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 about S.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.
[565] Il. ii. 144-6. xvi. 765. Od. v. 330. xii. 326.
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.
[Illustration: 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].
[566] Friedreich has discussed the winds of Homer (Realien der Il. und
Od. §. 3). His results are to me unsatisfactory: but the fault seems
to lie in his basis. For (1) he fixes the four Winds of Homer as the
four cardinal points: and (2) he finds _data_ for ascertaining the
Winds in the Passages of the Outer Geography, instead of determining
those Passages themselves by the Winds, after these latter have been
ascertained from evidence belonging to the sphere of Homer’s own
experience.
The name Eurus is further attached to the point of sunrise by the root
ἔως, to which it is traced[567]. The tracts of Aides are with Homer
σμερδάλεα εὐρώεντα (Il. xx. 65). May not this εὐρωεὶς come from the
same source? The Cimmerian darkness of Homer is close to the mouth
of Ocean, and _near_ that 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.
[567] Liddell and Scott _in voc._
[568] Od. xi. 13-16. xii. 1-4.
[569] See Friedreich, Realien, §. 9. p. 19.
_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-world _data_ of 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, and leaves 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 upon εὐπλοίη, 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 difference between 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.
[570] Il. ix. 362.
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
full weight 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 progress _per
diem_ than 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 the pretended 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.
[571] Od. xiv. 301.
[572] Ibid. 310-15.
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.
[573] Od. v. 249-51.
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 the speed of the
ordinary sailing vessel, or at about twelve miles an hour.
[574] Od. vii. 325.
[575] Od. xiii. 81, 86.
Thus, taking drift-speed for our unit, we have the following scale
approximately established: