Chapter X: Part 10

We have no instance of any visit paid by Greeks to Phœnicia under ordinary circumstances. The tour of Menelaus is, like that of Ulysses, outside the sphere of ordinary life. He describes himself in it to Telemachus as πολλὰ παθὼν καὶ πόλλ’ ἐπαληθεὶς[536], which may be compared with Od. i. 4. respecting Ulysses. We hear of the Taphians there; for it was at Sidon that they kidnapped the nurse of Eumæus. Piracy in those times probably reached somewhat further than trade. These same Taphians appear to be of doubtful Hellenism. On the one hand, Mentes their leader was a ξεῖνος to Ulysses[537]. But (1) we thus find them in Phœnicia[538], which is not a place of usual Greek resort. (2) They sail to Temese in foreign parts, ἐπ’ ἀλλοθρόους ἀνθρώπους (Od. i. 183), which we do not find elsewhere said of Greeks. The case of the pseudo-Ulysses cannot stand as a precedent for the rest of Greece, nor even for the rest of Crete[539]. (3) The father of Mentes had given Ulysses poison for his arrows, which Ilus, the Hellene, had from motives of religion refused him. This at once supplies a particular reason for the xenial bond between them, and suggests that this Taphian prince may have been, though a ξεῖνος, yet of a different religion and race. (4) The absence of the Taphians from the war, especially as a tribe so much given to navigation, further strengthens the presumption that they were not properly Greeks.

[536] Od. iv. 83.

[537] Od. i. 105.

[538] Sup. Ethnology, sect. iv.

[539] Ibid.

Phœnicia, then, hangs doubtfully on the outer verge of the Greek world, and belongs to the intermediate zone. Yet more decidedly is this the case with Egypt. For Ulysses means something unusual, when he describes the voyage as one lasting for five days across the open sea, even with the very best wind all the way, from Crete; and it is elsewhere described as at a distance formidably great. Such is the idea apparently intended by the statement, that the very birds do but make the journey once a year over so vast a sea[540]. No ordinary Greek ever goes to Egypt: and when the pseudo-Ulysses planned his voyage thither, it was under a sinister impulse from Jupiter, who meant him ill[541]:

[540] Od. iii. 320-2.

[541] Od. xiv. 243.

αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ δειλῷ κακὰ μήδετο μητίετα Ζεύς.

Again, the Poet appears to have entirely misconceived the distance of Pharos from the coast. He places it at a day’s sail from Αἴγυπτος, meaning probably by that name the Nile. Vain attempts have been made to get rid by explanation of this geographical error. Nitzsch[542] says truly, that for the geography of this passage Homer was dependent on the gossip of sailors, and compares it with that of Ogygia, Scheria, and the rest. When Menelaus went to Egypt, it was involuntarily, as we are assured by Nestor[543];

[542] On Od. iv. 354.

[543] Od. iii. 299.

ἀτὰρ τὰς πέντε νέας κυανοπρῳρείους
Αἰγύπτῳ ἐπέλασσε φέρων ἄνεμός τε καὶ ὕδωρ.

Beyond the circumscriptions which have thus been drawn, lie the countries of the Outer Geography. Outwards their limit in the mind of Homer was either the great River Ocean, or else the land immediately bordering upon it. Their inner line, that is, the line nearest to the known Greek or Homeric world, may be defined by a number of points specified in the poems. We have, for example, the Lotophagi and Libya in the south; the land of the Cyclops on the west; (I pass by Sicily, because it can, I think, be shown, that Homer transplanted it into another quarter;) Scheria to the north-west, the Abii, Glactophagi, and Hippemolgi, to the north. Then come the Strait of the Πλαγκταὶ, or Bosphorus, pretty accurately conceived as to its site; next towards the east, the Amazons and the Solymi with their mountains; in the south-east the Ἐρεμβοὶ, and then the widely spread Αἰθίοπες. All the places and people visited by Ulysses after the Lotophagi, that have not been named, must be conceived to lie yet further outwards.

I have now explained the grounds on which I assume the existence of two great zones, the one of a real, the other of an imaginative, fluctuating, and semi-fabulous Geography in Homer; and of a third zone, drawn as a somewhat indeterminate border-ground between them.

~_Sphere of the Outer Geography._~

I come now to consider what are the keys or leading ideas of local arrangement which we can first obtain from the particulars of the Outer Geography of Homer, and which we may then apply to the solution of such questions of detail as it presents.

It is plain that we have real need of some such keys. To ascertain the general direction of the movements of the Wanderings of Ulysses, and the general idea entertained by the Poet of the distribution of land and sea, is an essential preliminary to the solution of such questions as, Where were the Sirens? or, Where were the Læstrygones? According to the statement I have recently given, many of the points, that Ulysses in the Wanderings visited by sea, would appear to have been so fixed by Homer, as to imply his belief that the chieftain sailed over what we know to be the European continent.

The two propositions, which I have already ventured to state as being the keys to the Outer Geography of the Odyssey, are in the following terms[544]:

[544] See Ethnology, sect. iv. p. 304.

1. That Homer placed to the northward of Thrace, Epirus, and the Italian peninsula, an expanse, not of land, but of sea, communicating with the Euxine; or, to express myself in other words, that he greatly extended the Euxine westwards, perhaps also shortening it towards the East; and that he made it communicate, by the gulfs of Genoa and Venice, with the southern Mediterranean.

2. That he compounded into one two sets of Phœnician traditions respecting the Ocean-mouth, and fixed the site of it in the North-East.

In the first place, I assume that it would be a waste of time to enter upon an elaborate confutation of the traditional identifications, which the pardonable ambition of after-times has devised for the various points of the wanderings. According to those expository figments, we must believe that the land of the Cyclops is an island, that it is the same island which reappears at a later date as Thrinacie, that Æolia is Stromboli in sight of that island of the Cyclops, (though it took Ulysses nine days of fair wind to sail from it to within sight of Ithaca,) and that Ulysses could sail straight across the sea from Æolia to Ithaca. We must look for the Læstrygones and their perpetual day in the latitudes of the Mediterranean. We must either place the ocean northward, (but wholly without any prototype in nature,) and the under-world on the west coast of Italy, where there is no stream whatever, and seek, too, for fogs and darkness in the choicest atmospheres of the world; or else we must remove the Ocean-mouth to a distance about four times as far from the island of Circe, as that island is from Greece, whereas the poem evidently presumes their comparative proximity. But in truth, it is useless to go on accumulating single objections, for it is not upon these that the confutation principally depends. The confutation of these pardonable but idle traditions rests on broader grounds. The grounds are such as really these, that in no one particular do these Italian fables--for such I must call them, notwithstanding the partial countenance they receive from the chaotic and seemingly adulterated parts of the Theogony of Hesiod[545]--satisfy the letter of the text of Homer; that in the attempt to give it a geographical character, they misconceive its spirit; and that they oblige us to override and nullify not only the facts of actual geography, for that we might do without violating any law of reason and likelihood under the conditions of the case, but also the positive indications which Homer has given us from phenomena that lay within his knowledge and experience. In fact, they would oblige us to condemn Homer as geographically unworthy of trust, within the sphere of the every day life and resort of the Greeks, as well as in regions, which he and his countrymen never visited.

[545] Hes. Theog. 1011-15.

And the result of all the violence thus done to Homer would be, that we should have sacrificed at once his language and his imagination, in the attempt to struggle with contradictions to the actual geography which defy every attempt at reconciliation.

At the outset, according to my view, both admissions must be made, and principles must be laid down, as cardinal and essential to the conduct of the inquiry we have now in hand.

~_Dislocation of actual nature._~

It must, I think, be admitted,

1. That Homer has dislocated or transplanted the traditions he had received. For example, he has either carried the Bosphorus westwards[546], or else the Straits of Messina eastwards.

[546] Müller’s Orchomenos, p. 274.

2. That therefore as we are on this occasion inquiring not into the geographical information Homer can give us, but into the errors he had embraced, we must not be surprised if we fail to arrive at any conclusions, either wholly self-consistent or demonstratively clear. We must exact from his text, with something less than geographical rigour, even the conditions of inward harmony.

It may then reasonably be asked, if this be so, how are we to find any clue to his meaning.

My answer is, by laying down rules which will enable us to discriminate between his primary and his secondary statements; between the results of his knowledge, and the fruits of his fancy.

By his knowledge I mean, what he had seen, what he had travelled over, what was familiarly and habitually known to his countrymen, so as to give him ample opportunities of refreshing recollection, of enlarging knowledge, and of correcting error.

By the fruits of his fancy I mean, the forms he has thought fit to give to statements of geography lying outside the world of his own experience, and that of the Greeks in general. These statements, gathered here and there as time and opportunity might serve, he could hardly have moulded into a correct and consistent scheme. Emancipating himself wholly from obligations which it was impossible for him to fulfil, he has treated them simply as the creatures of his poetic purpose, and has analysed, shifted, and recombined them into a world of his own, in the creation and adjustment of which, the principal factor has of necessity been his own will.

~_Postulates for the inquiry._~

I therefore lay down the following postulates:

1. That, Homer having an Inner or known and an Outer or imagined world, between which a line may be drawn with tolerable certainty, the voyage of Ulysses, from the Lotophagi to Scheria inclusive, lies in the Outer world.

2. That we may not only implicitly accept the geographical statements of Homer, when they lie within his own horizon or the Inner world, but may fearlessly argue from them.

3. That arguments so drawn are available and paramount, as far as they go, for governing the construction of passages relating to the geography of the Outer world.

4. That we have no title to argue, when we find a point in the Outer world described in such a manner as to correspond with some spot now known, that Homer gave to that tract or region in his own mind, the site which we may now know it to occupy, but that he is quite as likely to have placed it elsewhere.

5. That arguments grounded on the physical knowledge of the Poet are to be trusted. I would name by way of example, (subject only to a certain latitude for inexactness,) such arguments as are drawn from the directions of winds, and from other patent and cardinal facts of common experience, for example, the distances which may be traversed within given times.

6. So likewise are the indications, which harmonize with known or reasonably presumed historical and ethnological views, to be trusted as good evidence on questions relating to his geographical meaning.

In order, however, to be in a condition to make use of indications supplied by the Winds, we must consider what the Winds of Homer are.

~_The Winds of Homer._~

The Winds of Homer are only four in number, and the manner of their physical arrangement is rude. It by no means corresponds with our own, but varies from it greatly, just as his points of the compass varied from ours. And though he names only four winds, yet I apprehend we must consider that upon the whole he uses them with such latitude, as to express under the name of some one of them every gale that blew.

As to some of these winds, Homer has provided us with an abundance of trustworthy _data_ for their point of origin: and through them the evidence as to the rest may be enlarged.

Homer’s governing points, from which to measure arcs of the horizon were, as is evident, the sunrise and the sunset. This is clearly shown by his expressions, such as πρὸς ἠῶ τ’ ἠέλιόν τε, for the east, and then in opposition to this, ποτὶ ζόφον ἠερόεντα[547] for the west. Again, when Ulysses urges upon his companions that he has lost all means of forming a judgment of their position, his mode of expression is this, that he does not know where is dusk or where is dawn; where the joy-giving sun rises, or where he sinks[548]. We must therefore dismiss from our minds the four cardinal points to which we are accustomed. They were not cardinal points for Homer. We must also remember not only (1) that Homer had only two[549], but also (2) that his two did not correspond with any of our four, and (3) that from the variation of sunrise and sunset with the seasons of the year a certain amount of vagueness was of necessity introduced into his conceptions of the point of origin for each of the different winds.

[547] Il. xii. 239, 40.

[548] Od. x. 190-2.

[549] Wood (Genius of Homer, p. 23,) says, ‘only four,’ meaning only four winds. But it is pretty clear that Homer’s four winds were not at anything like ninety degrees from one another. There is in Homer no word meaning strictly either south, or north. _Daksha_, however, from whence is derived δεξιὸς, means _southerly_ as well as _on the right_: but probably S. E. rather than S. Pott, Etymolog. Forschungen, II. 186, 7.

We should not, however, exaggerate this vagueness. It had its cause in the variations of the ecliptic, and, like its cause, it was limited. I suppose, however, that the eye guesses rudely at the deviations of the ecliptic, and that we must take N.W. and S.E. for the two cardinal points of Homer.

Homer’s west then ranged to the north of west, and Homer’s east to the south of east. But although this must be borne in mind when we translate his winds into our language, yet of course the winds themselves were arranged, not technically so as each to cover a certain arc on the horizon, but with reference to the directions in which they were found by experience commonly to blow. And in associating each wind with a particular point of the horizon, we must bear in mind that such a point is to be regarded as its centre, and that the same name would be given to a wind within a number of points on either side of it.

As to the respective prevalence of the different winds, the criterion is certainly a rude one, still it is a criterion, which is provided for us by the comparative frequency of the occasions on which they are mentioned. Eurus is mentioned in the poems seven times, Notus fifteen; Boreas twenty-seven, subject to a small deduction for cases where he is simply a person; and Zephyr twenty-six. The latter pair are the leading Winds of the poem: not necessarily that they indicated the prevailing currents of air, but that they represented such currents of air as usually prevailed with force sufficient to make them good poetical agents.

We may also learn, from the epithets given to the winds, the impressions which they respectively made upon the mind of Homer.

Eurus never has a character attached to it. Notus seldom has any epithet; but still it is mentioned, by the comrade of Ulysses in Od. xii. 289, as one of the most formidable winds. This may probably have been on account of its direction relatively to the place of the speaker; because from that point it blew right upon Scylla[550]. Again, as Zephyr and Notus are nowhere else associated by the Poet, the presumption arises on that ground also that here Notus is put in for a special and local reason. It is called ἀργέστης, and is so essentially allied with the idea of moisture, that νότιος stands simply for wet (νότιος ἱδρὼς, Il. xi. 810).

[550] Od. xii. 427.

The characteristic epithets of Boreas are μέγας, ὀπώρινος, and αἰθρηγένης. The first of these indicates that he blew hard: and we know the same thing from the facts, that Achilles desired him to contribute towards rapidly consuming the pyre of Patroclus, and that he is often used for a storm[551].

[551] Il. xxiii. 194.

But, of all the winds, the Zephyr evidently was the most prominent in the view of Homer. It is μέγας (Od. xiv. 458), λαβρὸς ἐπαιγίζων (Il. ii. 148), κελαδεινὸς (Il. xxiii. 208), δυσαὴς (Il. xxiii. 200, and Od. xii. 289), κεκληγὼς (Od. xii. 408); and it alone of the winds roars, ζεφύροιο ἰώη (Il. iv. 276). In Od. xii. 289, it is mentioned with Notus: they are the winds most apt to destroy ships even despite or without the gods. For Notus, as I have said, this character seems to be local: but the Zephyr is here called δυσαὴς, and the sense of the passage is in accordance with his general reputation. He, with Boreas, is invoked for the pyre of Patroclus: and these two are the only winds which are ever employed singly to make foul weather. Homer’s other modes of creating a tempest by the agency of the winds are (1) to make a combination of all or several of them, (2) to cover the matter in a generality by speaking of the ὀλοοὶ ἄνεμοι without distinction.

There is, however, in Homer a faint trace of the milder character, which was afterwards more fully recognised in Zephyr, when he had moved down from the north, and become a simple west wind. In the description of the Elysian plain, we find that it is never vexed with tempest or with rain, but that the happy spirits dwelling there are incessantly refreshed with the Zephyrs which spring from Ocean[552]. But even here the breezes are λιγυπνείοντες: and this word means what is called blowing _fresh_. And the conception of the wind here is rather as a sea-wind, and therefore not a cold one, than as being soft and gentle.

[552] Od. iv. 565-9.

Of these four Winds, Homer has made, on various occasions, two couples. He repeatedly associates Boreas and Zephyr in the same work[553]:

[553] Il. ix. 4.

ὡς δ’ ἄνεμοι δύο πόντον ὀρίνετον ἰχθυόεντα,
Βορέης καὶ Ζέφυρος, τώτε Θρῄκηθεν ἄητον.

And again, for the purposes of Achilles, the two come together over the sea, and quickly fall to, that the pyre may be consumed; even as the prayer of the hero had been addressed to them in common[554].

[554] Il. xxiii. 194, 212.

In the same way, Eurus and Notus are associated together as exciting the Icarian Sea. This passage is curiously illustrative of Homer’s distinctions between the winds. He has two successive similes, both describing the agitation of the same Assembly[555]. In the first it is compared to the Icarian Sea lashed by Eurus, and by Notus charging from the clouds. In the second, to a corn-field, on which Zephyr powerfully sweeps down[556].

[555] Il. ii. 144-6, 147-9.

[556] The arrangement of these similes tells powerfully against the ingenious argument of Mr. Wood concerning the birthplace of Homer. Genius of Homer, pp. 7-33.

From a just consideration of these passages, it becomes clear that the four winds of Homer were not at equidistant points of the compass, but that each two of them were capable of association, while neither member of one pair is ever described, except in a single passage, which I will presently notice, as cooperating with one of the other. Of course I do not refer to those cases, where the Poet raises all the four winds at once, simply to create a hurricane; no bad conjecture, I will add, for those times, in anticipation of the modern discovery that hurricanes are eddies, and that it is their circular motion which makes them seem to blow almost simultaneously in all directions[557].

[557] See General Reid’s Law of Storms and Variable Winds. London. 1849.

Let us now inquire what can be done towards ascertaining more particularly the leading points of these winds, of which we have surveyed the general descriptions.

~_Points of origin for Zephyr and Boreas._~

I begin with the more prevailing pair, Zephyr and Boreas.

There can, I think, be no hesitation in deriving Ζέφυρος from ζόφος. It may be well to remind the reader that ζόφος is the same word in substance with κνέφας and νέφος[558].

[558] Buttmann. Lexil. voc. κέλαινος.

Thus the north-west is his cradle. But he is so closely associated with Thrace and with Boreas, the former being his residence, and the latter[559] his companion, that though he may mean any wind from west up to north, we must consider him as usually leaning from the north-west towards the north, while he properly belongs to the north-west rather than any other given point of the compass.

[559] Il. xxiii. 214.

The position of Boreas is the best defined of all the winds of Homer. He cannot come from any point to the west of due north: for all that space is appropriated to Zephyr. He is equally well defined on the other side. For he blows from Thrace, both generally, as in Il. ix. 5, and particularly on the Plain of Troy[560]. I hold to be of no authority, as fixing the direction of this wind, the Boreas which carries the pseudo-Ulysses from Crete to Egypt[561]: for there Homer is already beyond the Inner World, and he only knows the position of Egypt from Phœnician report. But we have other trustworthy indications from within the sphere of Greek nautical knowledge, in his carrying Hercules from Ilium to Cos[562], in his preventing a voyage from Crete to Ilium[563], and in the fate of Ulysses, who, in rounding Malea, is carried off by Boreas to the westward of Cythera[564]. All these operations can be performed only by a wind blowing from the quarter between east and north-east.

[560] Il. xxiii. 214, as above.

[561] Od. xiv. 253.

[562] Il. xiv. 255. xv. 26.

[563] Od. xix. 200.

[564] Od. ix. 81.

Putting together these indications, I think we must conclude that the Boreas of Homer is a wind to the east of north. But it seems plain that he does not embrace nearly the whole quadrant from north to east. For, like and even more than Zephyr on the other side of the pole, he has a leaning towards the polar side, and, in the absence of more particular marks, Homer should be taken to mean by him a N.N.E. wind, that is, a wind ranging principally or wholly from N. to N.E.

I take the line Il. ix. 5, which many have treated as a difficulty, for a sound and valuable geographical indication. Boreas and Zephyr blow from Thrace. To a Greek, say at Mycenæ, Thrace, which reaches from the Adriatic to the Euxine, covers more than ninety degrees of the horizon. It is from within those ninety degrees that every Boreas, and probably every Zephyr, of Homer can be shown to blow. These are facts which we may hold in deposit, ready for service in the explanation of the movements of the Outer Geography.

And along with them we must keep in mind the Homeric affinity and sympathy established between Boreas and Zephyr. It is so considerable, and they are especially in such local proximity, that practically we should not go far wrong were we to say Homer divides the whole circumference of his horizon into three nearly equal arcs of 120 degrees, more or less. The first of these, beginning from due west, is given to Zephyr and to Boreas. The next, reaching to within 30° of the South Pole, to Eurus: and the third, embracing the residue of the circle, to Notus.

~_Points of the Compass for Notus and Eurus._~

Notus is the great southern wind, Eurus being comparatively of little account. Now, one of the chief _data_ applicable to determining the direction of these winds is the passage Il. ii. 144-6. Here they are described as disturbing the Icarian Sea, which was within the sphere of Greek navigation. Now the position of that sea, on the coast of Asia Minor to the south of Samos, shows,

1. That both these winds in Homer have a decidedly southern character.

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.

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:

1. Drift = 2 miles per hour = 48 miles per day of 24 hours.

2. Raft = 1¼ drift = 2½ miles per hour = 60 miles per day of 24 hours.

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.