CHAPTER III.

“The haven there is good, and many a shipFinds watering there from rivulets on the coast.”219

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

“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,221and with his vessels222he 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.223And 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;224with 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 isthmus225which 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 arenot 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

“Thus he, provision gathering as he went,

And gold abundant, roam’d to distant lands.”226

[And Menelaus himself],

“Cyprus, Phœnicia, and the Egyptians’ landI wandered through.”227

“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 Casium229and Pelusium230dry 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 godsHave destined to the blest Elysian Isles,Earth’s utmost boundaries.”231

“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 seaBreathes on them.”232

“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 mostpart 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,234and 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,235owing 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 giftOf Cinyras long since; for rumour loudHad Cyprus reached.”236

“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.237Here, indeed, he might hope to enrich himself both by the gifts of friendshipand 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,238the 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.239On 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 Parætonium240is 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 seasWith Jove-begotten Helen, brought to Troy.”249

“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 meThe hero Phædimus presented, kingOf the Sidonians, when on my returnBeneath his roof I lodged. I make it thine.”250

“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 aresaid 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:

“EarthOwn’d not its like for elegance of form.Skilful Sidonian artists had aroundEmbellish’d it, and o’er the sable deepPhœnician merchants into Lemnos’ portHad borne it.”251

“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 north252and those of the south,253and again between each of these and the inhabitants of the middle region,254still 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] termis 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,255by 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 mindAnd manners learn’d of men in lands remote.”256

“Discover’d various cities, and the mind

And manners learn’d of men in lands remote.”256

And again:

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

“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,258writes,

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 thedifferent 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;261and 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 hisHemicynes,262hisMacrocephali,263and his Pygmies; or Homer for his like fables, and amongst others the Pygmies themselves; or Alcman264for describing theSteganopodes;265or Æschylus for hisCynocephali,266Sternophthalmi,267andMonommati;268when 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 ignoranceof 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.269And 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 dayThrice swallows it,”)270

“(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 dayThrice swallows it. Ah! well-forewarn’d bewareWhat time she swallows, that thou come not nigh,For not himself, Neptune, could snatch thee thence.”271

“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 profoundThe briny flood, but by a wave upborne,I seized the branches fast of the wild fig,To which bat-like I clung.”272

“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 hardI clench’d the boughs, till she disgorged againBoth keel and mast. Not undesired by meThey came, though late; for at what hour the judge,After decision made of numerous strifesBetween young candidates for honour, leavesThe forum, for refreshment’s sake at home,Then was it that the mast and keel emerged.”276

“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 hischaracter as a grammarian, that Gaudus277and Corcyra278were 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,280founded at Cyzicus the temples of the Idæan Mother.281Though 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 Lesbos282and other districts, spared Lemnos283and the adjoining islands, on account of his relationship with Jason and his son Euneos,284who 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,285the other of the Achæan Pthiotis,286and yetwas 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, praisedFor beauty above all her sisters fair,In Thessaly to king Admetus bore,”287

“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,288midway 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 Sinope289and 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,290Italy, and the Adriatic. Callimachus himself alludes to it where he says,

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

”[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

“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,294Near to the tomb of fair Harmonia,Who was transform’d into a dragon’s shape,Founded their city, which a Greek would callThe Town of Fugitives, but in their tongueIs Pola named.”

“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,”297is 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.”

1.Eratosthenesis 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,298or Euemerus the Messenian, and those other scribblers whom Eratostheneshimself 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;299likewise the statement that Diotimus, the son of Strombicus and chief of the Athenian legation, sailed through Cilicia up the Cydnus300into the river Choaspes,301which flows by Susa,302and 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 Issus304to be the most easterly point of the Mediterranean, though Dioscurias,305which is nearly at the bottom of the Pontus Euxinus, is, according to his own calculations, farther east by a distance of 3000 stadia.306In 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 piraticalexcursions, 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 byformerlyhe 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 Dioscuri307gained the appellation of guardians of the sea, and the deliverers of sailors.308The 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.309Is it not correct to number amongst the ancients Æneas,310Antenor,311the 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 warboth 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,312besides 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.314He gives as aninstance, that about the temple of Ammon,315and 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,316and 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.317And 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.318He 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 largerivers 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,319and the shoals at the mouth of the Ister, and the desert of Scythia,320which 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,321Mount Casius,322and the Lake Sirbonis.323Even 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 Gerrha324had 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 nowuncovered 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 beinghigher 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,325as 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 Propontis326or of the adjoining sea327) 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, butattribute 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. In fine, the Physician did wrong in comparing the sea to rivers, for the latter are borne down as a descending stream, but the sea always maintains its level. The currents of straits depend upon other causes, not upon the accumulation of earth formed by the alluvial deposit from rivers, filling up the bed of the sea. This accumulation only goes on at the mouths of rivers. Such are what are called the Stethe or Breasts at the mouth of the Ister,328the desert of the Scythians, and Salmydessus, which are partially occasioned by other winter-torrents as well; witness the sandy, low, and even coast of Colchis,329at the mouth of the Phasis,330the whole of the coast of Themiscyra,331named the plain of the Amazons, near the mouths of the Thermodon332and Iris,333and the greater part of Sidene.334It is the same with other rivers, they all resemble the Nile in forming an alluvial deposit at their mouths, some more, some less than others. Those rivers which carry but little soil with them deposit least, while others, which traverse an extended and soft country, and receive many torrents in their course, deposit the greatest quantity. Such for example is the river Pyramus,335by which Cilicia has been considerably augmented, and concerning which an oracle has declared, “This shall occur when the wide waters of the Pyramus have enlarged their banks as far as sacred Cyprus.”336This river becomes navigable from the middle of the plains of Cataonia, and entering Cilicia337by the defiles of the Taurus, discharges itself into the sea which flows between that country and the island of Cyprus.

8. These river deposits are prevented from advancing further into the sea by the regularity of the ebb and flow, which continually drive them back. For after the manner of living creatures, which go on inhaling and exhaling their breath continually, so the sea in a like way keeps up a constant motion in and out of itself. Any one may observe who stands on the sea-shore when the waves are in motion, the regularity with which they cover, then leave bare, and then again cover up his feet. This agitation of the sea produces a continual movement on its surface, which even when it is most tranquil has considerable force, and so throws all extraneous matters on to the land, and

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