well known. A little after the period of the
Trojan war they had penetrated beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and
founded cities as well there as to the midst of the African coast. [309]
Is it not correct to number amongst the ancients Æneas,[310]
Antenor,[311] the Heneti, and all the crowd of warriors, who, after the
destruction of Troy, wandered over the face of the whole earth? For at
the conclusion of the war both the Greeks and Barbarians found
themselves deprived, the one of their livelihood at home, the other of
the fruits of their expedition; so that when Troy was overthrown, the
victors, and still more the vanquished, who had survived the conflict,
were compelled by want to a life of piracy; and we learn that they
became the founders of many cities along the sea-coast beyond
Greece,[312] besides several inland settlements. [313]

3. Again, having discoursed on the advance of knowledge respecting the
Geography of the inhabited earth, between the time of Alexander and the
period when he was writing, Eratosthenes goes into a description of the
figure of the earth; not merely of the habitable earth, an account of
which would have been very suitable, but of the whole earth, which
should certainly have been given too, but not in this disorderly manner.
He proceeds to tell us that the earth is spheroidal, not however
perfectly so, inasmuch as it has certain irregularities, he then
enlarges on the successive changes of its form, occasioned by water,
fire, earthquakes, eruptions, and the like; all of which is entirely out
of place, for the spheroidal form of the whole earth is the result of
the system of the universe, and the phenomena which he mentions do not
in the least change its general form; such little matters being entirely
lost in the great mass of the earth. Still they cause various
peculiarities in different parts of our globe, and result from a variety
of causes.

4. He points out as a most interesting subject for disquisition the fact
of our finding, often quite inland, two or three thousand stadia from
the sea, vast numbers of muscle, oyster, and scallop-shells, and
salt-water lakes. [314] He gives as an instance, that about the temple
of Ammon,[315] and along the road to it for the space of 3000 stadia,
there are yet found a vast amount of oyster shells, many salt-beds, and
salt springs bubbling up, besides which are pointed out numerous
fragments of wreck which they say have been cast up through some
opening, and dolphins placed on pedestals with the inscription, Of the
delegates from Cyrene. Herein he agrees with the opinion of Strato the
natural philosopher, and Xanthus of Lydia. Xanthus mentioned that in the
reign of Artaxerxes there was so great a drought, that every river,
lake, and well was dried up: and that in many places he had seen a long
way from the sea fossil shells, some like cockles, others resembling
scallop shells, also salt lakes in Armenia, Matiana,[316] and Lower
Phrygia, which induced him to believe that sea had formerly been where
the land now was. Strato, who went more deeply into the causes of these
phenomena, was of opinion that formerly there was no exit to the Euxine
as now at Byzantium, but that the rivers running into it had forced a
way through, and thus let the waters escape into the Propontis, and
thence to the Hellespont. [317] And that a like change had occurred in
the Mediterranean. For the sea being overflowed by the rivers, had
opened for itself a passage by the Pillars of Hercules, and thus, much
that was formerly covered by water, had been left dry. [318] He gives as
the cause of this, that anciently the levels of the Mediterranean and
Atlantic were not the same, and states that a bank of earth, the remains
of the ancient separation of the two seas, is still stretched under
water from Europe to Africa. He adds, that the Euxine is the most
shallow, and the seas of Crete, Sicily, and Sardinia much deeper, which
is occasioned by the number of large rivers flowing into the Euxine
both from the north and east, and so filling it up with mud, whilst the
others preserve their depth. This is the cause of the remarkable
sweetness of the Euxine Sea, and of the currents which regularly set
towards the deepest part. He gives it as his opinion, that should the
rivers continue to flow in the same direction, the Euxine will in time
be filled up [by the deposits], since already the left side of the sea
is little else than shallows, as also Salmydessus,[319] and the shoals
at the mouth of the Ister, and the desert of Scythia,[320] which the
sailors call the Breasts. Probably too the temple of Ammon was
originally close to the sea, though now, by the continual deposit of the
waters, it is quite inland: and he conjectures that it was owing to its
being so near the sea that it became so celebrated and illustrious, and
that it never would have enjoyed the credit it now possesses had it
always been equally remote from the sea. Egypt too [he says] was
formerly covered by sea as far as the marshes near Pelusium,[321] Mount
Casius,[322] and the Lake Sirbonis. [323] Even at the present time, when
salt is being dug in Egypt, the beds are found under layers of sand and
mingled with fossil shells, as if this district had formerly been under
water, and as if the whole region about Casium and Gerrha[324] had been
shallows reaching to the Arabian Gulf. The sea afterwards receding left
the land uncovered, and the Lake Sirbonis remained, which having
afterwards forced itself a passage, became a marsh. In like manner the
borders of the Lake Mœris resemble a sea-beach rather than the banks of
a river. Every one will admit that formerly at various periods a great
portion of the mainland has been covered and again left bare by the sea.
Likewise that the land now covered by the sea is not all on the same
level, any more than that whereon we dwell; which is now uncovered and
has experienced so many changes, as Eratosthenes has observed.
Consequently in the reasoning of Xanthus there does not appear to be any
thing out of place.

5. In regard to Strato, however, we must remark that, leaving out of the
question the many arguments he has properly stated, some of those which
he has brought forward are quite inadmissible. For first he is
inaccurate in stating that the beds of the interior and the exterior
seas have not the same level, and that the depth of those two seas is
different: whereas the cause why the sea is at one time raised, at
another depressed, that it inundates certain places and again retreats,
is not that the beds have different levels, some higher and some lower,
but simply this, that the same beds are at one time raised, at another
depressed, causing the sea to rise or subside with them; for having
risen they cause an inundation, and when they subside the waters return
to their former places. For if it is so, an inundation will of course
accompany every sudden increase of the waters of the sea, [as in the
spring-tides,] or the periodical swelling of rivers, in the one instance
the waters being brought together from distant parts of the ocean, in
the other, their volume being increased. But the risings of rivers are
not violent and sudden, nor do the tides continue any length of time,
nor occur irregularly; nor yet along the coasts of our sea do they cause
inundations, nor any where else. Consequently we must seek for an
explanation of the cause either in the stratum composing the bed of the
sea, or in that which is overflowed; we prefer to look for it in the
former, since by reason of its humidity it is more liable to shiftings
and sudden changes of position, and we shall find that in these matters
the wind is the great agent after all. But, I repeat it, the immediate
cause of these phenomena, is not in the fact of one part of the bed of
the ocean being higher or lower than another, but in the upheaving or
depression of the strata on which the waters rest. Strato’s hypothesis
evidently originated in the belief that that which occurs in rivers is
also the case in regard to the sea; viz. that there is a flow of water
from the higher places. Otherwise he would not have attempted to account
for the current he observed at the Strait of Byzantium in the manner he
does, attributing it to the bed of the Euxine being higher than that of
the Propontis and adjoining ocean, and even attempting to explain the
cause thereof: viz. that the bed of the Euxine is filled up and choked
by the deposit of the rivers which flow into it; and its waters in
consequence driven out into the neighbouring sea. The same theory he
would apply in respect to the Mediterranean and Atlantic, alleging that
the bed of the former is higher than that of the latter in consequence
of the number of rivers which flow into it, and the alluvium they carry
along with them. In that case there ought to be a like influx at the
Pillars and Calpe,[325] as there is at Byzantium. But I waive this
objection, as it might be asserted that the influx was the same in both
places, but owing to the interference of the ebb and flow of the sea,
became imperceptible.

6. I rather make this inquiry:—If there were any reason why, before the
outlet was opened at Byzantium, the bed of the Euxine (being deeper than
either that of the Propontis[326] or of the adjoining sea[327]) should
not gradually have become more shallow by the deposit of the rivers
which flow into it, allowing it formerly either to have been a sea, or
merely a vast lake greater than the Palus Mæotis? This proposition being
conceded, I would next ask, whether before this the bed of the Euxine
would not have been brought to the same level as the Propontis, and in
that case, the pressure being counter-poised, the overflowing of the
water have been thus avoided; and if after the Euxine had been filled
up, the superfluous waters would not naturally have forced a passage and
flowed off, and by their commingling and power have caused the Euxine
and Propontis to flow into each other, and thus become one sea? no
matter, as I said above, whether formerly it were a sea or a lake,
though latterly certainly a sea. This also being conceded, they must
allow that the present efflux depends neither upon the elevation nor the
inclination of the bed, as Strato’s theory would have us consider it.

7. We would apply the same arguments to the whole of the Mediterranean
and Atlantic, and account for the efflux of the former, not by any
[supposed] difference between the elevation and inclination of its bed
and of that of the Atlantic, but attribute it to the number of
rivers which empty themselves into it. Since, according to this
supposition, it is not incredible that had the whole of the
Mediterranean Sea in times past been but a lake filled by the rivers,
and having overflowed, it might have broken through the Strait at the
Pillars, as through a cataract; and still continuing to swell more and
more, the Atlantic in course of time would have become confluent by that
channel, and have run into one level, the Mediterranean thus becoming a
sea.