first, the army of Priam, with those of his kindred or subordinate
princes: and, secondly, the allies, with their numerous and widely
dispersed races. In the passage just quoted, the word _Leleges_ must
either mean the great body of allies, or else it must, conjointly with
_Troes_, signify the whole mass of what we may call the indigenous
troops. Now the former is highly improbable. Such differences as are
implied in the combination of Thracians, Lycians, and Pelasgians, could
not well be, and nowhere else are comprehended by Homer under a single
name as one race or nation, though the Lycians, on account of their
excellence, are sometimes[266] taken to represent the whole body of
the allies. And again, if the Leleges meant the whole body of allies,
the Pelasgians would appear as a branch of them, which is contrary to
all evidence and likelihood. If then the two words together represent
those indigenous troops, as contradistinguished from the allies, who
were arrayed in the five divisions that are enumerated in vv. 816-39 of
the Second book, the question is, how is the sense to be distributed
between them. And here there is not much room for doubt. The name Τρῶες
had been assumed four generations before the war from King Tros, and
was therefore a political or dynastic name, not a name of race. It most
probably therefore indicates either the inhabitants of Priam’s own
city and immediate dominions, or else the ruling race, who held power
here, as elsewhere, among a subject population. In either case we must
conclude that the word Leleges is meant to indicate the blood, and also
the blood-name (so to speak) of the bulk of the population through a
considerable tract of country: and it will be observed that in the
fourth and fifth of the divisions[267] in the Trojan Catalogue Homer
specifies no blood-name or name of race whatever.
This being so, we find an important light cast upon the meaning of
the word Leleges. As we proceed with these inquiries, we shall find
accumulating evidence of the Pelasgianism of the mass of the population
on the Trojan side: and thus when it appears that that mass or a very
great part of it was Lelegian, it also appears probable that the
Leleges were at least akin to the Pelasgians, though some have taken
them to be distinct[268].
In answer therefore to the question, who were these Caucones and these
Leleges, while we are deficient in the means of detailed and particular
reply, we may, I think, fall back with tolerable security upon the
words used by Bishop Thirlwall in closing an ethnological survey:
“The review we have just taken of the Pelasgian settlements in Greece
appears inevitably to lead to the conclusion that the name Pelasgians
was a general one, like that of Saxons, Franks, or Alemanni: but that
each of the Pelasgian tribes had also one peculiar to itself[269].”
Upon our finding, as we find, the Pelasgian name in certain apparent
relations with others, such as Leleges and Caucones, it appears more
reasonable to presume a relationship between them, than the reverse:
for nothing can be more improbable than the simultaneous presence at
that early period of a multitude of races, radically distinct from each
other, and yet diffused intermixedly over the same country upon equal
terms, and if there was a relationship, it would most probably be that
of subdivision, under which Leleges and Caucones might be branches of
the widely spread Pelasgian family.
This opinion is supported, not only by presumptions, but by much
indirect evidence. It is indisputable that various names were applied,
by the custom of the Homeric age, to the same people, and at the
same period. The poet calls the inhabitants of Elis both Elians and
Epeans. The people of Ithaca are Ithacesians (Ἰθακήσιοι), but there
are also Ἀχαιοί[270], and in the Catalogue they are included under
the Cephallenians[271]. The Dolopians in the speech of Phœnix[272]
are included under the Phthians; and are also within the scope of the
other names applied by the Catalogue to the followers of Achilles, who
were called by the name of Myrmidons, or of Hellens, or of Achæans. Of
these the first seems to be the denomination, which the ruling race
of that particular district had brought with it into the country. The
third probably belongs to the Myrmidons, as members of that tribe, of
Hellic origin, which at the time predominated in Greece generally.
The second, as we shall find, was the common name for all Greek tribes
of that origin, and was the name which ultimately gained a complete
ascendancy in the country. Of the five nations of Crete in the
Seventeenth Odyssey[273], either all or several are probably included
in the Κρῆτες of the Second Iliad[274]. Nay, we may now declare it
to be at least highly probable[275], that the Ionian name was a
sub-designation of the Pelasgians. Thus we have abundant instances of
plurality in the designations of tribes. On the whole, we shall do best
to assume that the names in question of Leleges and Caucones indicated
Pelasgian subdivision. The inquiry is, however, one of ethnical
antiquarianism only; these names are historically insignificant, for,
apart from the Pelasgian, they carry no distinctive character or
special function in reference to Greece.
_Erratum._--I have inadvertently, in p. 103, rendered κητώεσσαν ‘full
of wild beasts.’ It ought to have been translated ‘deep-sunken.’ See
Buttmann’s Lexilogus, _in voc._
FOOTNOTES:
[126] Il. ii. 681-5.
[127] Hermann Gr. Staats-alt. sect. 12.
[128] Il. ii. 841.
[129] Inf. sect. viii.
[130] Il. xiii. 686, et seqq.
[131] So Strabo, p. 221.
[132] The discussion is reviewed in Cramer’s Greece, vol. i. 115.
[133] Il. ii. 750.
[134] Od. xiv. 327; xix. 296.
[135] Cramer’s Ancient Greece, i. 353.
[136] Cramer’s Greece, i. 370.
[137] Hesiod ap. Strab. vii. 327.
[138] Schol. ad Trach. v. 1169.
[139] Vid. inf. sect. iii.
[140] Od. xix. 175.
[141] This question is discussed, inf. sect. ix.
[142] See inf. sect. ix.
[143] Il. ii. 735.
[144] Od. iv. 83. xiv. 199, 245. xvii. 448.
[145] Strabo viii. 6. p. 370.
[146] Cramer’s Greece, iii. 244.
[147] Inf. sect. viii.
[148] Il. xx. 215 and seqq.
[149] Thuc. i. cap. 2.
[150] Od. xii. 260-5.
[151] This state of ideas and habits is well illustrated by Odyss. xiv.
222-6: and see inf. sect. 7.
[152] Strabo viii. p. 383.
[153] Xenoph. Hell. vii. 1, 23, and Cramer iii. 299.
[154] Il. ii. 610.
[155] Il. ii. 609.
[156] 630-5.
[157] See inf. sect. vii.
[158] Xenoph. Hell. vii. 1. 23.
[159] Thuc. i. 2.
[160] Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 1. 23.
[161] Thucyd. vii. 57.
[162] B. i. 2.
[163] See also Müller, Orchomenus p. 77, and his references.
[164] Il. ii. 498.
[165] Strabo ix. p. 433.
[166] Aristot. Meteorol. i. 14.
[167] Paus. ii. 22. 2.
[168] Od. v. 125.
[169] Hesiod. Theog. 971.
[170] Od. xi. 281-4.
[171] See inf. sect. 8.
[172] Il. xv. 332, 7.
[173] Inf. sect. vi.
[174] Hymn. Cer. 123.
[175] Il. xxiii. 148. Od. viii. 362. Il. viii. 48.
[176] Il. xiii. 635.
[177] Il. iv. 328.
[178] Heyne in loc.
[179] In loc.
[180] From the Greek βῶλος, according to Richardson, who quotes _The
Fox_ (v. 2.)
If Italy
Have any glebe, more fruitful than these fallows,
I am deceived.
[181] Od. i. 407.
[182] Od. v. 463.
[183] Od. vii. 332.
[184] Il. xxi. 232.
[185] Od. xi. 309.
[186] (ii. 132 Serr. Steph.)
[187] Inf. sect. 7.
[188] Od. xxi. 255.
[189] Payne Knight in loc.
[190] Od. xi. 302-4.
[191] Il. iii. 243.
[192] Eustath. in loc. et alii.
[193] Schol. A. in loc.
[194] In loc.
[195] Obss. in loc.
[196] Eustath. in loc.
[197] Schol. BL. in loc.
[198] Herod. vii. 161.
[199] Lord Aberdeen’s Inquiry, p. 100.
[200] Il. xvi. 419.
[201] See Od. xx. 72.
[202] Il. xii. 331.
[203] Il. ii. 756.
[204] Il. ii. 748.
[205] Ibid. 703-7.
[206] Od. iii. 307.
[207] Il. i. 194.
[208] Il. v. 1-8.
[209] V. 2, 3.
[210] Il. iv. 64-74.
[211] Il. vii. 34.
[212] Il. xxiv. 25-30.
[213] Il. v. 59.
[214] Il. viii. 362-9: cf. Od. xi. 626.
[215] Il. xx. 146.
[216] See inf. Religion and Morals, Sect. II.
[217] Vid. inf. as before.
[218] Eurip. Ion 64. 1590. Grote i. 144.
[219] Thirlwall, vol. ii. p. 2.
[220] Herod. v. 65.
[221] Thuc. i. 6.
[222] i. 2.
[223] Herod. i. 56.
[224] i. 57.
[225] Höck’s Creta ii. 109.
[226] Thuc. i. 3.
[227] Herod. vi. 137, 8.
[228] B. viii. p. 333.
[229] Herod. i. 139.
[230] Od. xiv. 243.
[231] Ibid. 257.
[232] Il. ix. 363.
[233] Od. iii. 318.
[234] Döllinger Heidenthum und Judenthum vi. 136. p. 427.
[235] Inf. p. 176.
[236] Note xvii.
[237] Il. ii. 614.
[238] Smith, Antiq. p. 331. Niebuhr, Hist. iii. 282.
[239] Works and Days 616 et seqq.
[240] Vid. inf. sect. 4. Nägelsbach (Hom. Theol. ii. 9.) may be
consulted in an opposite sense.
[241] Od. xiii. 272. xiv. 228.
[242] Herod. iv. 42.
[243] i. 13.
[244] Inf. Religion and Morals, sect. iii.
[245] Sup. p. 148.
[246] Od. xiv. 271.
[247] Od. v. 278-86.
[248] Ibid. ix. 84, 94.
[249] Ibid. iv. 220.
[250] Ibid. 584.
[251] Herod. ii. 54. According to the Egyptian tradition there
reported, the Phœnicians carried into Greece the priestess who founded
the Dodonæan oracle. This again leads us to view the Phœnicians as the
chief medium of intercourse between Egypt and Greece.
[252] Mure, Lit. Greece, vol. i.
[253] Herod. v. 2.
[254] Il. ii. 594-600.
[255] Il. ii. 730.
[256] Strabo x. p. 471.
[257] Il. ii. 844, and x. 434.
[258] Il. xx. 485.
[259] Il. ii. 841.
[260] Hist. Greece, iv. 28.
[261] Strabo viii. 7. p. 321, 2.
[262] Il. x. 429; xx. 329.
[263] Od. iii. 366.
[264] Il. xxi. 85.
[265] Il. xx. 96.
[266] Inf. p. 182.
[267] Il. ii. 828-39.
[268] Höck’s Creta, ii. p. 7.
[269] Thirlwall’s Hist. of Greece. Ch. ii. Vol. i. p. 41. 12mo.
[270] Od. passim.
[271] Il. ii. 631.
[272] Il. ix. 184, and xvi. 196.
[273] Od. xix. 175.
[274] Il. ii. 645.
[275] See supr. p. 126.
SECT. III.
_Pelasgians continued: and certain States naturalised or akin to
Greece._
_a._ Crete. _b._ Lycia. _c._ Cyprus.
_Crete and the traditions of Minos._
This appears to be the place for a more full consideration of the
testimony of Homer with respect to, probably, the greatest character
of early Greek history, and one who cannot be omitted in any inquiry
concerning the early Pelasgians of Greece: in as much as they stand in
a direct Homeric relation to Crete, of which he was the king.
In the poems of Homer, Minos appears to stand forth as the first great
and fixed point of Greek nationality and civilization. He is not indeed
so remote from the period of Homer himself as others, even as other
Europeans, whom the poet mentions, and whom he connects by genealogy
with the Trojan period, particularly the Æolids. But the peculiarities
meeting in his case, as compared with most of them, are these:
1. That he is expressly traced upwards as well as downwards.
2. That he is connected with a fixed place as its sovereign.
3. That so much is either recounted or suggested of his character and
acts.
4. That the Homeric traditions as to Minos are so remarkably supported
from without.
Minos is mentioned, and somewhat largely, in no less than six different
passages of the Iliad and Odyssey. Homer has given us a much fuller
idea of him, than of the more popular hero Hercules, although he is not
named in nearly so many passages; and it is singular, that the more
ancient of the two personages is also by much the more historical.
Again, the poet has told us more about Minos, although he is of foreign
extraction, than he has said about all the rest of the older Greek
heroes put together. Of Theseus, Pirithous, Castor, Pollux, Meleager,
Perseus, Jason, and the rest, his notices are very few and meagre.
In dealing with Homer, I should quote even this fact of the greater
amount of his references, which in the case of most other poets would
be immaterial, as a strong presumption of the superior historical
importance of the person concerned.
Minos, according to Homer, had Jupiter for his father, a Phœnician
damsel for his mother, and Rhadamanthus for his younger brother.
The name[276] of his mother is not recorded, but Jupiter calls her
far-famed. This fame, if due to her beauty, would probably have kept
her name alive; but as it has not been preserved, it is more probably a
reflection from the subsequent greatness of her son.
The story thus far appears probably to indicate that Minos was a
Phœnician by birth, but without a known ancestry, and raised into
celebrity by his own energies and achievements.
The mode, by which he rose to fame, was by the government of men and
the foundation of civil institutions. At nine years old he received,
such is the legend, revelations from Jupiter,[277] and reigned, in
the great or mighty city (μεγάλη πόλις) of Cnossus, over Crete: such
was the form, copied by the politic legislator of Rome, in which a
title to veneration was secured for his laws. No other city, besides
this capital, is described in Homer by the epithet μεγάλη, or by any
equivalent word.
A further vivid mark of his political greatness is afforded us by that
passage in the Odyssey, which exhibits him not simply as exercising
in the world beneath[278] the mere office of a judge, but rather as
discharging there a judicial function in virtue of his sovereignty.
Such is the force of the word θεμιστεύειν,[279] which signifies rather
to give law than to administer it: or, at least, to exercise the
function of a king rather than of a judge[280] (ἵστωρ). He is described
as still the illustrious son of Jupiter, Διὸς ἀγλαὸς υἱός. Even there
he appears not as one of the suffering or bewildered inhabitants of
that lower world, but in the exercise of power as an actual ruler among
the spirits of the departed;
οἱ δέ μιν ἀμφὶ δίκας εἴροντο ἄνακτα.
He only is invested with any character of this kind. Every other
apparition below is either in actual suffering, or gloomy and depressed.
The epithet ὀλοόφρων, applied to Minos in an earlier passage of the
Νεκυία, might perhaps convey the same idea as Virgil has rendered by
his _durissima_ regna,[281] in the description of Rhadamanthus: and we
may also compare the address of Menelaus in the Third Iliad to Jupiter,
Ζεῦ πάτερ οὔτις σεῖο θεῶν ὀλοώτερος ἄλλος.[282]
A reasonable construction would refer the word to the commercial
character of the Phœnician people, at once cunning and daring[283]; and
there is much probability in the opinion of Höck, who interprets the
word as meaning ‘exactor of tribute,’ or as alluding to the exaction by
Minos of a tribute from Attica[284]. On this we shall shortly have to
enlarge.
_Power of Crete._
As to the family and kingdom of Minos, we should gather in the first
place from Homer, that Crete had under him been preeminent in power. He
was king of the island (Κρήτῃ ἐπίουρος)[285], and he reigned, at the
age of nine years only (ἐννέωρος βασίλευε), in Cnossus over the five
nations. The island had ninety, or in the rounder numbers, an hundred
cities. Two generations had passed since Minos; Idomeneus his grandson
did not apparently reign, like Minos himself, over the whole of it:
for if this had been the case, it is very improbable, presuming that
we may judge by the analogies which the order of the army in general
supplies, that Meriones would have been made his associate, which
in some manner he is, in the command; and again, the feigned story
of Ulysses in the Odyssey, though it introduces Idomeneus, does not
represent him as king of the whole island, but rather implies that his
pretended brother, Æthon, also exercised a sovereignty there[286]. But
even then the Cretan contingent, although the towns named as supplying
it do not extend over the whole island[287], amounted to eighty ships,
and thus exceeded any other, except those of Agamemnon and of Nestor.
And then, when Minos had so long been dead, it was still the marked and
special distinction of the country, that it was the seat of his race.
So Eumæus, describing the disguised stranger to Penelope, says[288],
φησὶ δ’ Ὀδυσσῆος ξεῖνος πατρώïος εἶναι,
Κρήτῃ ναιετάων, ὅθι Μίνωος γένος ἐστίν.
A passage which perhaps testifies that the family of Minos had been
ξεῖνοι to the predecessors of Ulysses.
But perhaps there is no country in Greece which Homer so rarely
mentions without a laudatory epithet. Though (περίρρυτος) sea-girt,
it is not with him an island: it is Κρήτη γαῖα, Κρήτη εὐρεῖα, Κρήτη
ἑκατόμπολις[289], and in the principal description, Homer exalts it
more highly, I think, than any other territory,
Κρήτη τις γαῖ’ ἐστὶ, μέσῳ ἐνὶ οἴνοπι πόντῳ
καλὴ καὶ πίειρα, περίρρυτος· ἐν δ’ ἄνθρωποι
πολλοὶ, ἀπειέσιοι, καὶ ἐννήκοντα πόληες[290].
If it should be thought that the evidence to the character of Minos as
a lawgiver is slight, we must call to mind that even the word _law_
is not found in Homer. The term afterwards used by the Greeks to
express what we mean by a law, νόμος, only occurs with Homer in a sense
quite different. He tells us of nothing more determinate than δίκαι
and θέμιστες. But relatively to his pictures of other governors, the
legislatorial character of Minos is as strongly marked as that of Numa
is in Livy, relatively to other kings of Rome.
In conclusion, as to the region of Crete, it was inhabited by five
races: namely,
1. Ἀχαιοί.
2. Ἐτεοκρῆτες.
3. Κυδῶνες.
4. Δωριέες.
5. Πελάσγοι.
_Pelasgianism in Crete._
Of these the Achæans and Dorians are evidently Greek. We are now
examining at large the title of the Pelasgi to the same character. With
respect to the Cydones, we may draw an inference from the facts, that
they lived (Od. iii. 292), on a Cretan river Iardanus, and that this
was also the name of a river of Peloponnesus (Il. vii. 133). I should
even hold that this stream, which is not identified, was most probably
in Arcadia: first, because in the contest with the Hellic tribes of
Pylos, the Arcadians as Pelasgians would be on the defensive, and would
therefore fight on their own ground: secondly, because the battle was
on the ὠκύροος Κελάδων. These words are most suitable to some mountain
feeder of the Iardanus, with its precipitate descent, rather than to
the usually more peaceful course of a river near the sea, especially
near the sea coast of sandy Pylus, which reached to the Alpheus[291].
This supposition respecting the Celadon will also best account for
what otherwise seems singular; namely, that the battle was at once on
the Celadon, and also about the Iardanus (Ἰαρδάνου ἀμφὶ ῥεέθρα[292]).
Again, the battle was between Arcadians and Pylians, and therefore,
from the relative situation of the territories, was probably on some
Arcadian feeder of the Alpheus, lying far inland. Now if Iardanus was
an Arcadian river, and if the Arcadians were Pelasgi, it leads to a
presumption that the Cydonians of Crete, who dwelt upon an Iardanus,
were Pelasgian also.
There remain the Ἐτεοκρῆτες, apparently so called, to distinguish them
as indigenous from all the other four nations, who were ἐπήλυδες, or
immigrant. This is curious, because it refers us elsewhere for the
origin of the Pelasgi. It is the only case in which we hear of any
thing anterior to them, upon the soils which they occupied. Lastly,
Crete lay between Greece and Cyprus, and Cyprus is clearly indicated
in the Odyssey as on the route to Egypt[293].
But we hear also of Rhadamanthus as the brother of Minos, of Deucalion
as his son, and of Ariadne as his daughter[294]. And the notices of
these personages in Homer all tend to magnify our conception of his
power and his connections.
Theseus, who is glorified by Nestor as a first rate hero[295], and
described as a most famous child of the gods[296], whom both Homer,
and also the later legends connect with Attica, marries Ariadne, who
dies on her way to Athens[297]. The marriages of Homer were generally
contracted among much nearer neighbours. This more distant connection
cannot, I think, but be taken as indicating the extended relations
connected with the sovereignty of Minos and his exalted position.
_Traditions of Deucalion._
The genealogy of Idomeneus runs thus[298]; ‘Jupiter begot Minos, ruler
of Crete. Minos begot a distinguished son, Deucalion. Deucalion begot
me, a ruler over numerous subjects in broad Crete.’
Here it is to be remarked,
1. That while Minos and Idomeneus, the first and third generations,
are described as ruling in Crete, Deucalion of the second is not so
described.
2. That Idomeneus is nowhere described as having succeeded to the
throne of his grandfather Minos, but only as being a ruler in Crete:
and that, as we have seen, from the qualified conjunction of Meriones
with him in the command, perhaps also from the limited range of the
Cretan towns in the Catalogue, there arises a positive presumption that
he had succeeded only to a portion of the ancient preeminence and
power of his ancestor.
Now there is no direct evidence in Homer connecting Deucalion with
Thessaly. The later tradition, however, places him there: and this
tradition may probably claim an authority as old as that of Hesiod. A
fragment of that poet[299], with the text partially corrupt, speaks of
Locrus, leader of the Leleges, as among those whom Jupiter raised from
the earth for Deucalion. This reference to Locrus immediately suggests
the name of the Locrian race, and so carries us into the immediate
neighbourhood of Thessaly; and the general purport of the words is to
express something a little like the later tradition about Deucalion,
which had that country for its scene. Combining this with the negative
evidence afforded by the Homeric text, we thus find established a
communication seemingly direct between Crete under Minos, and Thessaly,
to which country we have already found it probable that Deucalion
immigrated, and where he may have reigned.
The usual statement is, that the name Deucalion was common to two
different persons, one the son of Minos, and the other the king of
Thessaly. But we must be upon our guard against the device of the later
Greek writers, who at once unravelled the accumulated intricacies
that had gradually gathered about their traditions, and enlarged the
stock of material for pampering vanity, and exciting the imagination,
by multiplying the personages of the early legends. As regards the
case now before us; the tradition, which makes Hellen son of the
latter of these Deucalions, would certainly make him considerably
older than he could be if a son of Minos. It must be admitted, that
Homer repeats the name of Deucalion, for a Trojan so called is slain
by Achilles in Il. xx. 478. It has pleased the fancy of the poet
there to use the names of a number of dead heroes to distinguish the
warriors who fell like sheep under the sword of the terrible Achilles:
we find among them a Dardanus, a Tros, and a Moulius; and it is so
little Homer’s practice to use names without a peculiar meaning, that
we may conjecture he has done it, in preference to letting Achilles
slaughter a crowd of ignoble persons, in order that in every thing his
Protagonist might be distinguished from other men. But the poet seems
to take particular care to prevent any confusion as to his great Greek,
and indeed as to all his great living, personages. I am not aware of
more than one single passage in the Iliad[300], among the multitude
in which one or other of the Ajaxes is named, where there can be a
doubt which of the two is meant. It is exceedingly unlikely that if a
separate Deucalion of Thessaly had been known to Homer, he should not
have distinguished him from the Deucalion of Crete. This unlikelihood
mounts to incredibility, when we remember (1) that this other Deucalion
of Thessaly is nothing less than the asserted root of the whole
Hellenic stock, and (2) that the poet repeatedly uses the patronymic
Deucalides as an individual appellation for Idomeneus, whereas the
adverse supposition would make all the Achæans alike Δευκαλίδαι. We may
therefore safely conclude at least, that Homer knew of no Deucalion
other than the son of Minos.
_Of Rhadamanthus and the Phæacians._
We come now to Rhadamanthus, who is thrice mentioned by Homer.
Once[301], as born of the same parents with Minos[302]. Once, as
enjoying like him honours from Jupiter beyond the term of our
ordinary human life: for he is placed amidst the calm and comforts
of the Elysian plain. The third passage is remarkable. It is where
Alcinous[303] promises Ulysses conveyance to his home, even should
it be farther than Eubœa, which the Phæacian mariners consider to be
their farthest known point of distance, and whither they had conveyed
Rhadamanthus,
ἐποψόμενον Τίτυον, Γαιήιον υἱόν·
on his way to visit, or inspect, or look after, Tityus. This Tityus we
find in the νεκυία suffering torture for having attempted violence upon
Latona[304], as she was proceeding towards Pytho, through Panopeus.
Panopeus was a place in Phocis, on the borders of Bœotia, and on the
line of any one journeying between Delos and Delphi.
There is in this legend the geographical indistinctness, and even
confusion, which we commonly find where Homer dealt with places lying
in the least beyond the range of his own experience or that of his
hearers, as was the case with Phæacia. If Tityus was in Panopeus, the
proper way to carry Rhadamanthus was by the Corinthian gulf. But from
various points in the geography of the Odyssey, it may, in my opinion,
be gathered, that Homer had an idea, quite vague and indeterminate as
to distance, of a connection by sea between the north of the Adriatic,
and the north of the Ægean, either directly, or from the sea of
Marmora: and it suited his representation of the Phæacians, and best
maintained their as it were aerial character, to give them an unknown
rather than a known route. However that might be, if we look into
the legend in order to conjecture its historic basis, it appears to
suggest the inferences which follow: