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 the _data_ that 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 this
θάλασσα, 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 nature in 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.
[576] On this hypothesis is founded the Homeric _Erdkarte_ of Forbiger,
Handbuch der Alt. Geogr. I. 4.
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 the ἀπείρονα 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.
[577] Il. xiii. 1.
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].’
[578] Od. vii. 19-26.
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, according to 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,
[579] Od. v. 43-58.
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 a θάλασσα to 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 for Πηρείῃ in 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].
[580] Il. xiv. 225-30.
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.
[581] Od. xxiv. 11.
~_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 second
Νεκυΐα, 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].
[582] Od. iv. 83-5.
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 the θάλασσα we
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 this θάλασσα, 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 the Πλαγκταὶ involving him in the hopeless absurdity
of contradiction to his own experimental knowledge of the general
direction of Jason’s course with the ship Argo.
[583] Od. xii. 325, 427.
[584] Od. v. 485. x. 25. xii. 407.
~_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 the _Inferno_. Returning from thence, they
come down the stream (κατὰ ῥόον Od. xi. 639) back to the sea (θάλασσα);
and they there find themselves at the isle of Circe, where is the
dwelling of Ἠὼς, and where is also the couch, from which the sun rises
in the morning.
[585] Od. xi. 13, 21.
[586] Od. X. 507.
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 related _primâ facie_ to 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 or θάλασσα. 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 his θάλασσα as εὐρύπορος,
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, the θάλασσα
at 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 further route 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.
[587] Od. xii. 3.
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, beginning
ἔνθεν μὲν γάρ. The second, which she recommends in vv. 73-110, begins
with οἱ δὲ δύω σκόπελοι: where the δὲ is the _apodosis_ to the μὲν of
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]?
[588] Ibid. 39, 167.
[589] Ibid. 56.
[590] Ibid. 109, 10.
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
by some 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?
[591] Od. i. 75. xii. 373 _et seqq._
[592] Od. xi. 104-7.
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 in
_patenti_ prensus 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
the Πλαγκταὶ, 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: