2. There must be a continuous open sea between them; and one
uninterrupted by land, so that one and the same wind may carry a ship
all the way.
To meet these conditions, we have only to move Æolia northward. For the
northern part of Italy has no existence in the Outer Geography. It is
swept away, along with the great mass of the European continent, and
the θάλασσα covers all.
After the opening of the bag (x. 48, 54) the ship is driven back by a
θύελλα upon Æolia. But here we have had another valuable indication.
They had enjoyed the Zephyr nine full days, and they were in sight of
home on the tenth (v. 28, 9), when the folly was committed. Therefore
Æolia is between nine and ten days’ sail to the north-west of Ithaca:
or, with an allowance of fifty miles for the distance to the horizon,
there will be about one thousand miles between them.
V. The fifth stage is Læstrygonia: and it is reached after seven days’
rowing (x. 80). There is no indication of direction in the voyage: but
we have a sure proof that the prototype of this place was far north;
namely, that there is here perpetual day;
ποιμένα ποιμὴν
ἠπύει εἰσελάων, ὁ δέ τ’ ἐξελάων ὑπακούει.
It cannot, I think, be doubted that Homer obtained information of a
region displaying this natural peculiarity from Phœnician mariners,
who had penetrated into the German Ocean to the northward of the
British Isles. His retentive mind has, then, made an early record of
this, along with so many other singular reports, out of which a large
proportion have been verified.
There is another proof that we are here nearly, or rather quite, at
the furthest bound of distance ever reached by Ulysses. For the united
distances (1) from within sight of Ithaca to Æolia, and (2) from Æolia
to Læstrygonia, make seventeen days, the same number occupied in a much
slower craft on the voyage from Ogygia to Scheria.
It will be found, under the rules of calculation which have been
adopted, that we may place Læstrygonia at near seventeen hundred miles
from Iapygia. If we are to suppose that by the name Artacie, given to
the fountain in Læstrygonia, he means an allusion to a place of that
name in the Euxine, I take this as a new sign of his dim and confused
extension of that sea to the westward.
The name Læstrygonia appears to belong to a city, not to a country.
It is τηλέπυλος, and it is also Λάμου αἰπὺ πτολίεθρον. Homer avoids
calling it either a land (γαίη) or an island (νῆσος). By the former
term he sometimes designates large islands as well as portions of a
continent. The epithet αἰπὺ points to a steep and rocky site: but
his forbearing to fix it as continent or island seems to show, that
he was himself in doubt upon the point. The trait of perpetual day,
however, speaks most explicitly for the _bona fides_ of the tradition
on which the Poet proceeds, and for the latitude from whence it came:
and it seems far from improbable that Iceland may have been the dimly
perceived original of Læstrygonia; of which the site in the Odyssey is
near the actual site of Denmark.
VI. The sixth stage is Ææa. This could only be reached by a long
passage from Læstrygonia. The Poet has not ventured to define its
extent or direction. But he leaves himself an ample margin by the
declaration from the mouth of Ulysses, that he knew nothing on his
arrival of the latitude or longitude (Od. x. 190-2): and he is content
with planting it immovably near the point of sunrise, though with a
great vagueness of conception (Od. x. 135-9; xii. 1-4).
There is indeed something near a verbal contradiction between the
declaration of Ulysses in Od. x., that he, being then at Ææa, did not
know where to look for sunrise or for sunset, and his narrative in
xii. 3, 4, where he so directly associates the island with the land of
sunrise. But he had remained there a full year in friendly company with
Circe (x. 466-9), and he was instructed by her as to his movements,
so that we may, I presume, fairly consider that during that time he
learned what on his first arrival was strange to him.
The course from Læstrygonia to Ææa is _primâ facie_ conjectural: but
it is not really so, for Læstrygonia is fixed by the times and winds
from Hypereia; and Ææa is practically determined by its local relations
to Ocean-mouth, Thrinacie, and the Bosphorus.
The Euxine does not abound in islands, such as we might appropriate to
Circe and the Sirens: for it is little likely that a rock like the Isle
of Serpents, which on a recent occasion acquired a momentary notoriety,
should have been noticed particularly in the navigation of the heroic
age. It is much more likely, that Homer brought his islands for the
Euxine from among the materials provided by his western traditions. We
may however reasonably presume that Homer meant to place Ææa at the
east end of the Euxine, not far perhaps from the Colchis of Æetes: and
in that neighbourhood I shall venture to deposit three islands, vaguely
corresponding with the Baleares, which may have been transplanted
into this vicinity together with the other traditions of the western
Ocean-mouth.
(1) From hence, under the directions of Circe, they sail for one day
with a toward breeze, to the Ocean-mouth, hard by that abode of the
Cimmerians, which is wrapt in perpetual mist and night (Od. xi. 1-19).
Circe promised them the aid of Boreas, when Ulysses, alarmed at the
unusual journey he was to make, asked who would guide him. I therefore
infer that Boreas was to blow not before, but after, they had entered
the Ocean-mouth, and was to carry them up the stream. Before reaching
it, we may assume that, as usual on his way outwards, he was sailing
with a wind from some southern quarter.
(2) In the Ocean-river, they haul their vessel high and dry, and
proceed by land up the stream to the mouth of the Shades or under-world
(Od. xi. 20-2).
(3) From the mouth of the Shades they return to their ship, and in it
down (κατὰ) the Ocean stream, and to the Ææan island. They go first by
rowing, and then by a favourable breeze, of which the direction is not
mentioned (Od. xi. 638-40; xii. 1-3: also xxiii. 322-5.)
VII. Σειρήνων νῆσος. This island is reached with an ἴκμενος οὖρος; the
quarter is not named, nor is the distance, but from the terms of the
passages it would appear to have been very short. (Od. xii. 149-54,
165-7; also 39, and xxiii. 326.)
VIII. Avoiding the Πλαγκταὶ, the hero passes between Scylla and
Charybdis, to Thrinacie, the island of the Sun. The strait is reached
forthwith, αὐτίκα (Od. xii. 201), after leaving the island, and
Thrinacie is reached forthwith in like manner (αὐτίκα v. 261) after
leaving the strait (Od. xi. 106, 7; xii. 262; xxiii. 327-9. The last
passage appears to place the Πλαγκταὶ and the Scylla passage close
together, as it says that he came to them both, though he passed only
through Scylla).
In Thrinacie he is detained by Notus, blowing for a month, and by
the total absence of any wind but Notus and Eurus. The common point
of these winds is, that they are chiefly in the southern hemisphere.
Also it would seem from this part of the Fourth Book that Boreas was
evidently the wind that Ulysses required to help him forward on his way
home, rather than Zephyrus: for it was the latter wind that caught them
when they were already on their passage, and brought the hurricane in
which the ship went to pieces (Od. xii. 408).
Accordingly, as the Bosphorus is geographically fixed, I place
Thrinacie beside it, and Scylla beside Thrinacie.
It will be observed that, after allowance is made for too much northing
in the north coast of the Propontis, the mouth of Scylla will be at
the point, from which a N. N. E. wind would have brought Ulysses to the
Dardanelles, and would thus have placed him, by the shortest cut, at
the very gate of the Ægæan, and of the known route to his home.
The Crimea has so much the character of an island, and its
south-eastern face appears to be both in scenery and climate so
delightful, while again its proximity to the Ocean-mouth of the Odyssey
is so suitable, that we might be tempted to consider it as representing
the abode of the Sirens. But it is too large for one of Homer’s νῆσοι.
Probably, too, the isle of Sirens should lie on the direct route from
Ææa to the Straits.
IX. When out of sight of the island (403), the ship encounters a
violent Ζέφυρος, and founders. Ulysses mounts on a couple of spars
(424). In one night Notus drifts him upon the passage of Scylla and
Charybdis, which he traverses in safety (427-30, 442-6), and then
drifting on, apparently with the same wind, he reaches, on the tenth
day, the island of Calypso, Ὠγυγίη νῆσος (xii. 447, 8; xxiii. 333),
which is the ὄμφαλος or central point of the θάλασσα (Od. i. 50): that
is to say which, as nearly due north from Greece, not only is conceived
to be alike removed from the supposed eastern and western Ocean, but
also if not equidistant, yet very distant, at all points from main land.
X. The next stage to Ogygia is Scheria, Σχερίη (Od. vi. 8), or the γαίη
Φαιήκων (Od. v. 345). Leaving Ogygia on his raft (v. 263 and seqq.),
he keeps Arctos set on his right, and looking towards his left hand,
till on the eighteenth day (v. 278), he arrives in sight of Scheria.
Neptune, coming up from among the Ethiopians, discerns him afar, from
the Solyman mountains (282). The storm rises, and the raft is tossed in
a hurricane of all the winds (293 and 331, 2). At length it founders
(370): Minerva sends a brisk Boreas, and the hero drifts to Scheria,
arriving on the third day (382-98). Homer gives to Scheria the name
of ἤπειρος (Od. v. 348, 50); and it does not appear clear that he
considered it as an island. At the same time, the term ἤπειρος may mean
the shore: and the word γαίη may be used, like Κρήτη τις γαί’ ἐστιν, for
an island, if it be presumed to be of extraordinary size.
XI. Ἰθάκη. The living ship of the Phæacians leaves somewhat early
in the day, after the proper rites; the goods having been stowed at
daybreak (Od. xiii. 18, and seqq.) No wind is named: but, with a speed
more rapid than that of a hawk, the vessel, propelled by oars, reaches
Ithaca before the next dawn. Od. xiii. 78, 86, 93-5.
~_Directions and distances from Ææa._~
We have however still to consider the directions and distances of the
tour, from Ææa onwards, on the way home.
Homer plainly intends to describe very short passages, first to the
island of the Sirens, next from that island to Scylla, and then from
Scylla to the landing on the coast of Thrinacie. They are not defined:
but they by no means correspond with the very considerable eastward
stretch of the Euxine from the Bosphorus.
It has already been observed that Homer shortens the eastern recess of
the Mediterranean, and brings Egypt nearly to the southward of Crete:
and that this is part of a system of compression which abbreviates
all the distances of his Outer geography eastward from Lycia. We have
now come to another example of the working of this idea in his mind:
placing Ææa and the Sirens so near the Bosphorus, he plainly curtails
the eastward Euxine, like the eastward Mediterranean.
Ten days floatage northwards from Scylla would give us a distance of
nearly five hundred miles in that direction, up to the point where we
should fix the island of Calypso.
But from Ogygia to within sight of Scheria, Ulysses occupies eighteen
days in sailing by raft: which will give us for the whole distance
at sixty miles _per diem_, with an allowance of fifty miles, as the
distance from which Ithaca had become visible, about eleven hundred and
thirty miles. We have also to consider the further question, how far
Scheria is to be placed from Ithaca. We must reckon the time occupied
by the hawk-like ship at not less than sixteen hours; and we cannot
reckon the distance below one hundred and eighty or ninety miles.
Thus Ogygia ought to be reckoned at fully thirteen hundred miles from
Ithaca. Læstrygonia is, as we have found, nearly seventeen hundred from
Ithaca. And the site of Ogygia will be upon the point which is both
at the distance of five hundred miles from the Homeric or transposed
Scylla, and of eleven hundred and thirty miles from the Homeric
Scheria. This point will, I think, lie a little to the west of the real
site of Kieff.
The actual distance from Ithaca to the middle point of Corfu may be
about eighty miles. Corfu is said to resemble in its natural features
the Scheria of Homer. But if this be admitted, we must remove the site
of the island in the direction of Dalmatia to more than double its real
distance from Ithaca, so as to satisfy the conditions of the Phæacian
voyage. It will then be near the point where we may, consistently with
all the representations of Homer, cut off the Greek peninsula, and
substitute for the northward land the great spaces of his sea.
The island of Calypso, thus determined, will satisfy in a great degree
the conditions of the ὄμφαλος θαλάσσης. It may be nearly equidistant
from Ææa and the Cimmerian country in the south-east, from Scylla in
the south, and from the possible extension of the Cimmerian country
to the north. Towards Æolia and Læstrygonia on the west the distances
will indeed be greater; but as among very great distances Homer may
naturally fail to maintain the close measurements of small ones.
~_Tours of Menelaus and Ulysses compared._~
Thus, then, we have brought Ulysses home; and now let us proceed to
examine the undeveloped, but still rather curious, relation between the
tours of the two chieftains, Ulysses and Menelaus.
The readers of Dante will recollect with what complex precision, as
a poetical Architect, he has actually, for the purposes of his work,
built an Universe of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Every line of his
poem has a determinate relation to a certain point in space, fixed in
his own mind; but whether every such point be fixed or not in nature
is no more material, than if it were simply one to be determined by
axes of coordinates. Intricate as the fabric is, this great brother
of Homer in his art never for a moment lets drop the thread of his
labyrinth, but holds it steadily from the beginning of the first canto
to the end of the hundredth. Homer, composing for a younger world, had
to deal with all ideas whatsoever in simpler forms; but, I think, it is
discernible that in his way he, too, made a systematic distribution of
the Outer Earth, as he had rather vaguely conceived it in his teeming
imagination.
We are apt to forget, from the comparatively summary manner in which
the subject is dismissed by the Poet, that the voyages and travels of
Menelaus occupy a time almost as long as those of Ulysses. He has but
recently returned, says Nestor to Telemachus, in the last year of his
father’s wanderings[628]: and Menelaus himself states, that he came
home only in the eighth year after the capture of Troy[629]. And as in
point of time, so likewise they are geographically in correspondence.
To Menelaus Homer has given, in outline, the southern world from east
to west, and to Ulysses, in detail, the northern world from west to
east. It is true that he made Ulysses begin his Wanderings, properly
so called, with the Lotophagi in Africa: but this is because it was
necessary to throw him at Malea, by some wide and irrecoverable
deviation, off his route to Ithaca. So Menelaus loses his course at
the very same critical point, the Malean Promontory[630]. Then the two
strike off to the opposite ends of the diameter: Menelaus to Crete,
for Cyprus, Phœnicia, and Egypt, in the south-east; Ulysses to Africa,
for the Cyclopes, Æolia, and Læstrygonia, in the north-west. Again,
Menelaus visits Libya to the westward, where, it will be remembered, he
is to find his home after death in the Elysian fields. The counterpart
of this is in the eastward movement of Ulysses along a northern zone
to the isle of Circe, and in his visit to the Shades. Again, it is
Phœnicia, which in the south-east forms a kind of boundary line between
the known and the unknown world. Accordingly Homer has given us an
idealized Phœnicia on the north-western line. Perhaps only partial,
but still perfectly real, resemblances of character establish a
poetical relation between the Φοίνικες and the Φαίηκες. Other parts
of the Phæacian character might seem to have been borrowed from the
Egyptians. No one, I think, can doubt that Homer had the Phœnicians
to some extent in his mind, when he invented the Phæacians. But he has
given us another etymological sign of the connection. The Φοίνικες
stand in evident connection with Συρίη[631]. Who but they could give
that name to the island where Eumæus was born? an island with which
we see them to have been in relations by a double token; the first, a
Phœnician slave carried thither by the Taphians; and the second, Eumæus
as a boy carried off thence by the Phœnicians, who had paid it a visit
with a cargo of fine goods. The island of Ψυρίη, lying north-west from
Chios, probably owed its title to the same source: if not also Σκῦρος,
corrupted from Συρός. Surely then, like Φαίηκες from Φοίνικες, so Homer
made Σχερίη from Συρίη. It being always remembered that Scheria is for
Homer, like Phœnicia, a maritime land. It is nowhere called an island;
from which we know, that Homer either believed it to be attached to the
continent, or to form, like Crete[632], a continent of itself.
[628] Od. iii. 318.
[629] Od. iv. 82.
[630] Od. iii. 286-90.
[631] Od. xv. 402. Much difficulty has been raised about this Συρίη:
see Wood on Homer, pp. 9-16; but surely without need. We have
no occasion to translate καθύπερθε into _trans_, πέρην, or
_beyond_. The Συρίη νῆσος, or Syros, has the same bearing in respect
to Delos, as Ψυρίη in respect to Chios, which is called καθύπερθε
Χίοιο, Od. iii. 170. It may perhaps mean _to windward_, and this would
correspond with the idea of Ζέφυρος as the prevailing wind
of the Ægæan. Another difficulty is made about the phrase ὅθι τροπαὶ
ἠελίοιο, which is interpreted as describing the position relatively
to Delos. I know not why this should constitute a difficulty at all,
if Syros is to the west and north of Delos. But there would be no
difficulty, even if Delos were west of Syros: for the words ὅθι τροπαὶ
ἠελίοιο may apply grammatically to either of the two islands as viewed
from the other.
[632] Od. xix. 172.
The Erembi of Menelaus are generally understood to be the Arabians.
The Æthiopes, whom he also visits, extend from the extreme east to
the furthest west of the surface of the earth; and they possibly may
have a counterpart in the Cimmerians of the north. In the same zone
with the Æthiopes, on the borders of Ocean to the south, a passage of
the Iliad places the ἄνδρες Πυγμαῖοι[633]. Herodotus supports Homer
in this, as in most other particulars. And the researches of the most
recent travellers sustain the assertion of these two old ethnologists
of Greece, that there are dwarfed races in the interior of Africa,
accessible from Egypt.
[633] Il. iii. 2-6.
Thus, then, it would appear in general that the voyage and travels of
Menelaus, together with those of Ulysses, including in the former his
final passage to Elysium, cover the entire surface of the earth, such
as Homer had conceived it. This, however, can only be taken generally,
and tells us little of what Homer thought concerning the actual form
of the earth’s surface, while it leaves untouched various questions
regarding its distribution in detail. With some of these let us now
endeavour to deal.
And first, what was Homer’s belief concerning the form of the earth?
~_Earth of Homer probably oval._~
The passage of the poems which bears most directly upon the solution of
this question is that which describes the Shield of Achilles. We here
learn that, in finishing his work, Vulcan gave it the great River Ocean
for a border[634]. From this it follows conclusively, that the form of
the Shield was that which Homer also conceived to be nearest to the
form of the surface of the Earth.
[634] Il. xviii. 607.
The question then arises, what was the form of the Shields treated of
by Homer? And it is one not easy to answer. Homer compares the light of
this very Shield of Achilles in a subsequent passage to that of the
moon[635]: but he does not say the full moon, and the moon in certain
stages might suggest the oval, although when full it would require the
circular shape. The epithets which he uses do not solve the question:
for some of them appear to agree better with the one supposition, and
some with the other. The ἄσπις ἀμφιβρότη, for instance, in Il. xi.
32, suggests a shape adapted in a great degree to that of the human
form. The ποδηνεκὴς of Il. xv. 646 appears absolutely to require it.
No circular shield, which reached down to the feet, could have been
carried on the arm. But, on the other hand, Homer calls the shield
εὔκυκλος[636] and παντόσε ἴση, which certainly at first sight favour
the idea of a circular form. Shall we then suppose that both forms
prevailed? And if so, which of the two shall we assign to the Shield of
Achilles?
[635] Il. xix. 374.
[638] Plut. Lacon. Instit. (Opp. vi. 898.) ed. Reiske; Potter’s Greek.
Antiq. B. iii. ch. iv.
[636] Il. v. 433.
It appears that in the military system of historic Greece the round
shield chiefly prevailed; but for the time of Homer I cannot help
leaning to the supposition that the Shield was oval. For I do not know
any explicit testimony, with respect to its primitive form, that can
weigh against the lines of Tyrtæus[637];
[637] Tyrt. ii. 24. Also Anthol. Græc.
μήρους τε, κνήμας τε κάτω, καὶ στέρνα, καὶ ὤμους
ἀσπίδος εὐρείης γαστρὶ καλυψάμενος.
Another strong testimony to the same effect is borne by the ancient
custom of bearing the dead warrior upon his shield, whence came the
old formula of the Spartan mothers, ἢ τὰν, ἢ ἐπὶ τάν; Bring it, or be
brought upon it[638].
With respect to the Homeric epithets, it is impossible to reconcile
those which favour the oblong form with the rival sense: but the
παντόσε ἴση might apply to any regular figure, and the εὔκυκλος is
hardly strained if we understand it of an oval pretty regularly formed.
To a certain extent, the natural form of the hides of animals affords
an indication; they were worn as cloaks coming down to the heels,
and they would properly cut into the oblong form[639]. Again, in the
expression σάκος σακέϊ προθελύμνῳ[640], I understand the epithet to
mean that the shields were rested on the ground in front of the bearers
of them. The meaning common to it, in the three places where Homer uses
it, seems to be ‘from the ground,’ or ‘from the base.’
[639] Il. x. 24, 178.
[640] Il. xiii. 130. ix. 537. x. 15.
It would not be satisfactory to assume that the two forms prevailed,
but that they had, though different, been confounded by Homer; and on
the whole we shall perhaps do best to consider the σάκος as an oval.
It follows that such was, in Homer’s estimation, the form of the world.
And this interpretation agrees with the other Homeric indications on
the subject.
We must, I think, take Homer to have supposed something like an equal
extension of the earth northward and southward from Greece. But,
whether we judge from the Tours of the Odyssey or from the general
indications of the poems, we have, I think, no sign of an extension
correspondingly great either eastward or westward. The flights of
migratory birds, and the prevailing winds, are both evidently from
the poles or from the quarters near them. The only great positive
developments of distance in the Odyssey are those towards Læstrygonia
and Ogygia, both of which lie in the north; the latter, as an ὄμφαλος,
with a sea stretching far beyond it. All appearances, too, go to show
that the Eastern Ocean was in Homer’s view at no great distance; and I
apprehend we should consider the Western one as being on his map about
equally remote from Greece. Now the oval figure will give us what we
thus appear to want, namely a shorter diameter of the earth from east
to west, than the diameter from north to south. Some other particulars
of evidence will appear as we proceed.
~_Points of contact with Oceanus._~
In conformity with his declaration, that the Ocean-River surrounds the
earth, he as it were realizes his belief in it, by giving us instances
of actual contact with it at very many points of the compass. Thus the
Pigmies in the South are visited by the cranes, on their way to the
Ocean in the South[641]. The gods feast with the Ethiopians by the
Ocean, and this must be in the S. E., as Neptune takes the Solyman
mountains (which are in immediate association with Lycia, a point of
the inner world) on his way back to the _Thalassa_[642]. Ulysses visits
Ocean, as we have seen, in the East. The Great Bear escapes dipping
into its waters in the North[643]. Menelaus is destined to the Elysian
plain beside the Ocean, at the point from which Zephyr blows, therefore
between West and North[644].
[641] Il. iii. 5.
[642] Il. xxiii. 205. i. 423. Od. v. 282, 3.
[643] Od. v. 275. Il. xviii. 489.
[644] Od. iv. 561-9.
~_The Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf._~
This noble conception of a great circumfluent River was doubtless
founded upon reports of two classes which had reached Homer. One
class would be reports of streams flowing from some great outer water
into the _Thalassa_, and seeming to feed it. The other class might be
formed by reports of waters outside the _Thalassa_, and not known to
communicate with it, which Homer would at once very naturally reckon
as portions of his great world-embracing Stream. With the former
class we have already dealt largely in discussing the Ocean-mouth.
To the latter one, Phœnician sailors might contribute reports of the
Atlantic and German Oceans. And particularly in the east, I think, we
cannot doubt that, along with the rumours and traditions of Arabians,
Ethiopians, Persians, and Cimmerians, Homer cannot but have received
other vague rumours of waters as well as lands; of waters exterior
to his _Thalassa_ (which included the Mediterranean and the Euxine),
waters of which two would clearly be the Caspian Sea, and the Persian
Gulf. On these two I wish to fix attention; and indeed the only other
water he was likely to have heard of would probably be the Red Sea.
Now it will be observed upon any map, 1. that the Caspian lies north
and south; 2. that a line prolonged from N. to S. down the Caspian
will strike the Persian Gulf. In conjunction with this, let the reader
observe the course of Ulysses. Quitting the Euxine at the Ocean-mouth,
or Straits of Yenikalè, he turns round to the right by the Sea of Azof,
enlarged so as to join the Caspian. In the interval between them there
is still a low salt valley, which may in Homer’s time have been a
water-way[645]. He is thus in a condition to proceed southward towards
the dwelling of Persephone, which I have already shown some cause for
placing in the east and to the south. Now the provision of wind, which
Homer has made for his hero, is precisely that which this hypothesis
requires[646]:
[645] Voyages de Pallas, vol. i. p. 320, Paris 1805.
[646] Od. x. 507.
τὴν δέ κέ τοι πνοιὴ Βορέαο φέρῃσιν.
In other words, from Homer’s use of Boreas in this place it appears
that he meant to describe the course of his Ocean-stream at this
quarter as from south to north, or thereabouts; and this is the line
actually formed by the junction of the Persian gulf and the Caspian,
which I submit that we may accordingly with propriety consider as
genuine fragments of geography, incorporated into his fabulous
conception of the Ocean-stream.
It is indeed true that the vague accounts, which had probably reached
Homer of these two waters, must be supposed not to have included the
indispensable element of a current. The same remark, however, will
apply to whatever he may have heard of the German or Atlantic Oceans.
But in dealing with these shadowy distances, his inference would be
amply warranted, without the means of complete identification, if he
had heard of any waters in positions agreeing with that of his ideal
Ocean, capable of communicating easily with its mouth, and, above all,
independent of the _Thalassa_.
One word before we finally quit the subject of the enchanted River; in
order to complete the chain of connection between the Persephone of
Homer and the waters of the Persian gulf, in the character of a part of
Ocean, at that point upon the beach, which so well balances the Elysian
plain in the west.
I have already endeavoured to make use of the names Perseus, Perse,
and Persephone, as evidences which attach the Persians to the eastern
extremity of Homer’s ideal world, and which connect the Greek race
with a Persian origin. But here we have a geographical trait, which
deserves further consideration. The groves of Persephone are on the
shore of Ocean, in the east, and to the south of the sunrise. What is
the meaning of these groves? We are compelled, by unvarying analogies
of signification, to understand them as both the symbols and the sites
of a certain organized worship, which was paid to Persephone. But if
paid, then paid by whom? Certainly not by the nations of the dead: for
the place, where these groves were, was not within the kingdom of the
goddess, but it was on the shore of Ocean. Ulysses, too, was to haul up
his ship there, and only then to enter into the abode of king Aidoneus.
It therefore seems to follow, that the Poet meant us to understand this
as a place where Persephone was habitually worshipped by a portion of
the human race, which could only be his Persians or his Ethiopians. I
do not say that the two were sharply severed in his mind; but here the
race to which he chiefly points appears to be the Persian race[647].
[647] Od. x. 508-12.
There are even etymological signs, independent of Homer, which deepen
the association between the East and the Under-world. Some writers
have compared the name Cimmeria with the Arabic word _kahm_, black,
and _ra_, the mark of the oblique case in Persian: Mæotis with the
Hebrew Maweth, meaning death: and have treated the ancient Tartarus as
equivalent to the modern Tartary, and as formed by the reduplication of
Tar, in Tarik, the Persic word for darkness[648].
[648] Welsford on Engl. Language, pp. 75, 76, 88. Bleek’s Persian
Vocabulary, (Grammar, p. 170.)
~_Contraction of the Homeric East._~
Next let me wind up what relates to the contraction and compression of
the Homeric East.
Homer’s experience did not supply him with any example of a great
expanse of land: but the detail and configuration of the countries,
with which he was acquainted, was minute. This probably was the reason
why he so readily assumed the existence of that sea to the northward
of Thrace, in which he has placed the adventures of Ulysses. To that
sea, as we perceive from the terms of days which he has assigned to
the passages of Ulysses, he attached his ideas and his epithets for
vastness; epithets, which he never bestowed on regions of land; and
ideas, which were sure, indeed, to form a prominent feature in the
Phœnician reports, that must have supplied him with material. Acting on
the same principle, it would appear that he greatly shortens the range
of Asia Minor eastwards. Through the medium of the Solymi (Il. vi.
184, 204) he appears to bring the Solyman mountains close upon Lycia.
A chain now bearing that name skirts the right bank of the Indus: but
it is probable that Homer identified, or rather confounded, them with
the great chain of the Caucasus between the Euxine and the Caspian,
and with the Taurus joining it, and bordering upon Lycia: for, on the
one hand, we cannot but connect them with the Solymi, the warlike
neighbours of the Lycians: and on the other, since Neptune, from these
mountains, sees Ulysses making his homeward voyage from Ogygia, it
follows that they must have been conceived by Homer to command a clear
view of the Euxine, and of its westward extension. Thus he at once
brings Egypt nearer to Crete (helping us to explain the Boreas of Od.
xiv. 253), and Phœnicia nearer to Lycia: and it is in all likelihood
immediately behind Phœnicia that he imagined to lie the country of the
Persians and the ἄλσεα Περσεφονείης (Od. x. 507), on the shore of that
eastern portion of Oceanus, for which the reports both of the Caspian
and of the Red Sea, probably, as we have seen, have formed parts of his
materials. Thus we find much and varied evidence converging to support
the hypothesis, that Homer greatly compressed his East, and brought
Persia within moderate distance of the Mediterranean.
In the obscure perspectives of Grecian legend, we seem to find various
points of contact between Egypt, Phœnicia, and Persia; and each of
these points of contact favours the idea that Persia and Phœnicia were
closely associated in Homer’s mind.
Proteus, a Phœnician sea-god, is placed only at a short distance from
the Egyptian coast. Helios, strongly associated with Egypt through his
oxen, is associated with Phœnicia and with the remoter east by his
relationship to Circe, and by his residence, the ἀντολαὶ Ἠελίοιο. And
again, from the family of Danaus, a reputed Egyptian, descends Perseus,
in whose name we find a note of relationship between the Persians and
the Greeks. Lycia, too, is near the Solymi, and the Solyman hills are
really Persian. Here is a new ray of light cast on Homer’s passion for
the Lycians of the War[649].
[649] See Achæis, sect. iii.
A few words more will suffice to complete a probable view of the
terrestrial system of Homer.
The Ocean surrounds the earth. On its south-eastern beach are
the groves of Persephone, and the descent to the Shades: on its
north-western, the Elysian plain. The whole southern range between is
occupied by the Αἰθίοπες, who stretch from the rising to the setting
sun[650]. The natural counterpart in the cold north to their sun-burnt
swarthy faces is to be found in the Cimmerians, Homer’s Children of
the Mist[651]. Accordingly, they are placed by the Ocean mouth, hard
by the island of Circe and the Dawn; nearly in contact, therefore,
with the Ethiopians of the extreme east. Two hypotheses seem to be
suggested by Homer’s treatment of the north. Perhaps Homer imagined
that the Cimmerians occupied the northern portion of the earth
from east to west, as the Ethiopians occupied the southern: a very
appropriate conjecture for the disposal of the country from the Crimea
to the Cwmri. On the other hand, it seems plain that Homer must have
received from his Phœnician informants two reports, both ascribed to
the North, yet apparently contradictory: the one of countries without
day, the other of countries without night. The true solution, could
he have known it, was by time; each being true of the same place, but
at different seasons of the year. Not aware of the facts, Homer has
adopted another method. While preserving the northern locality for both
traditions, he has planted the one in the north-west, at the craggy
city of Lamus; and the other in the north-east, together with his
Cimmerians.
[650] Od. i. 24.
[651] Od. xi. 15.
~_Outline of his terrestrial system._~
On the foundation of the conclusions and inferences at which we have
thus arrived, I have endeavoured to construct a map of the Homeric
World. The materials of this map are of necessity very different.
First, there is the inner or Greek world of geography proper, of which
the surface is coloured in red.
Next, there are certain forms of sea and land, genuine, but wholly or
partially misplaced, which may be recognised by their general likeness
to their originals in Nature.
Thirdly, there is the great mass of fabulous and imaginative
skiagraphy, which, for the sake of distinction, is drawn in smooth
instead of indented outline.
The Map represents, without any very important variation, the Homeric
World drawn according to the foregoing argument. To facilitate
verification, or the detection of error, I have made it carry, as far
as possible, its own evidences, in the inscriptions and references upon
it.
[Illustration:
MAP
of the
Outer Geography of the Odyssey
AND OF THE
Form of the Earth
ACCORDING TO HOMER.]