Chapter 23

103The Gulf of Salerno.

104The Grecian name for Tuscany.

105Several small islands, or rather reefs, at the entrance of the Strait of Constantinople. They took their name of Symplegades from the varying positions they assumed to the eyes of the voyager, owing to the sinuosities of the Strait.

106Unfortunately for Strabo’s illustration, no Grecian navigator had ever passed the Strait of Gibraltar in Homer’s time.

107The powerful Shaker of the Earth, as he was returning from the Ethiopians, beheld him from a distance, from the mountains of the Solymi. Odyssey v. 282.

108There is some doubt as to the modern name of the island of Ithaca. D’Anville supposes it to be the island of Thiaki, between the island of Cephalonia and Acarnania, while Wheeler and others, who object to this island as being too large to answer the description of Ithaca given by Strabo, identify it with the little isle of Ithaco, between Thiaki and the mainland.

109A name of the city of Troy, from Ilus, son of Tros.

110A mountain of Magnesia in Thessaly.

111A mountain in the Troad.

112Cape Faro in Sicily.

113The stadia here mentioned are 700 to a degree; thus 2000 stadia amount to rather more than 57 marine leagues, which is the distance in a direct line from Capo Faro to the Capo della Minerva.

114The Sirenussæ are the rocks which form the southern cape of the Gulf of Naples, and at the same time separate it from the Gulf of Salerno. This cape, which was also called the promontory of Minerva, from the Athenæum which stood there, preserves to this day the name of Capo della Minerva.

115Now Surrento.

116The island of Capri is opposite to the Capo della Minerva.

117Now the Island of St. Marcian.

118Monte Circello, near to Terracina.

119The Iliad.

120Sword-fish.

121And fishes there, watching about the rock for dolphins and dogs, and if she can any where take a larger whale. Odyssey xii. 95.

122There is a very fine medallion in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, portraying Scylla as half woman, half dolphin, with a trident in her left hand, and seizing a fish with her right. From her middle protrude two half-bodied dogs, who assist the monster in swimming.

123Odyssey xii. 105.

124At this place there was an altar consecrated to Ulysses. Meninx is now known as the island of Zerbi, on the side of the Bay of Cabus, on the coast of Africa.

125The second book of the Iliad.

126And from thence I was carried for nine days over the fishy sea by baleful winds. Odyssey ix. 82.

127Cape Maleo off the Morea. The distance from this point to Gibraltar is now estimated at 28° 34′. The 22,500 stadia of Polybius would equal 32° 8′ 34″. He was therefore out in his calculation by 3°34′ 34″.

128But when the ship left the stream of the river ocean. Odyss. xii. 1.

129Vide Odyssey i. 50.

130Calypso.

131And we dwell at a distance, the farthest in the sea of many waves, nor does any other of mortals mingle with us. Odyssey vi. 204.

132Gosselin has satisfactorily demonstrated that Strabo is wrong in supposing that these passages relate to the Atlantic Ocean, and most of our readers will come at once themselves to the same conclusion. Those, however, who wish for proofs, may refer to the French translation, vol. i. p. 51,n.

133The ancient name of the city of Naples.

134Puteoli, now Pozzuolo, in Campania.

135Mare Morto, south of Baia, and near to the ruins of Mycene.

136Aornus or Avernus: this lake, which lies about one mile north of Baia, still retains its ancient appellation.

137Vide Virgil, Æneid vi. 162.

138Cythæron and Helicon, two mountains of Bœotia, the latter of which is now named Zagaro Voreni.

139Parnassus, a mountain of Phocis, near Delphi.

140Pelion, a mountain of Magnesia, in Thessaly.

141They attempted to place Ossa upon Olympus, and upon Ossa leafy Pelion. Odyssey xi. 314. The mountains Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus, bounded the eastern coasts of Thessaly.

142Pieria and Emathia, two countries of Macedonia.

143The mountains of Macedonia; this latter name was unknown to Homer, who consequently describes as Thracian, the whole of the people north of Thessaly.

144The Mount Santo of the moderns.

145Juno, hastening, quitted the summit of Olympus, and having passed over Pieria, and fertile Emathia, she hastened over the snowy mountains of equestrian Thrace, most lofty summits.... From Athos she descended to the foaming deep. Iliad xiv. 225.

146Odyssey iv. 83.

147Euripides, Bacchæ, towards commencement.

148Sophocles.

149The inaccuracy of the description consists in this; that Bacchus leaving Lydia and Phrygia should have taken his course by Media into Bactriana, and returned by Persia into Arabia Felix. Perhaps too, for greater exactness, Strabo would have had the god mention particularly the intermediate countries through which he necessarily passed, as Cappadocia, Armenia, Syria, &c.

150But it lies low, the highest in the sea towards the west, but those that are separated from it [lie] towards the east and the sun. Odyssey ix. 25.

151Vide Odyssey xiii. 109, 111.

152Which I very little regard, nor do I care for them whether they fly to the right, towards the morn and the sun, or to the left, towards the darkening west. Iliad xii. 239.

153O my friends, since we know not where is the west, nor where the morning, nor where the sun. Odyssey x. 190.

154The north and west winds, which both blow from Thrace. Iliad ix. 5.

155Now the Bay of Saros.

156These two provinces are comprised in the modern division of Roumelia. A portion of Macedonia still maintains its ancient name Makidunia.

157The modern names of these places are Thaso, Stalimene, Imbro, and Samothraki.

158Strabo, as well as Casaubon in his notes on this passage, seems to have made an imperfect defence of Homer. The difficulty experienced, as well by them as Eratosthenes, arose from their overlooking the fact that Macedonia was a part of Thrace in Homer’s time, and that the name of Macedon did not exist.

159These rocks were situated between the city of Megara and the isthmus of Corinth.

160And the south-east and the south rushed together, and the hard-blowing west, and the cold-producing north. Odyssey v. 295.

161The western part of Thrace, afterwards named Macedonia; having Pæonia on the north, and Thessaly on the south.

162The Magnetæ dwelt near to Mount Pelion and the Pelasgic Gulf, now the Bay of Volo.

163These people dwelt between Mount Othrys, and the Maliac Gulf, now the Gulf of Zeitun.

164The maritime portion of Epirus opposite Corfu.

165In the time of Homer the Dolopes were the neighbours of the Pæonians, and dwelt in the north of that part of Thrace which afterwards formed Macedonia. Later, however, they descended into Thessaly, and established themselves around Pindus.

166Dodona was in Epirus, but its exact position is not known.

167Now Aspro-potamo, or the White River; this river flows into the sea at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth.

168And the assembly was moved, as the great waves of the Icarian sea. Iliad ii. 144.

169Ἀργέσταο Νότοιο, Iliad xi. 306, xxi. 334. Ἀργέστης strictly speaking means the north-west, and although, to an English ear, the north-west south seems at first absurd, yet in following up the argument which Strabo is engaged in, it is impossible to make use of any other terms than those which he has brought forward, and merely to have translated ἀργέσταο Νότοιο by Argest-south, would have mystified the passage without cause. We do not here attempt to reconcile the various renderings of ἀργέσταο Νότοιο by Homeric critics, as Strabo’s sense alone concerns us.

170The north and west winds, which both blow from Thrace. Iliad ix. 5.

171Ἀργέστης Νότος, the clearing south wind, Horace’s Notus Albus;—in the improved compass of Aristotle, ἀργέστης was the north-west wind, the Athenian σκείρων.

172Τοῦ λοιποῦ Νότου ὅλου Εὔρου πως ὄντος. MSS.i.e. all the other southern winds having an easterly direction. We have adopted the suggestion of Kramer, and translated the passage as if it stood thus, τοῦ λοιποῦ Νότου ὀλεροῦ πως ὄντος.

173As when the west wind agitates the light clouds of the clearing south, striking them with a dreadful gale. Iliad xi. 305.

174Gosselin observes that Hesiod lived about forty years after Homer, and he mentions not only the Nile, but also the Po, with which certainly Homer was unacquainted. He speaks too of the Western Ocean, where he places the Gorgons, and the garden of the Hesperides. It is very likely that these various points of information were brought into Greece by the Carthaginians. The nameNileseems to be merely a descriptive title; it is still in use in many countries of India, where it signifieswater. The river known subsequently asthe Nile, was, in Homer’s time, called theRiver of Egypt, or theRiver Egyptus; by the latter of which titles he was acquainted with it. See Odyssey xvii. 448.

175By this expression is intended the Atlantic.

176Gosselin remarks that the arguments made use of by Strabo are not sufficiently conclusive. The country with which the Greeks were best acquainted was Greece, undoubtedly, and it is this land which Homer has described with the greatest exactness of detail.

177An island opposite to Alexandria, and seven stadia distant therefrom. The Ptolemies united it to the mainland by means of a pier, named Hepta-stadium, in allusion to its length. The sands which accumulated against the pier became the site of the present city of Alexandria. It was not on this island that the celebrated Pharos of Alexandria was erected, but on a desolate rock a little to the N.E. It received the same name as the island, to which it was joined by another pier. As to the passage of Homer, (Odyssey iv. 354-357,) where he says that Pharos is one day’s sail from the Egyptus, he does not mean Egypt, as Strabo fancies, but the mouth of the Nile, which river in his time was called the Egyptus, and probably fell into the sea about one day’s sail from Pharos.

178We have before remarked that the Ethiopia visited by Menelaus was not the country above Egypt, generally known by that name, but an Ethiopia lying round Jaffa, the ancient Joppa.

179“The priests stated also that Menes was the first of mortals that ever ruled over Egypt; to this they added that in the days of that king, all Egypt, with the exception of the Thebaic nome, was but a morass; and that none of the lands now seen below Lake Mœris, then existed; from the sea up to this place is a voyage by the river of seven days. I myself am perfectly convinced the account of the priests in this particular is correct; for the thing is evident to every one who sees and has common sense, although he may not have heard the fact, that the Egypt to which the Hellenes navigate, is a land annexed to the Egyptians, and a gift from the river; and that even in the parts above the lake just mentioned, for three days’ sail, concerning which the priests relate nothing, the country is just of the same description.” Herod. ii. § 5.

180The Ethiopians, who are divided into two parts, the most distant of men, some at the setting of the sun, others at the rising. Odyssey i. 23.

181Odyssey i. 23.

182Many ancient writers entertained the opinion that the regions surrounding the terrestrial equator were occupied by the ocean, which formed a circular zone, separating our continent from that which they supposed to exist in the southern hemisphere. To the inhabitants of this second continent they gave the name of Antichthones.

183The Southern Ocean.

184Or nearest to the equator.

185The isthmus of Suez.

186Odyssey i. 23.

187This explanation falls to the ground when we remember, that prior to the reign of Psammeticus no stranger had ever succeeded in penetrating into the interior of Egypt. This was the statement of the Greeks themselves. Now as Psammeticus did not flourish till two and a half centuries after Homer, that poet could not possibly have been aware of the circumstances which Strabo brings forward to justify his interpretation of this passage which he has undertaken to defend.

188Africa.

189The Red Sea.

190The Strait of Gibraltar.

191The Tartessians were the inhabitants of the island of Tartessus, formed by the two arms of the Bætis, (the present Guadalquiver,) near the mouth of this river. One of these arms being now dried up, the island is reunited to the mainland. It forms part of the present district of Andalusia. The tradition, says Gosselin, reported by Ephorus, seems to me to resemble that still preserved at Tingis, a city of Mauritania, so late as the sixth century. Procopius (Vandalicor. ii. 10) relates that there were two columns at Tingis bearing the following inscription in the Phœnician language, “We are they who fled before the brigand Joshua, the son of Naue (Nun).” It does not concern us to inquire whether these columns actually existed in the time of Procopius, but merely to remark two independent facts. The first is the tradition generally received for more than twenty centuries, that the coming of the Israelites into Palestine drove one body of Canaanites, its ancient inhabitants, to the extremities of the Mediterranean, while another party went to establish, among the savage tribes of the Peloponnesus and Attica, the earliest kingdoms known in Europe. The second observation has reference to the name of Ethiopians given by Ephorus to this fugitive people, as confirming what we have before stated, that the environs of Jaffa, and possibly the entire of Palestine, anciently bore the name of Ethiopia: and it is here we must seek for the Ethiopians of Homer, and not in the interior of Africa.

192Africa.

193This piece is now lost.

194τὸ μεσημβρινὸν κλίμα.

195Æschylus.

196This piece is now lost.

197Odyssey ix. 26.

198Strabo is mistaken in interpreting πρὸς ζόφον towards the north. It means here, as every where else, “towards the west,” and allusion in the passage is made to Ithaca as lying west of Greece.

199Whether they fly to the right towards the morn and the sun, or to the left towards the darkening west. Iliad xii. 239.

200O my friends! since we know not where is the west, nor where the morning, nor where the sun that gives light to mortals descends beneath the earth, nor where he rises up again. Odyssey x. 190.

201In Book x.

202For yesterday Jove went to Oceanus to the blameless Ethiopians, to a banquet. Iliad i. 423.

203The powerful shaker of the earth, as he was returning from the Ethiopians, beheld him from a distance, from the mountains of the Solymi. Odyssey v. 282.

204This would be true if Homer had lived two or three centuries later, when the Greeks became acquainted with the Ethiopians on the eastern and western coasts of Africa. But as the poet was only familiar with the Mediterranean, there is no question that the Ethiopians mentioned in this passage are those of Phœnicia and Palestine.

205Which, after they have escaped the winter and immeasurable shower, with a clamour wing their way towards the streams of the ocean, bearing slaughter and fate to the Pygmæan men. Iliad iii. 3.

206Gosselin is of opinion that this Iberia has no reference to Spain, but is a country situated between the Euxine and Caspian Seas, and forms part of the present Georgia. He assigns as his reason, that if Strabo had meant to refer to Spain, he would have mentioned it before Italy, so as not to interrupt the geographical order, which he is always careful to observe.

207Pygmy, (πυγμαῖος,) a being whose length is a πυγμὴ, that is, from the elbow to the hand. The Pygmæi were a fabulous nation of dwarfs, the Lilliputians of antiquity, who, according to Homer, had every spring to sustain a war against the cranes on the banks of Oceanus. They were believed to have been descended from Pygmæus, a son of Dorus and grandson of Epaphus. Later writers usually place them near the sources of the Nile, whither the cranes are said to have migrated every year to take possession of the field of the Pygmies. The reports of them have been embellished in a variety of ways by the ancients. Hecatæus, for example, related that they cut down every corn-ear with an axe, for they were conceived to be an agricultural people. When Hercules came into their country, they climbed with ladders to the edge of his goblet to drink from it; and when they attacked the hero, a whole army of them made an assault upon his left hand, while two made the attack on his right. Aristotle did not believe that the accounts of the Pygmies were altogether fabulous, but thought that they were a tribe in Upper Egypt, who had exceedingly small horses, and lived in caves. In later times we also hear of Northern Pygmies, who lived in the neighbourhood of Thule: they are described as very short-lived, small, and armed with spears like needles. Lastly, we also have mention of Indian Pygmies, who lived under the earth on the east of the river Ganges. Smith, Dict. Biog. and Mythol. Various attempts have been made to account for this singular belief, which however seems to have its only origin in the love of the marvellous.

208It must be observed that the Arabian Gulf, or Red Sea, does not run parallel to the equator, consequently it could not form any considerable part of a meridian circle; thus Strabo is wrong even as to the physical position of the Gulf, but this is not much to be wondered at, as he supposed an equatorial division of the earth into two hemispheres by the ocean.

20915,000 of the stadia employed by Strabo were equivalent to 21° 25′ 43″ The distance from the Isthmus of Suez to the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, following our better charts, is 20° 15´. Strabo says nearly 15,000 stadia; and this length may be considered just equal to that of the Arabian Gulf. Its breadth, so far as we know, is in some places equal to 1800 stadia.

210The Arabian Gulf, or Red Sea.

211The Mediterranean.

212Aristotle accounts for Homer’s mentioning Thebes rather than Memphis, by saying that, at the time of the poet, the formation of that part of Egypt by alluvial deposit was very recent. So that Memphis either did not then exist, or at all events had not then obtained its after celebrity. Aristotle likewise seems to say that anciently Egypt consisted only of the territory of the Thebaid, καὶ τὸ ἀρχαῖονἡ Αἴγυπτος, Θῆβαι καλούμεναι.

213The Mediterranean.

214Gosselin says, “Read 4000, as in lib. xvii. This correction is indicated by the following measure given by Herodotus:From the sea to Heliopolis1500 stadiaFrom Heliopolis to Thebes4860——6300The stadium made use of in Egypt at the time of Herodotus consisted of 1111-1/9 to a degree on the grand circle, as may be seen by comparing the measure of the coasts of the Delta furnished by that historian with our actual information. The length of this stadium may likewise be ascertained by reference to Aristotle. In the time of Eratosthenes and Strabo, the stadium of 700 to a degree was employed in Egypt. Now 6360 stadia of 1111-1/9 to a degree make just 4006 stadia of 700: consequently these two measures are identical, their apparent inconsistency merely resulting from the different scales by which preceding authors had expressed them.” This reasoning seems very plausible, but we must remark that Col. Leake, in a valuable paper “On the Stade as a Linear Measure,” published in vol. ix. of the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, is of opinion that Gosselin’s system of stadia of different lengths cannot be maintained.

214Gosselin says, “Read 4000, as in lib. xvii. This correction is indicated by the following measure given by Herodotus:

The stadium made use of in Egypt at the time of Herodotus consisted of 1111-1/9 to a degree on the grand circle, as may be seen by comparing the measure of the coasts of the Delta furnished by that historian with our actual information. The length of this stadium may likewise be ascertained by reference to Aristotle. In the time of Eratosthenes and Strabo, the stadium of 700 to a degree was employed in Egypt. Now 6360 stadia of 1111-1/9 to a degree make just 4006 stadia of 700: consequently these two measures are identical, their apparent inconsistency merely resulting from the different scales by which preceding authors had expressed them.” This reasoning seems very plausible, but we must remark that Col. Leake, in a valuable paper “On the Stade as a Linear Measure,” published in vol. ix. of the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, is of opinion that Gosselin’s system of stadia of different lengths cannot be maintained.

215Namely Crates and Aristarchus. The last was of Alexandria, and consequently an Egyptian. Crates was of Cilicia, which was regarded as a part of Syria.

216This is a very favourite axiom with Strabo, notwithstanding he too often forgets it himself.

217The Phrygians were considered to be more timid than any other people, and consequently the hares of their country more timid than those of any other. We see then a two-fold hyperbole in the expression that a man is more timid than a Phrygian hare.

218Alcæus of Mitylene in the island of Lesbos, the earliest of the Æolian lyric poets, began to flourish in the forty-second Olympiad (B. C.610). In the second year of this Olympiad we find Cicis and Antimenidas, the brothers of Alcæus, fighting under Pittacus against Melanchrus, who is described as the tyrant of Lesbos, and who fell in the conflict. Alcæus does not appear to have taken part with his brothers on this occasion; on the contrary, he speaks of Melanchrus in terms of high praise. Alcæus is mentioned in connexion with the war in Troas, between the Athenians and Mitylenæans, for the possession of Sigæum. During the period which followed this war, the contest between the nobles and the people of Mitylene was brought to a crisis. The party of Alcæus engaged actively on the side of the nobles, and was defeated. When he and his brother Antimenidas perceived that all hope of their restoration to Mitylene was gone, they travelled over different countries. Alcæus visited Egypt, and appears to have written poems in which his adventures by sea were described. Horace, Carm. ii. 13. 26. See Smith’s Dict. of Biog. and Mythol.

219But in it there is a haven with good mooring, from whence they take equal ships into the sea, having drawn black water. Odyssey iv. 358.

220Certainly having suffered many things, and having wandered much, I was brought in my ships, and I returned in the eighth year; having wandered to Cyprus, and Phœnice, and the Egyptians, I came to the Ethiopians and Sidonians, and Erembians, and Libya. Odyssey iv. 81.

221On the coasts of the Mediterranean.

222Strabo intends to say that the ships of Menelaus were not constructed so as to be capable of being taken to pieces, and carried on the backs of the sailors, as those of the Ethiopians were.

223Having mentioned the Phœnicians, amongst whom the Sidonians are comprised, he certainly would not have enumerated these latter as a separate people.

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