2. In the amalgamation of the western with the north-eastern report of
the Ocean-mouth.
From the site of the Ocean-mouth of Homer, we may most naturally
proceed to examine the site of Ææa; which, as being within one day’s
sail, is a kind of porter’s lodge to it[598], and is a point of the
utmost importance in the system. Hitherto I have proceeded only by
assertion, so far as the site of the Homeric Ææa is conceived. But to
defend the second main proposition or key to the system, in the face of
counter-theories, it will be necessary to examine, with as much care as
may be, all the Homeric evidence that bears either upon this question,
or upon the kindred one of the site of Ogygia.
[598] Od. xii. 10-13.
We have then to inquire, subject to the rules which have been laid
down, first, whether Ææa, the island of Circe, is to be placed, its
northward direction being generally admitted, in the north-west or in
the north-east?
Secondly, as dependent very much upon the prior question, and as
entering at the same time largely into the proof of it, what is the
site of Ogygia, the island of Calypso?
~_North-western hypothesis for the site of Ææa._~
Now I think that the arguments, which have been used for the
north-western theory, have been principally founded,
1. Upon precipitate inferences, drawn from some one or more of Homer’s
outer-world statements, and then illegitimately used in order to govern
the rest of them;
2. Upon the course of the later tradition, which was led, probably by
the course of colonization, to identify and appropriate the particulars
of the Outer Geography rather in the West than in the East. For Sicily
and Italy became at an early period familiar to the Greeks; but it was
long before they grew to be well acquainted with the more dangerous,
remote, and isolated navigation of the Black Sea[599]. Perhaps,
indeed, the main reason for placing the tour of Ulysses all along in
the West has been no better than this; that Homer has given us an
account of an island apparently corresponding in form with Sicily;
which it may very well do, and yet the conception of the site may be
totally erroneous. Again, with respect to traditional authority, I
apprehend it may be asserted, that the Fragment of Mimnermus[600],
which carries Jason to the East, to the chamber of the Sun, and to the
city of Æetes, as to one and the same point, expresses an universal
tradition, so far as the voyage of the Argonauts is concerned. And I
would also observe, that the current local appropriations about the
coast of Italy seem to be given up on all hands as geographically
worthless: the only question is, not so much that of removal, as
into which of two quarters they shall be transplanted. On the other
hand, the principal arguments for the north-eastern hypothesis are,
as I conceive, founded upon legitimate inferences, drawn from the
inner-world or experimental statements of Homer, and then applied, by a
law essentially sound, to determine the cardinal problems of his Outer
Geography.
[599] Müller’s Orchomenos, p. 269.
[600] Mimn. Fragm. x. quoted in Strabo, i. p. 67.
~_North-eastern hypothesis._~
For example, much will depend upon the answer to the question, whether
we are to carry the Straits of Messina, or rather the fable of Scylla
and Charybdis, taken to represent them, eastwards, or whether we are in
preference to move the Bosphorus westwards.
I answer without hesitation, that it is much more reasonable to
construe Homer as shifting essentially the site of Scylla and
Charybdis, than the site of the Bosphorus; and for the following
reasons.
We have not the slightest reason to suppose that either Sicily or the
Scylla passage came within the experimental knowledge of Homer and the
Greeks of his time, either as to the island and the Strait themselves,
or as to the direction in which they lay.
We find indeed that a continuance of winds, which ranged between E.
and S. W. detained Ulysses in Thrinacie or Trinacria. It has from this
been, as I think by much too hastily, inferred that Thrinacie lay to
the north-west of Ithaca[601]. Even if it did so, we should still
miss the true bearing of Sicily, which is west, with all inclination
to the south, and not north-west, from Ithaca. But the assumption is
in fact unwarranted. The wind, which principally held Ulysses fast in
Thrinacie, was, as is evident from the passage, Notus, a southerly
wind. Eurus plays a secondary part there[602]. Besides this, the wind,
which Ulysses needed, may have been needed to bring him not to Ithaca,
but to some point on his way to Ithaca, from whence his bearings would
be known; to some point at which, from the Outer, it would have been
practicable for him to re-enter the Inner or Greek world. The needful
conditions would be satisfied if, for instance, Thrinacie lay either
north-west or north-east from the Dardanelles; and then Ulysses would
want either Zephyr or else Boreas to get there. And the opposite theory
proceeds upon the entirely arbitrary, nay, untrue, assumption, that the
way back through the Narrows was, like the way by which Ulysses had
come to Ææa, an open-sea route, and not one in which the course would
have to be governed by fixed points of land lying along the course.
[601] Müller’s Orchomenos, p. 272. Nitzsch, Od. xii. 361.
[602] Od. xii. 325, 6.
There is then no middle term between Thrinacie and any fixed point of
the Inner Homeric world, from which we can by direct inference argue as
to its site. And the winds, which detain Ulysses in Thrinacie, go far
of themselves to show that this island is not on the site of Sicily.
The case is far otherwise in regard to the Bosphorus, or Πλαγκταὶ, of
the Odyssey. For here we know,
1. That Homer was familiar with the Dardanelles, a stage on the way to
it, and not very far from it: