Points of the Compass for Notus and Eurus.
Notus is the great southern wind, Eurus being comparatively of little account. Now, one of the chiefdataapplicable to determining the direction of these winds is the passage Il. ii. 144-6. Here they are described as disturbing the Icarian Sea, which was within the sphere of Greek navigation. Now the position of that sea, on the coast of Asia Minor to the south of Samos, shows,
1. That both these winds in Homer have a decidedly southern character.
2. That one, of course Eurus, must come from the east, and the other, Notus, in that place, from the west of south. Because the conflict of the two winds presumes a considerable space between the points from which they blow, while the position of the Icarian Sea requires both to be southern. But in the Fifth Odyssey, too, Notus is treated as the proper antagonist of Boreas. His centre therefore lies a little to the westward of due south; but Eurus does not approach the South Pole, and every wind from aboutS.S.E. to W. will probably fall within the Homeric description of Notus.
The associations of Notus and Eurus are frequent[565]. On one occasion, however, Notus is combined with Zephyr, though there is no corresponding case of junction between Eurus and Boreas. Notus and Zephyr are sent from the sea by Juno to blast the Trojan army with heat. Boreas would of course be a cold wind: and Eurus would be cold on the plain of Troy, from passing over the chain of Ida: though in Greece he melts the snow that Zephyr has brought. Differences of season, as well as of situation, may have to do with these varieties of operation.
Though less strong than Zephyr and Boreas, Notus is a stronger wind than Eurus. And though generally the counterpart of Boreas, his power of cooperating with Zephyr shows that he must reach over the quadrant from the South pole to West, whereas we have no Boreas coming down from the North pole as far as East.
As the opposite of Zephyr, Eurus blows principally from the south-eastern quarter; and hence is in frequent cooperation with Notus, but never with any other wind. He must, however, be understood to cover the whole space from the rigidly northern Boreas down to Notus, or from about N.E. to within 30° of the South pole. Boreas is inflexibly confined by all the evidence of the poems to a very narrow space: and Eurus, his neighbour eastward, does not much frequent those points of the compass that lie nearest to him.
winds and directions
The accompanying sketch expresses what I believe to be in the main Homer’s arrangement of the Winds. At the same time, I do not know that we have any practical example of any wind in Homer which blows from within forty-five degrees on either side of due East, or from within about the same number of degrees on either side of due West. Perhaps it was from their local infrequency, that he does not appear to have put such winds in requisition[566].
The name Eurus is further attached to the point of sunrise by the rootἔως, to which it is traced[567]. Thetracts of Aides are with Homerσμερδάλεα εὐρώεντα(Il. xx. 65). May not thisεὐρωεὶςcome from the same source? The Cimmerian darkness of Homer is close to the mouth of Ocean, andnearthat chamber of the Sun, which is at Ææa[568]. Viewing dawn as the middle point between night and day, Homer possibly connected it with each. It seems further possible, that he connected the Eastern with the Western darkness: both because this would bring his two regions of the future world into relations with each other, and because he makes the Sun disport himself with his oxen on the same spot in Thrinacie after his setting in the evening, and before his rising in the morning: a passage, which for its full explanation might require the supposition, that Homer believed the earth to be cylindrical in form, and thus the extremes of East and West to meet[569]. There will shortly be occasion to revert to this subject, in further considering what were the constituent parts of Homer’s East.
Homeric distances and rates of speed.
I shall trust mainly then to winds, thus ascertained from Homer’s Inner world, as the means of indicating the directions of the movements described in his Outer one. But besides directions, we have distances to consider. And here too we have some evidence, supplied by his experimental knowledge, to guide us.
By combining the inner-worlddataof distance with those of direction, we shall obtain the essential conditions of decision for the outer-world problems. Conditions both essential and sufficient, when we can lay hold upon them; but we shall still have to contend with this difficulty, that in one or two remarkable cases the Poet takes refuge in language wholly vague, andleaves us no guide for our conjectures, except the rule of making the unascertained conform in spirit to what has been made reasonably certain.
The distances of which I now speak are sea-distances. It is a somewhat remarkable fact, that Homer scarcely gives us land-distances at all. Telemachus and Pisistratus drive in two days from Pylus to Sparta: but it is not the wont of the Poet to describe places, which communicate over land, by the number of days occupied in travelling between them. This circumstance is illustrative of a trait, which assumes great importance in Homer’s Outer Geography, namely, the miniature scale of his conceptions as to all land-spaces; a trait, I may add, to which we shall have occasion to revert.
The sea-distances of Homer are performed in no less than six different modes.
1. By ordinary sailing.2. By ordinary rowing.3. By rafts, Od. v. 251.4. By drifting on a timber, Od. xiv. 310-15.5. By floating and swimming, Od. v. 374, 5, 388, 399.
Sixthly, and lastly, the ships of the Phæacians perform their voyages by an inward instinct, and with a rapidity described as marvellous.
Evidence as to rates of motion.
The language of the poems nowhere takes cognizance of any difference in speed as between sailing and rowing. For example, when Achilles speaks of the time of his voyage to Phthia as dependent uponεὐπλοίη, which the favour of Neptune could give, he evidently means a good sea and the absence of tempest, and does not at all bargain for a wind from a particular quarter, which was not a matter lying within Neptune’s especial province. Nor does there seem to be, on general grounds, any cause for assuming a differencebetween the average speeds of rowing and of sailing, when we consider, in favour of the first, that the crew rowed almost to a man, with little cargo to carry; and, to the prejudice of the second, that the science and art of building quick sailers could not then have been understood. I therefore take rowing and sailing as equal in celerity. So that we have in reality no more than five different cases to consider.
But, again, I think there is no reason why we should assume a difference in speed between drifting on a piece of timber, and making way by floating and swimming only. In practicability there may be a considerable difference: but that is not the point before us.
The four methods now remaining seem to require the assumption of different speeds respectively.
Now Homer has supplied us with the times necessary for performing known distances in two cases; and has also given us a third case, which may be used for checking one of the other instances.
A case of known distance is that from the mouth of the Straits of Gallipoli to Phthia. This, according to Achilles in the Ninth Iliad[570], would, with favourable weather, be performed so as to arrive on the third day. It may amount to a little more than three degrees, and may be taken at two hundred and twenty miles. The time is three days and two nights. So that, for ordinary sailing or rowing, a day and a night may be taken at about ninety miles, of course without any pretension to minute accuracy.
Secondly. With a good passage, a ship sailing from Crete to Egypt arrives on the fifth day (Od. xiv. 257). But we cannot consider Homer’s opinion of the distance between Crete and Egypt as entitled to the fullweight of his experimental knowledge. Again, it is to be borne in mind, that here the north wind, which carries the ship, was a prime one (ἀκραὴς καλὸς, 253). Lastly, much might depend on the part of Crete, from which we suppose the vessel to have sailed.
As respects the last-named question, we must, from the habits of ancient navigation, suppose the eastern extremity of the island to have been the point of departure; because no sailor would have committed himself to Boreas on the open sea, as long as he could make way under cover of a shore lying to windward.
The distance between the eastern point of Crete and the western mouth of the Nile is about three hundred and fifty miles; the time five days and four nights. This would give a somewhat less rate of progressper diemthan the last case; but then it is likely that Homer took the distance to be greater in that almost unknown sea (see Od. iii. 320.) than it really is; so that we have cause to view the two computations as in substance accordant. And even if they had clashed, the former would still be entitled to our acceptance.
What, however, does appear to be the case is, that Homer mistook the course from Crete to Egypt. It is really S. W.: he has defined it by the wind Boreas, which never blows from a point westward, or at the very uttermost never from one materially westward, of N. So that the course must have been about S. Now, as Homer knew the position of Crete, this would show that he brought Egypt too much to the westward, by shortening the eastern recess or arm of the Mediterranean; an error in exact conformity, I conceive, with all his operations in imagining the geography of the east. But this by the way.
The third test of sea-distances is supplied by thepretended passage of Ulysses, on a mast, from a point just out of sight of Crete[571]to Thesprotia[572]. He arrives on the tenth night. The distance exceeds, by about one half, the voyage from Troas to Phthia. The time is nearly four times as long. But then some allowance may be made for delay on the score of the irregular winds (ὀλοοὶ ἄνεμοι) which prevailed. We may therefore justly calculate the rate of a floating or drift-passage at about one half that of a sailing passage, or two miles an hour instead of four. And here our direct evidence closes.
At an intermediate point between these, we may place the mode of passage by raft, which brought Ulysses from Ogygia. For merchant ships were built broad in the beam; and the raft was as broad as a merchant ship[573]. Thus constructed, and with its flat bottom, it must have been very greatly slower than an ordinary sailing vessel, and I venture to put it by conjecture as low as two and a half miles an hour.
Lastly, we have to consider the rates of the Scherian ships. About these the only thing that is clear is, that Homer meant to represent them as far exceeding all known speed of the kind. They went, says Alcinous, to Eubœa, or as the verse may be rendered, to Eubœa and back, in a day[574]: they are like a chariot with four horses scouring the plain; the hawk, swiftest of birds, could not keep up with them[575]. We cannot, I think, pretend to appreciate with great precision Homer’s meaning in this point; but it is plain that, as he had a map of some kind in his head, he must have had some meaning with respect to the distance performed by the ship from Scheria, though probably a vague one. I think we may venture to take it at three times thespeed of the ordinary sailing vessel, or at about twelve miles an hour.
Thus, taking drift-speed for our unit, we have the following scale approximately established:
1. Drift = 2 miles per hour = 48 miles per day of 24 hours.
2. Raft = 1¼ drift = 2½ miles per hour = 60 miles per day of 24 hours.
3. Sailing or rowing ship = 2 drift = 4 miles per hour = 96 miles per day of 24 hours.
4. Hawk-ship of Scheria = 3 sailing ship = 6 drift = 12 miles per hour = 288 miles per day of 24 hours.—
Let us next proceed to consider, whether there are any cardinal ideas of particular places or arrangements in the Outer Geography of Homer, which govern its general structure. For such ideas may, together with thedatathat we have now drawn from the circle of his Inner or Experimental Geography, assist us in the examination of what undoubtedly at first sight appear to be almost chaotic details.
Northward sea-route to the Euxine.
Setting out from this point, my first business is to show, that Homer believed in a sea-route from the Mediterranean to the Euxine, other than that of the Straits of Gallipoli and the Bosphorus. This route was formed in his mind, as I shall endeavour to prove, by cutting off the land from east to west, a little to the north of the Peninsula of Greece, all the way from the Adriatic to the Euxine. Thus we practically substitute an expanse of sea for the mass of the European continent; and we must not conceive of any definite boundary to thisθάλασσα, other than the mysterious one which may finally separate it from Ocean. Or, in other words, we must give to the Black Sea an indefinite extension to the west and north-west, perhaps also shortening it in the direction of the East. This is the one master variation from naturein Homer’s ideal geography[576]; and, when his belief on this subject has been sufficiently proved, almost every thing else will fall into its place with comparative ease.
I will endeavour to illustrate and sustain this hypothesis from the positive evidence, either direct or inferential, of the poems: and I hope to show that it stands upon grounds independent of the negative argument, that it is absolutely necessary in order to supply a key to the Wanderings. At the same time, I hold that that negative argument, if made good, would suffice: for, though we do no violence to probability in imputing to the geography of the Odyssey any amount of variance, however great, from actual nature, yet we should sorely offend against reason, if we supposed that Homer had constructed a route so elaborate and detailed, without laying it out before his own mental vision, and presenting it to that of his hearers, after the fashion of something like a map. This was alike demanded by the realism (so to speak) of the time, and needful for the complete comprehension and easy enjoyment of the romance.
The indications on this subject, apart from the evidence of the Wanderings themselves, are as follows:
1. When, in the Thirteenth Iliad[577], Jupiter turns away his eyes from the battle by the Ships, he turns them towards the north-east: in the direction, that is, in which, according to the hypothesis above stated, there was for Homer not, as we now know to be the case, a wide expanse of land capable of containing a countless multitude of tribes, but, after a certain interval, a vast and unexplored sea. Now the Poet tells us, not that Jupiter looked over an indefinite mass of continent, or theἀπείρονα γαῖαν; but that he looked over the country of the Thracians, the Mysians, the Hippemolgi, the Glactophagi, and the Abii. Moreover, he indicates, by giving characteristic epithets to each of these nations, that they lay more or less within the sphere of contact with Greek intercourse and experience, and therefore at no great distance to the northward: for not only are the Thracians riders of horses, but the Mysians are fighters hand to hand, the Hippemolgi are formidable or venerable, and the Abii are the most righteous of men. The Glactophagi are defined by their name as feeders upon milk. This limited and characteristic enumeration is in conformity, at the very least, with the hypothesis, that Homer imagined in that direction no continuous succession of land and of inhabitants, but a sea circumscribing the country of Thrace to the north.
2. A more marked indication is, I think, yielded by the passage of the Odyssey, in which Alcinous says to Ulysses, ‘We will convey you to your home, even though it should be more distant than Eubœa, the furthest point that has been visited by our people; of whom some saw it, when they carried Rhadamanthus thither, in the matter of Tityus, son of the Earth[578].’
It appears to me evident, that Homer means in this place to suppose a maritime route between Scheria and Eubœa, to the North of Thrace. He is not, we must remember, experimentally informed as to the position of Scheria itself, and probably he conceived it to lie quite outside the sphere of Greece, at a considerable distance to the northward. Though he brings Ulysses from thence to Ithaca in a day, this is effected by the privileged and miraculous rapidity of passage, which was the distinguishing gift of the Phæacians, as the kin of the Immortals. They are indeed in contact, accordingto the poem, with the habitable world, but they are strictly upon the outer line of it. They are of the race of Neptune: related to the Cyclops and the Giants: their ordinary life and their maritime routes could not, without doing utter violence to the conceptions of the Poet, be brought within the sphere of ordinary Greek experience. We cannot, therefore, be intended to suppose them to have carried the ancient Rhadamanthus past every known town, port, and point in Greece; past Ithaca, Dulichium, the Cephallenes, Pylus, and the rest. Nor would Eubœa, thus approached, be to Ulysses, who had himself visited Aulis on his way to Troy, a good type of remoteness: nor does it answer that description for the Phæacians themselves, if we consider it according to geographic prose; for though the way to it is long, it is not so distant in a direct line as other parts of Greece, Crete for example; and any people who had made a voyage to Eubœa by sea, round the peninsula, would know very well that the proper way to it was by land. We must, in short, presume such a position for the Scheria of Homer, as to imply a communication by sea between it and Eubœa, other than that through the known waters of Greece.
But if we suppose a maritime passage from the Adriatic round Thrace to exist, then we keep the Phæacians entirely in their own element, as borderers between the world of Greek experience, and the world of fable. They still, when they carry Rhadamanthus, as in all other cases, hang upon the skirt, as it were, of actual humanity. And, thus viewed, Eubœa might fairly stand for a type of extreme remoteness.
3. Another passage of Homer, when understood according to its geographical bearings, appears to me, of itself, nearly conclusive upon this question.
When Mercury is ordered to carry the message of the gods from Olympus to Calypso[579], his proceedings are carefully described. He equipped himself with his foot-wings (Od. v. 44), took in hand his wand (47), and got upon the wing (49). The next step in the narrative is,
Πιερίην δ’ ἐπιβὰς, ἐξ αἰθέρος ἔμπεσε πόντῳ·(50.)
Πιερίην δ’ ἐπιβὰς, ἐξ αἰθέρος ἔμπεσε πόντῳ·(50.)
Πιερίην δ’ ἐπιβὰς, ἐξ αἰθέρος ἔμπεσε πόντῳ·(50.)
Πιερίην δ’ ἐπιβὰς, ἐξ αἰθέρος ἔμπεσε πόντῳ·(50.)
He then bounded along the wave (51), reached the remote island (55), landed on the beach (56), and finally arrived at the cave (57). I think no one can read this description, which extends over sixteen verses, without feeling that it is meant to convey to us, that Mercury moved with great rapidity in a right line, the shortest by which he could reach his destination. But now, if this be so, then, as Pieria lies to the northward of Olympus, we have only to ask how does he pursue his further route? From Pieria he sweeps down upon the sea, and rides upon the waves (54) all the way to Ogygia. It is hopeless to fit this even by a moderate deviation either way to any existing sea: we have only, therefore, to conclude, in conformity with the other indications, that Homer believed in aθάλασσαto the northward of Pieria. We cannot take refuge in the plea, that Homer did not know where Pieria lay. First, because it was on the Olympian border of Thessaly, and as Homer knew that region well, he must have known that Pieria lay to the north of it. Secondly, it was probably within the circle of Greek traditions; since it is sometimes read forΠηρείῃin Il. ii. 766, and at any rate they seem to be in all likelihood different forms of the same word. Thirdly, a complete proof is given by the route of Juno in the Fourteenth Iliad. She passes, in accordance with the actual geography, from Olympus to Pieria, from Pieria (apparently verging eastwards) to Emathia, and so by the Thracian mountains, evidently of Chalcidice, to Lemnos[580].
4. There is another passage which may be cited in direct corroboration of these views[581]. The spirits of the Suitors passed (1) the stream of Ocean, and (2) the Leucadian rock; and also passed (3) the gates of the Sun, and (4) the people of Dream Land.
Northward route to the Euxine.
Now it may be observed, that to pass the Leucadian rock is not the way from Ithaca to the Straits of Gibraltar: the course would lie round either the north or the south point of Cephallonia. Neither is it the way to the Bosphorus and Black Sea; which must be sought by steering first in a southerly direction. But it is the way to Ocean, and the nether Shades, if I am correct in my belief that Homer believed the route to lie along the Adriatic, and round the north of Thrace. Nor am I aware of any other view of his geography, on which this passage can be explained. The evidence, which it affords, is at first sight conclusive in support of the proposition, that Homer’s route to the Ocean-mouth lay up the Adriatic. But there are two grounds, on which a scruple may be felt about its reception. First, it stands in the secondΝεκυΐα, the only considerable portion of either poem which appears, to me at least, open to the suspicion that it may have been seriously tampered with. Secondly, the order of the passage is singular, as it runs thus: they passed, or they went towards, the channels of Ocean, and the Leucadian rock, and the gates of the Sun: while, according to Homer’s geography, the Leucadian rock would come first, the gates of the Sun second, and Ocean-mouth would be the last of the three points.
But in answer to the first, the suspicions affecting this passage are too vague and indeterminate to warrant our rejecting its evidence, where it is in harmony with the general testimony of Homer. Even if these lines were interpolated, they would be remarkable as embodying an ancient, probably a very ancient opinion, as to Homer’s geographical view on the point at issue.
As regards the second, we may cite the parallel case of Menelaus in his narrative of his own tour. After Cyprus and Phœnicia, he describes his visits in the following order: (1) Egypt, (2) Ethiopians, (3) Sidonians, (4) Erembi, (5) Libya. It is evident that this cannot be intended to be understood as the order in which the several places were actually visited[582].
We have thus, I hope, secured for Ulysses, without drawing upon the Wanderings for testimony, what seamen call a good or wide berth; room enough for the disposition of his marvels, and the mystery of the distances between them. In this northern division of theθάλασσαwe may imagine Homer to have placed, without any impropriety, or any violence done to his experience of his own latitude, both the double day of the Læstrygones, and the fogs of the Cimmerians. Into it he might well drive Ulysses by the force of the south wind[583], and from it bring him back by the strength of Zephyr or of Boreas[584]. Lastly, by means of thisθάλασσα, we can avoid placing Circe and the Sunrise to the west of Homer’s own country; and we are not obliged to find his representation of theΠλαγκταὶinvolving him in the hopeless absurdity of contradiction to his own experimental knowledge of the general direction of Jason’s course with the ship Argo.
Amalgamated reports of the Ocean-mouth.
I now pass on to the second of the two propositions, on which it appears to me that a reasonable interpretation of the Outer Geography is to be founded.
It is this: that the Poet has compounded into one two sets of Phœnician traditions respecting the Ocean-mouth, one of them originally proceeding from, or belonging to, the West, and the other to the North-east: and that he has chosen the north-eastern site as the ground on which to fix the scene of his amalgamated representation.
The argument, which has recently been adduced for another purpose from the Twenty-fourth Odyssey, is available to show that the Ocean-mouth of Homer is towards the north: but it does not suffice to decide the question between North-east and North-west, nor does it decide whether Homer simply transplanted the Straits of Gibraltar, or whether he mixed together the accounts of it and of some other strait, and welded them into one.
This question we must examine from the evidence concerning the Ocean-mouth supplied by the Wanderings themselves.
Ulysses and his companions, when they enter the great River Ocean, enter it at a point far north, by the city and country of the Cimmerians, who are enveloped in cloud and vapour[585]: and they are carried up or against the stream (παρὰ ῥόον), by the breath of Boreas[586], to the mouth of theInferno. Returning from thence, they come down the stream (κατὰ ῥόονOd. xi. 639) back to the sea (θάλασσα); and they there find themselves at the isle of Circe, where is the dwelling ofἨὼς, and where is also the couch, from which the sun rises in the morning.
In this account it is not difficult to trace certain outlines of truth. The ideas of Homer respecting the gates of Ocean would be drawn from reports which may have relatedprimâ facieto any one of several geographical points; to the Straits of Gibraltar, to the Bosphorus, to the Straits of Yenikalè leading into the Sea of Azof, or to all the three. At one and all of these there appears to be a continual stream flowing inwards in the direction of the Mediterranean orθάλασσα. One and all, as sea-straits, present the character of a vast marine river. In exact accordance with these physical facts, Homer makes the ship of Ulysses, entering the great River Ocean, sail up the stream. We may observe in passing, that he describes hisθάλασσαasεὐρύπορος, in evident contrast with the Ocean, which is marked, therefore, by a contraction of shores.
Further, Homer had conceived the existence of what we may call ultra-terrene parts, both westwards and eastwards. On the one hand, Menelaus, after death, is to be carried to the Elysian plain, where Zephyrs continually blow, springing fresh from the bed of western Ocean. On the other hand, the groves of Persephone are on the beach of Ocean, but in the furthest East.
Still it does not at all follow from this, that he had in his mind the idea of a double egress from the Mediterranean, or, theθάλασσαat large, to the Ocean. On the contrary, we never hear of any mode of access to it except one; and his placing the point where Ulysses enters it amidst mist and cloud, and his calling in the aid of Boreas to carry the ship to the groves of Persephone and mouth of the Shades (which he probably intended to be the exact counterpart in position of the Elysian plain), lead to the belief that his egress from sea to Ocean was in the north, and that the furtherroute to the Shades lay, for the most part, in a southerly direction.
Open-sea Passage to Ocean-mouth.
The reader of the Odyssey will observe, that Ulysses encounters on his passage tempests indeed, but yet nothing in the nature of a dangerous maritime passage, before he has entered the Ocean-river, and then, completing his excursion to the nether world, has returned to the island of Circe[587]. Therefore we may say with certainty, that the mouth of Oceanus is, according to the ideas of Homer, accessible by the broad and open sea. Thus we have attained a first condition for the determination of its site.
But, before he sets out a second time from Ææa, Circe, now his friend, directs him as to his onward and homeward course. First, he was to reach the island of the Sirens[588]. After passing beyond this, the deity no longer lays before him a single and continuous route[589]: but indicates to him two alternatives, each involving a most dangerous passage. The first is described in the lines Od. xii. 59-72, beginningἔνθεν μὲν γάρ. The second, which she recommends in vv. 73-110, begins withοἱ δὲ δύω σκόπελοι: where theδὲis theapodosisto theμὲνof v. 59. Now, it must be remembered, that physically there was nothing to prevent his returning by the way he came, and thus avoiding both of these passages. Why then does Homer expose him to such extraordinary danger, leaving him no option but either total destruction, or the certain loss, at the least, of six men of his crew[590]?
The voyage of Ulysses might have been given us by the Poet as the execution of a divine plan, comprehensively premeditated as a whole: but it is not so: it is shown us as simply prolonged from time to time bysome error of his own or of his companions, or by the spite of Neptune, or by the vengeance which the Sun demanded and obtained[591]. At Ææa he has nothing to do, but to take the best way home. Tiresias had indeed prophesied that he would come to Thrinacie[592], but nowhere intimates that he was to be divinely compelled to do this, or that he would take that route for any other reason than according to his own best judgment. Why then does he not return, as he had come, by the open sea, instead of tempting either of the two passages of peril?
The answer I believe to be this. He was subject to the resentment of Neptune, who operates by storm in the open sea.Otium divos rogat inpatentiprensus Ægæo. As in the heroic age, every wound, generally speaking, is death, so storm either invariably or commonly means foundering or shipwreck. Thus then Ulysses might prudently keep to landlocked waters and narrow seas, even with a crisis of great danger before him, rather than face the angry Sea-god on the long passages over the open main, by which he had come to the land of the Cyclops, and so onwards to Ææa.
Rationalized, and reduced to its simplest form, this seems to imply that the routes pointed out to him by Circe, and perhaps especially that which he was to prefer, were short cuts either to his home, or at least back into the Inner or Greek world. And in conformity with this supposition, the whole prediction of Circe appears to presume that a passage of moderate length would bring him back within the known world; for it never speaks of the breadth of any unknown sea to be crossed, which to the navigators of that day was always its most formidable feature.
In the mental view of Homer, then, the passage of Scylla could not lie much beyond the horizon of his own Greek world and of geography proper. This was the more eligible of the two routes. The other was that of theΠλαγκταὶ, or Bosphorus. It was rejected as involving certain destruction: for only Jason had safely passed it by the aid of Juno, and Pallas was not now at hand to succour Ulysses; since he was outside that Greek world, to which her action has been restricted, generally speaking, and in all likelihood for poetical reasons, in the Odyssey. Now, since both these passages are spoken of as apparently lying near the island of the Sirens, which is itself separated, as far as we can judge, by no long interval from Ææa and Circe, the next inferences we have to draw are two of very great importance. The first is, that although the one strait of Homer physically corresponds with the Straits of Messina, while by the other he plainly means the Bosphorus, yet he conceived of these as within no great distance of one another. The second inference is that, according to the belief of Homer, the waters beyond the Bosphorus were accessible by some channel other than that of the Dardanelles and Sea of Marmora: for otherwise Ulysses could not have placed himself on the farther side of those terrible narrows, except by navigating one of them.
Three maritime routes to Ocean-mouth.
There were therefore three maritime routes by which Homer conceived that mouth of Ocean, which Ulysses entered, to be approachable:
1. The route by which the hero actually arrived there:
2. The route of Scylla and Charybdis, by which he returned from it:
3. The route of the Bosphorus, by which Jason hadpassed, and which Ulysses might, according to the description of Circe, have attempted.
But now, what in the view of Homer was this mouth of Ocean? that is, on what geographical basis rested the reports or descriptions which he adopted for the groundwork of his picture? We cannot but admire, as we pass along, the manner in which the Phœnicians guarded the treasures of their distant markets: no way lay to them except through a choice of terrors; terror in the boundless expanse of devouring waters; terror in shipwreck by theΠλαγκταὶ, which none but Jason (so says Circe, the Phœnician witness) had escaped; terror in certain loss of men by the voracious maw of Scylla. What, however, was this Ocean-mouth that lay beyond them?
My answer is, that there are two mouths of Ocean, either of which might tolerably correspond with the Homeric picture, if tried only by its relation to the intermediate points that are represented by these dangerous passages.
Firstly, the Straits of Gibraltar, leading to the Atlantic.
Secondly, the Straits of Kertch or Yenikalè, leading to the Sea of Azof.
Straits of Gibraltar as Ocean-mouth.
1. As regards the Straits of Gibraltar, they correspond with the Homeric description in respect of their great distance from Ithaca: of their current ever setting inwards to the Mediterranean: of their being accessible, without previously leaving the wide or open sea for any narrow passage: of their being, we may confidently believe, within the maritime experience of the Phœnicians. Further, on the route to them there lies an island triangular in form, which was already described by the name Thrinacie[593]. Again, it would appear thatthere were other islands between Thrinacie and this Ocean-mouth. For both Circe and the Sirens inhabit islands. Even the nearest of the Balearic isles, namely, Ibiza, is from the Straits of Gibraltar about as far as Crete from Egypt, which we know to have been estimated by the Poet at five days’ sail. It seems, however, not unlikely that Homer, having received a notice of the Balearic isles in the Phœnician reports concerning the Pillars of Atlas, carried them over, together with Atlas himself, into the eastern situation, where he blends two sets of traditions into one. He may therefore have been supplied from this source with materials for his island of Circe and island of the Sirens.
Lastly, although the misty Cimmerians are close by the Ocean-mouth, while the atmosphere of Gibraltar is warm and sunny, yet even the fogs may find their prototype in St. George’s Channel[594], or in the Straits of Dover, and it may also be said that, in the hazy distance of a Phœnician captain’s tale, they might from Homer’s point of view seem to stand nearly together. But still this is a difficulty. There are other more serious impediments, which make it absolutely impossible for us to say that the Homeric mouth of Ocean corresponds with the Straits of Gibraltar. This one especially: that he has, by a multitude of ties, fastened down his mouth of Ocean to an eastern rather than a western site; for there, at least hard by, is the dwelling of Aurora; there is the morning couch of the Sun; there is Circe, sister of Æetes, to whose country Jason sailed through the Bosphorus; and these both have had the Sun for their father, and Perse, daughter of Ocean, without doubt an eastern and not a western personage, for their mother[595].The site of Ææa will, however, together with that of Ogygia, receive presently a fuller consideration.
Straits of Yenikalè as Ocean-mouth.
Let us turn then to the other alternative in the inquiry.
2. As the Straits of Gibraltar offer a resemblance to the Homeric picture, by their lying beyond the Straits of Messina, so do the Straits of Yenikalè, by their lying beyond the Bosphorus. The perpetual current inwards[596]is another feature of correspondence, such as may apply to both the cases, and such as probably assisted the process at which I shall presently glance. The whole group of Oriental conditions, attaching to Homer’s Ocean-mouth, appear to be exactly realized in the straits of Yenikalè.
The Cimmerian country of Homer is represented down to the present day by the Crimea, one of the most ancient passages from Asia into Europe, and probably known to the Phœnicians, who could well enough pass the Bosphorus themselves, while making it a bugbear to others. The cloud, in which these Cimmerians are wrapped, finds its counterpart in the notoriously frequent winter fogs of the Euxine. The peninsula, lying on the very Straits themselves, is in exact correspondence with the passage (Od. xi. 13),
ἡ δ’ εἰς πείραθ’ ἵκανε βαθυρρόου Ὠκεανοῖο·ἔνθα δὲ Κιμμερίων ἀνδρῶν δῆμός τε πόλις τε.
ἡ δ’ εἰς πείραθ’ ἵκανε βαθυρρόου Ὠκεανοῖο·ἔνθα δὲ Κιμμερίων ἀνδρῶν δῆμός τε πόλις τε.
ἡ δ’ εἰς πείραθ’ ἵκανε βαθυρρόου Ὠκεανοῖο·ἔνθα δὲ Κιμμερίων ἀνδρῶν δῆμός τε πόλις τε.
ἡ δ’ εἰς πείραθ’ ἵκανε βαθυρρόου Ὠκεανοῖο·
ἔνθα δὲ Κιμμερίων ἀνδρῶν δῆμός τε πόλις τε.
The only point of the description which is less faithfully represented at this point than at the other, is the epithetβαθύρροος. This agrees better with the deep water of Gibraltar, than with the (now at least) shallow current of Yenikalè[597].
Nor is it unnatural, that near the Cimmerian darkness he should place the home of Aurora and theEastern Sun: for it is out of darkness that dawn and day must ever rise; and we have occasion to notice, in various forms, the association in Homer’s mind of ideas belonging to darkness with the East. Again, there is a combination of a northerly with an easterly direction in the conditions of the Homeric description, which is exactly met by the position of these Straits relatively to Greece.
But if we say, that these Straits form the single prototype of the Homeric description, we are again met by hopeless contradictions. For there does not lie any triangular island close by the Bosphorus, which might answer to Thrinacie: and there is no free maritime passage whatever, other than the Bosphorus, by which the Ocean-mouth, that is, the mouth of thePalus Mæotis, can be attained by a person who has Troy for his point of departure.
These facts appear to direct us plainly towards one satisfactory, and as it seems inevitable, conclusion. It is exhibited in the sentences that immediately follow.
First, it seems at once clear that Homer either knew, or else dimly figured to himself by Phœnician report, certain geographical facts, including those whichfollow:—
1. That there was an island, whose figure was defined by a word signifying three promontories, and which was accessible by a passage on the western side of Greece.
2. That near this island, there lay on one side the jaw of a dangerous narrow.
3. That either on the other side of it or in some other neighbouring quarter lay the open sea, and a route along it, by which the further side of the island might be reached, without traversing the narrow.
4. That at a point beyond both these openings (I saynothing for the present of the points of the compass) there lay a great stream such as he calledὨκεανὸς, flowing always inwards to theθάλασσα, which he supposed to be fed by it (Il. xxi. 196).
5. That there was likewise a passage, which Homer called theΠλαγκταὶ, accessible from the eastern side of Greece; and through which Jason, and as he believed Jason alone, had sailed.
6. That at a point beyond this passage too, there lay an expanse of sea,θάλασσα, and again a great stream, such as he calledὨκεανὸς, flowing always inwards to theθάλασσα.
Now we have seen that he gives us in the poem one mouth, and one mouth only, ofὨκεανὸς, which corresponds with every one of these propositions taken singly: it is, according to him, beyond Thrinacie, beyond the Straits of Scylla and Charybdis, attainable by an open sea passage, and beyond theΠλαγκταὶor Bosphorus.
It seems to follow almost mathematically, that he believed in an open sea route, which must have lain to the north, and which established a communication, independent of the Bosphorus, between the Mediterranean and the Euxine.