Chapter VII (2)

57. From Perinthus to Byzantium it is 630 stadia; from the Hebrus and Cypseli to Byzantium and the Cyanean rocks it is, according to Artemidorus, 3100 stadia. The whole distance from Apollonia on the Ionian Gulf to Byzantium is 7320 stadia; Polybius makes this distance 180 stadia more, by the addition of a third of a stadium to the sum of 8 stadia, which compose a mile. Demetrius of Skepsis, in his account of the disposition of the Trojan forces, says that it is 700 stadia from Perinthus to Byzantium, and the same distance to Parium. He makes the length of the Propontis to be 1400 and the breadth 500 stadia; the narrowest part also of the Hellespont to be 7 stadia, and the length 400. E.

58. All writers do not agree in their description of the Hellespont, and many opinions are advanced on the subject. Some describe the Propontis to be the Hellespont; others, that part of the Propontis which is to the south of Perinthus; others include a part of the exterior sea which opens to the Ægæan and the Gulf Melas, each assigning different limits. Some make their measurement from Sigeum to Lampsacus, and Cyzicus, and Parium, and Priapus; and one is to be found who measures from Singrium, a promontory of Lesbos. Some do not hesitate to give the name of Hellespont to the whole distance as far as the Myrtoan Sea, because (as in the Odes of Pindar) when Hercules sailed from Troy through the virgin strait of Hella, and arrived at the Myrtoan Sea, he returned back to Cos, in consequence of the wind Zephyrus blowing contrary to his course. Thus some consider it correct to apply the name Hellespont to the whole of the Ægæan Sea, and the sea along the coast of Thessaly and Macedonia, invoking the testimony of Homer, who says,

“Thou shalt see, if such thy will, in spring,
My ships shall sail to Hellespont.”

But the argument is contradicted in the following lines,

“Piros, Imbracius’ son, who came from Ænos.”

Piros commanded the Thracians,

“Whose limits are the quick-flowing Hellespont.”

So that he would consider all people settled next to the Thracians as excluded from the Hellespont. For Ænos is situated in the district formerly called Apsynthis, but now Corpilice. The territory of the Cicones is next towards the west. E.

END OF VOL. I.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The chapters and sectional divisions of Kramer’s edition of the Greek text have been generally followed in this translation.

[2] τὰ θεῖα καὶ ἀνθρώπεια, “the productions of nature and art.”

[3] Africa.

[4] Then indeed the sun freshly struck the fields [with its rays], ascending heaven from the calmly-flowing, deep-moving ocean. Iliad vii. 421; Odyssey xix. 433. These references relate to the Greek text; any one wishing to verify the poetic translation will find the place in Cowper, by adding a few lines to the number adapted to the Greek. The prose version is taken from Bohn’s edition.

[5] And the bright light of the sun fell into the ocean, drawing dark night over the fruitful earth. Iliad viii. 485.

[6] “Bright and steady as the star
Autumnal, which in ocean newly bathed,
Assumes fresh beauty.” Iliad v. 6.

[7] Gosselin remarks that in his opinion Strabo frequently attributes to Homer much information of which the great poet was entirely ignorant: the present is an instance, for Spain was to Homer a perfect _terra incognita_.

[8] The Phœnician Hercules, anterior to the Grecian hero by two or three centuries. The date of his expedition, supposing it to have actually occurred, was about sixteen or seventeen hundred years before the Christian era.

[9] “But the immortals will send you to the Elysian plain, and the boundaries of the Earth, where is auburn-haired Rhadamanthus; there of a truth is the most easy life for men. There is nor snow, nor long winter, nor even a shower, but every day the ocean sends forth the gently blowing breezes of the west wind to refresh men.” Odyssey iv. 563.

[10] The Isles of the Blest are the same as the Fortunate Isles of other geographers. It is clear from Strabo’s description that he alludes to the Canary Islands; but as it is certain that Homer had never heard of these, it is probable that the passages adduced by Strabo have reference to the Elysian Fields of Baia in Campania.

[11] The Maurusia of the Greeks (the Mauritania of the Latins) is now known as Algiers and Fez in Africa.

[12] The Ethiopians, who are divided into two divisions, the most distant of men. Odyssey i. 23.

[13] For yesterday Jove went to Oceanus, to the blameless Ethiopians, to a banquet. Iliad i. 423. The ancients gave the name of Ethiopians, generally, to the inhabitants of Interior Africa, the people who occupied the sea-coast of the Atlantic, and the shores of the Arabian Gulf. It is with this view of the name that Strabo explains the passage of Homer; but the Mediterranean was the boundary of the poet’s geographical knowledge; and the people he speaks of were doubtless the inhabitants of the southern parts of Phœnicia, who at one time were called Ethiopians. We may here remark too, that Homer’s ocean frequently means the Mediterranean, sometimes probably the Nile. See also p. 48, _n._ 2.

[14] But it alone is free from the baths of the ocean. Iliad xviii. 489; Odyssey v. 275.

[15] We are informed by Diogenes Laertius, that Thales was the first to make known to the Greeks the constellation of the Lesser Bear. Now this philosopher flourished 600 years before the Christian era, and consequently some centuries after Homer’s death. The name of Φοινίκη which it received from the Greeks, is proof that Thales owed his knowledge of it to the Phœnicians. Conf. Humboldt’s Cosmos, vol. iii. p. 160, Bohn’s edition.

[16] Iliad xiii. 5. Gosselin says, Thrace (the present Roumelia) was indisputably the most northern nation known to Homer. He names the people Ἱππημόλγοι, or living on mares’ milk, because in his time they were a nomade race. Strabo evidently gives a forced meaning to the words of the poet, when he attempts to prove his acquaintance with the Scythians and Sarmatians.

[17] For I go to visit the limits of the fertile earth, and Oceanus, the parent of the gods. Iliad xiv. 200.

[18] The eighteenth book of the Iliad.

[19] Iliad xviii. 399; Odyss. xx. 65.

[20] Thrice indeed each day it lets loose its waves, and thrice it ebbs them back. Odyss. xii. 105.

Gosselin remarks, “I do not find any thing in these different passages of Homer to warrant the conclusion that he was aware of the ebb and flow of the tide; every one knows that the movement is hardly perceptible in the Mediterranean. In the Euripus, which divides the Isle of Negropont from Bœotia, the waters are observed to flow in opposite directions several times a day. It was from this that Homer probably drew his ideas; and the regular current of the Hellespont, which carries the waters of the Black Sea into the Mediterranean, led him to think that the whole ocean, or Mediterranean, had one continued flow like the current of a river.”

[21] Iliad vii. 422.

[22] But when the ship left the stream of the river-ocean, and entered on the wave of the wide-wayed sea. Odyssey xii. 1.

[23] This direction would indicate a gulf, the sea-ward side of which should be opposite the Libo-notus of the ancients. Now the mutilated passage of Crates has reference to the opening of the twelfth book of the Odyssey, descriptive of Ulysses’ departure from Cimmeria, after his visit to the infernal regions. Those Cimmerians were the people who inhabited Campania, and the land round Baia, near to lake Avernus, and the entrance into Hades. As these places are situated close to the bay of Naples, which occupies the exact position described by Crates, it is probable this was the bay he intended.

[24] What Strabo calls the eastern side of the continent, comprises that portion of India between Cape Comorin and Tana-serim, to the west of the kingdom of Siam: further than which he was not acquainted.

[25] Strabo’s acquaintance with Western Africa did not go further than Cape Nun, 214 leagues distant from the Strait of Gibraltar.

[26] By the south is intended the whole land from the Arabian Gulf or Red Sea to Cape Comorin.

[27] From Cape Finisterre to the mouth of the Elbe.

[28] The rocks of Gibraltar and Ceuta.

[29] The mountaineers of the Taurus, between Lycia and Pisidia.

[30] A mountain of Ionia near to the Meander, and opposite the Isle of Samos.

[31] The Sea of Marmora.

[32] The Strait of Caffa, which connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof.

[33] The Cimmerians, spoken of in Homer, were undoubtedly the inhabitants of Campania, not those of the Bosphorus.

[34] They are covered with shadows and darkness, nor does the shining sun behold them with his beams, ... but pernicious night is spread over hapless mortals. Odyssey xi. 15 and 19.

[35] The Danube.

[36] Ancient Thrace consisted of the modern provinces of Bulgaria and Roumelia.

[37] A river of Thessaly, named at present Salampria.

[38] Now the river Vardari.

[39] Thesprotis, in Epirus, opposite Corfu.

[40] Afterwards named Temsa. This town was in Citerior Calabria. Some think Torre de Nocera stands on the ancient site.

[41] This is a misstatement, as before remarked.

[42] This writer occupies so prominent a position in Strabo’s work, that no apology I think will be needed for the following extract from Smith’s dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.

“Eratosthenes of Cyrene was, according to Suidas, the son of Aglaus, according to others, the son of Ambrosius, and was born B. C. 276. He was taught by Ariston of Chius, the philosopher, Lysanias of Cyrene, the grammarian, and Callimachus, the poet. He left Athens at the invitation of Ptolemy Euergetes, who placed him over the library at Alexandria. Here he continued till the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes. He died at the age of eighty, about B. C. 196, of voluntary starvation, having lost his sight, and being tired of life. He was a man of very extensive learning: we shall first speak of him as a geometer and astronomer.

“It is supposed that Eratosthenes suggested to Ptolemy Euergetes the construction of the large _armillæ_, or fixed circular instruments, which were long in use at Alexandria; but only because it is difficult to imagine to whom else they are to be assigned, for Ptolemy the astronomer, though he mentions them, and incidentally their antiquity, does not state to whom they were due. In these circles each degree was divided into six parts. We know of no observations of Eratosthenes in which they were probably employed, except those which led him to the obliquity of the ecliptic, which he must have made to be 23° 51’ 20”, for he states the distance of the tropics to be eleven times the eighty-third part of the circumference. This was a good observation for the times. Ptolemy the astronomer was content with it, and according to him Hipparchus used no other. Of his measure of the earth we shall presently speak. According to Nicomachus, he was the inventor of the κόσκινον, or Cribrum Arithmeticum, as it has since been called, being the well-known method of detecting the prime numbers by writing down all odd numbers which do not end with 5, and striking out successively the multiples of each, one after the other, so that only prime numbers remain.

“We still possess under the name of Eratosthenes a work, entitled Καταστερισμοί, giving a slight account of the constellations, their fabulous history, and the stars in them. It is however acknowledged on all hands that this is not a work of Eratosthenes.... The only other writing of Eratosthenes which remains, is a letter to Ptolemy on the duplication of the cube, for the mechanical performance of which he had contrived an instrument, of which he seems to contemplate actual use in measuring the contents of vessels, &c. He seems to say that he has had his method engraved in some temple or public building, with some verses, which he adds. Eutocius has preserved this letter in his comment on book ii. prop. 2, of the sphere and cylinder of Archimedes.

“The greatest work of Eratosthenes, and that which must always make his name conspicuous in scientific history, is the attempt which he made to measure the magnitude of the earth, in which he brought forward and used the method which is employed to this day. Whether or no he was successful cannot be told, as we shall see; but it is not the less true that he was the originator of the process by which we now know, very nearly indeed, the magnitude of our own planet. Delambre says that if it were he who advised the erection of the circular instruments above alluded to, he must be considered as the founder of astronomy: to which it may be added, that he was the founder of geodesy without any _if_ in the case. The number of ancient writers who have alluded to this remarkable operation (which seems to have obtained its full measure of fame) is very great, and we shall not attempt to combine their remarks or surmises: it is enough to say that the most distinct account, and one of the earliest, is found in the remaining work of Cleomedes.

“At Syene in Upper Egypt, which is supposed to be the same as, or near to, the town of Assouan, (Lat. 24° 10’ N., Long. 32° 59’ E. of Greenwich,) Eratosthenes was told (that he observed is very doubtful) that deep wells were enlightened to the bottom on the day of the summer solstice, and that vertical objects cast no shadows. He concluded therefore, that Syene was on the tropic, and its latitude equal to the obliquity of the ecliptic, which, as we have seen, he had determined: he presumed that it was in the same longitude as Alexandria, in which he was out about 3°, which is not enough to produce what would at that time have been a sensible error. By observations made at Alexandria, he determined the zenith of that place to be distant by the fiftieth part of the circumference from the solstice, which was equivalent to saying that the arc of the meridian between the two places is 7° 12’. Cleomedes says that he used the σκάφη, or hemispherical dial of Berosus, in the determination of this latitude. Delambre rejects the idea with infinite scorn, and pronounces Cleomedes unworthy of credit; and indeed it is not easy to see why Eratosthenes should have rejected the gnomon and the large circular instruments, unless, perhaps, for the following reason. There is a sentiment of Cleomedes which seems to imply that the disappearance of the shadows at Syene on the day of the summer solstice was noticed to take place for 300 stadia every way round Syene. If Eratosthenes took his report about the phenomenon (and we have no evidence that he went to Syene himself) from those who could give no better account than this, we may easily understand why he would think the σκάφη quite accurate enough to observe with at his own end of the arc, since the other end of it was uncertain by as much as 300 stadia. He gives 500 stadia for the distance from Alexandria to Syene, and this round number seems further to justify us in concluding that he thought the process to be as rough as in truth it was. Martianus Capella states that he obtained this distance from the measures made by order of the Ptolemies (which had been commenced by Alexander): this writer then implies that Eratosthenes did not go to Syene himself.

“The result is 250,000 stadia for the circumference of the earth, which Eratosthenes altered into 252,000, that his result might give an exact number of stadia for the degree, namely, 700; this of course should have been 694-4/9. Pliny calls this 31,500 Roman miles, and therefore supposes the stadium to be the eighth part of a Roman mile, or takes for granted that Eratosthenes used the Olympic stadium. It is likely enough that the Ptolemies naturalized this stadium in Egypt; but nevertheless, it is not unlikely that an Egyptian stadium was employed. If we assume the Olympic stadium, (202¼ yards,) the degree of Eratosthenes is more than 79 miles, upwards of 10 miles too great. Nothing is known of any Egyptian stadium. Pliny asserts that Hipparchus, but for what reason he does not say, wanted to add 25,000 stadia to the circumference as found by Eratosthenes. According to Plutarch, Eratosthenes made the sun to be 804 millions of stadia from the earth, and the moon 780,000. According to Macrobius, he made the diameter of the sun to be 27 times that of the earth. With regard to the other merits of Eratosthenes, we must first of all mention what he did for geography, which was closely connected with his mathematical pursuits. It was Eratosthenes who raised geography to the rank of a science; for previous to his time it seems to have consisted, more or less, of a mass of information scattered in books of travel, descriptions of particular countries, and the like. All these treasures were accessible to Eratosthenes in the libraries of Alexandria; and he made the most profitable use of them, by collecting the scattered materials, and uniting them into an organic system of geography, in his comprehensive work entitled Γεωγραφικά, or as it is sometimes but erroneously called, γεωγραφούμενα or γεωγραφία. It consisted of three books, the first of which, forming a sort of Introduction, contained a critical review of the labours of his predecessors from the earliest to his own times, and investigations concerning the form and nature of the earth, which, according to him, was an immoveable globe, on the surface of which traces of a series of great revolutions were still visible. He conceived that in one of these revolutions the Mediterranean had acquired its present form; for according to him it was at one time a large lake covering portions of the adjacent countries of Asia and Libya, until a passage was forced open by which it entered into communication with the ocean in the west. The second book contained what is now called mathematical geography. His attempt to measure the magnitude of the earth has been spoken of above. The third book contained the political geography, and gave descriptions of the various countries, derived from the works of earlier travellers and geographers. In order to be able to determine the accurate site of each place, he drew a line parallel with the equator, running from the Pillars of Hercules to the extreme east of Asia, and dividing the whole of the inhabited earth into two halves. Connected with this work was a new map of the earth, in which towns, mountains, rivers, lakes, and climates were marked according to his own improved measurements. This important work of Eratosthenes forms an epoch in the history of ancient geography; but unfortunately it is lost, and all that has survived consists in fragments quoted by later geographers and historians, such as Polybius, Strabo, Marcianus, Pliny, and others, who often judge of him unfavourably, and controvert his statements; while it can be proved that in a great many passages they adopt his opinions without mentioning his name. Marcianus charges Eratosthenes with having copied the substance of the work of Timosthenes on Ports, (περὶ λιμένων,) to which he added but very little of his own. This charge may be well-founded, but cannot have diminished the value of the work of Eratosthenes, in which that of Timosthenes can have formed only a very small portion. It seems to have been the very overwhelming importance of the geography of Eratosthenes, that called forth a number of opponents, among whom we meet with the names of Polemon, Hipparchus, Polybius, Serapion, and Marcianus of Heracleia.... Another work of a somewhat similar nature, entitled Ἑρμῆς, was written in verse, and treated of the form of the earth, its temperature, the different zones, the constellations, and the like.... Eratosthenes distinguished himself also as a philosopher, historian, grammarian, &c.”

[43] The ancients portioned out the globe by bands or zones parallel to the equator, which they named κλίματα. The extent of each zone was determined by the length of the solstitial day, and thus each diminished in extent according as it became more distant from the equator. The moderns have substituted a mode of reckoning the degrees by the elevation of the pole, which gives the latitudes with much greater accuracy.

[44] Literally, the heat, cold, and temperature of the atmosphere.

[45] Tartary.

[46] France.

[47] Xylander and Casaubon remark that Strabo here makes an improper use of the term antipodes; the antipodes of Spain and India being in the southern hemisphere.

[48] Meteorology, from μετέωρος, aloft, is the science which describes and explains the various phenomena which occur in the region of the atmosphere.

[49] Homer, Iliad viii. 16.

[50] A people of Thessaly, on the banks of the Peneus.

[51] The former name of the Morea, and more ancient than Peloponnesus. Iliad i. 270.

[52] Having wandered to Cyprus, and Phœnice, and the Egyptians, I came to the Ethiopians, and Sidonians, and Erembi, and Libya, where the lambs immediately become horned. Odyssey iv. 83.

[53] Odyssey iv. 86.

[54] Homer says,

——τῇ πλεῖστα φέρει ζείδωρος ἄρουρα
Φάρμακα.
Odyssey iv. 229.

Which Cowper properly renders:—

“Egypt teems
with _drugs_ of various powers.”

Strabo, by omitting the word φάρμακα from his citation, alters to a certain degree the meaning of the sentence.

[55] Iliad ix. 383, et seq.

[56] Odyssey xxi. 26.

[57] Chorography, a term used by Greek writers, meaning the description of particular districts.

[58] Iliad ii. 496. Four cities of Bœotia. The present name of Aulis is Vathi, situated on the Strait of Negropont. The modern names of the other three cities are unknown.

[59] By Libyans are here intended Carthaginians. The events alluded to by Strabo may be found in Pomponius Mela and Valerius Maximus, whose accounts however do not entirely accord. That of Valerius Maximus, who is followed by Servius, tells us that Hannibal, on his return to Africa, observed his pilot Pelorus was taking the ships by the coast of Italy, and suspecting him therefore of treachery, caused him to be executed. He did not know at the time the intention of Pelorus to take him through the Strait of Messina, but afterwards, when aware of the excellence of the passage, caused a monument to be raised to the memory of the unfortunate pilot. Strabo, in his ninth book, gives us the history of Salganeus, and the monument erected to him on the shores of Negropont.

[60] The Gulf of Zeitun.

[61] Vide preceding note on this word p. 13, n. 1.

[62] Odyssey v. 393.

[63] Allusion is here made to the theory of Xenophanes of Colophon and Anaximenes his disciple, who imagined the earth bore the form of a vast mountain, inhabited at the summit, but whose roots stretched into infinity. The Siamese at the present day hold a similar idea.

[64] See note [43], p. 13.

[65] Περὶ τῶν οἰκήσεων.

[66] Meaning, the different appearances of the heavenly bodies at various parts of the earth.

[67] Odyssey x. 190.

[68] This sentence has been restored to what was evidently its original position. In the Greek text it appears immediately before section 23, commencing, “Having already compiled,” &c. The alteration is borne out by the French and German translators.

[69] Strabo here alludes to his Ἱστορικὰ Ὑπομνήματα, cited by Plutarch (Lucullus, 28, Sulla, 26). This work, in forty-three books, began where the History of Polybius ended, and was probably continued to the battle of Actium. Smith, Gr. and Rom. Biog.

[70] The Sea of Azof.

[71] Mingrelia; east of the Euxine.

[72] A large country of Asia to the south of the eastern part of the Caspian Sea. It became much restricted during the Parthian rule, containing only the north of Comis, east of Masanderan, the country near Corcan or Jorjan, (Dshiordshian.) and the west of the province of Khorassan.

[73] A country of Asia, on the west bounded by Aria, south by the mountains of Paropamisus, east by the Emodi montes, north by Sogdiana, now belongs to the kingdom of Afghanistan. Bactriana was anciently the centre of Asiatic commerce.

[74] A general name given by the Greeks and Romans to a large portion of Asia, and divided by them into Scythia intra et extra Imaum, that is, on either side of Mount Imaus. This mountain is generally thought to answer to the Himalaya mountains of Thibet.

[75] This seems to be a paraphrase of Homer’s verse on Ulysses, Odyssey xviii. 74.

Οἵην ἐκ ῥακέων ὁ γέρων ἐπιγουνίδα φαίνει.

What thews
And what a haunch the senior’s tatters hide.

Cowper.

[76] Zeno, of Citium, a city in the island of Cyprus, founded by Phœnician settlers, was the son of Mnaseas.

[77] Περὶ τῶν Ἀγαθῶν is the title given by Strabo, but we find from Harpocrates and Clemens Alexandrinus, that properly it was Περὶ Ἀγαθῶν καὶ Κακῶν, or “Concerning Good and Evil Things,” which we have rendered in the text “Moral Philosophy.”

[78] Odyssey iii. 267.

[79] Ib. iii. 270.

[80] Ib. iii. 272.

[81] Thisbe, Haliartus, Anthedon, cities of Bœotia; Litæa, a city of Phocis. The Cephissus, a large river, rising in the west of Phocis.

[82] A harvest-wreath of laurel or olive wound round with wool, and adorned with fruits, borne about by singing-boys at the Πυανέψια and Θαργήλια, while offerings were made to Helios and the Hours: it was afterwards hung up at the house-door. The song was likewise called eiresionè, which became the general name for all begging-songs.

[83] Auditors, ἀκροωμένοις. In Greece there was a class of lectures where the only duty of the professors was to explain the works of the poets, and point out the beauties which they contained. The students who attended these lectures were styled ἀκροάται, or auditors, and the method of instruction ἀκρόασις.

[84] Odyssey i. 3.

[85] Iliad iii. 202.

[86] Ib. x. 246.

[87] Odyssey xviii. 367.

[88] Ib. xviii. 374.

[89] The second book of the Iliad.

[90] The ninth book of the Iliad.

[91] The deputation of Menelaus and Ulysses to demand back Helen, alluded to by Antenor, in the third book of the Iliad.

[92] But when he did send forth the mighty voice from his breast, and words like unto wintry flakes of snow, no longer then would another mortal contend with Ulysses. Iliad iii. 221.

[93] So much of the meaning of this sentence depends upon the orthography, that its force is not fully perceptible in English; the Greek is as follows: τοῦτο δ’ ἦν ἡ ᾠδὴ λόγος μεμελισμένος· ἀφ’ οὗ δὴ ῥαψῳδίαν τ’ ἔλεγον καὶ τραγῳδίαν καὶ κωμῳδίαν.

[94] This last sentence can convey little or no meaning to the English reader; its whole force in the original depending on verbal association. Its general scope however will be evident, when it is stated that in Greek, the same word, πεζὸς, which means a “foot-soldier,” signifies also “prose composition.” Hence Strabo’s allusion to the chariot. The Latins borrowed the expression, and used sermo pedestris in the same sense.

[95] A female phantom said to devour children, used by nurses as a bug-bear to intimidate their refractory charges.

[96] In later times there were three Gorgons, Stheino, Euryalé, and Medusa, but Homer seems to have known but one.

[97] One of the giants, who in the war against the gods was deprived of his left eye by Apollo, and of the right by Hercules.

[98] The same phantom as Mormo, with which the Greeks used to frighten little children.

[99] Odyssey vi. 232.

[100] Odyssey xix. 203.

[101] The mountains of Chimera in Albania.

[102] The Gulf of Venice.

[103] The Gulf of Salerno.

[104] The Grecian name for Tuscany.

[105] Several small islands, or rather reefs, at the entrance of the Strait of Constantinople. They took their name of Symplegades from the varying positions they assumed to the eyes of the voyager, owing to the sinuosities of the Strait.

[106] Unfortunately for Strabo’s illustration, no Grecian navigator had ever passed the Strait of Gibraltar in Homer’s time.

[107] The powerful Shaker of the Earth, as he was returning from the Ethiopians, beheld him from a distance, from the mountains of the Solymi. Odyssey v. 282.

[108] There is some doubt as to the modern name of the island of Ithaca. D’Anville supposes it to be the island of Thiaki, between the island of Cephalonia and Acarnania, while Wheeler and others, who object to this island as being too large to answer the description of Ithaca given by Strabo, identify it with the little isle of Ithaco, between Thiaki and the mainland.

[109] A name of the city of Troy, from Ilus, son of Tros.

[110] A mountain of Magnesia in Thessaly.

[111] A mountain in the Troad.

[112] Cape Faro in Sicily.

[113] The stadia here mentioned are 700 to a degree; thus 2000 stadia amount to rather more than 57 marine leagues, which is the distance in a direct line from Capo Faro to the Capo della Minerva.

[114] The Sirenussæ are the rocks which form the southern cape of the Gulf of Naples, and at the same time separate it from the Gulf of Salerno. This cape, which was also called the promontory of Minerva, from the Athenæum which stood there, preserves to this day the name of Capo della Minerva.

[115] Now Surrento.

[116] The island of Capri is opposite to the Capo della Minerva.

[117] Now the Island of St. Marcian.

[118] Monte Circello, near to Terracina.

[119] The Iliad.

[120] Sword-fish.

[121] And fishes there, watching about the rock for dolphins and dogs, and if she can any where take a larger whale. Odyssey xii. 95.

[122] There is a very fine medallion in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, portraying Scylla as half woman, half dolphin, with a trident in her left hand, and seizing a fish with her right. From her middle protrude two half-bodied dogs, who assist the monster in swimming.

[123] Odyssey xii. 105.

[124] At this place there was an altar consecrated to Ulysses. Meninx is now known as the island of Zerbi, on the side of the Bay of Cabus, on the coast of Africa.

[125] The second book of the Iliad.

[126] And from thence I was carried for nine days over the fishy sea by baleful winds. Odyssey ix. 82.

[127] Cape Maleo off the Morea. The distance from this point to Gibraltar is now estimated at 28° 34’. The 22,500 stadia of Polybius would equal 32° 8’ 34”. He was therefore out in his calculation by 3° 34’ 34”.

[128] But when the ship left the stream of the river ocean. Odyss. xii. 1.

[129] Vide Odyssey i. 50.

[130] Calypso.

[131] And we dwell at a distance, the farthest in the sea of many waves, nor does any other of mortals mingle with us. Odyssey vi. 204.

[132] Gosselin has satisfactorily demonstrated that Strabo is wrong in supposing that these passages relate to the Atlantic Ocean, and most of our readers will come at once themselves to the same conclusion. Those, however, who wish for proofs, may refer to the French translation, vol. i. p. 51, _n._

[133] The ancient name of the city of Naples.

[134] Puteoli, now Pozzuolo, in Campania.

[135] Mare Morto, south of Baia, and near to the ruins of Mycene.

[136] Aornus or Avernus: this lake, which lies about one mile north of Baia, still retains its ancient appellation.

[137] Vide Virgil, Æneid vi. 162.

[138] Cythæron and Helicon, two mountains of Bœotia, the latter of which is now named Zagaro Voreni.

[139] Parnassus, a mountain of Phocis, near Delphi.

[140] Pelion, a mountain of Magnesia, in Thessaly.

[141] They attempted to place Ossa upon Olympus, and upon Ossa leafy Pelion. Odyssey xi. 314. The mountains Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus, bounded the eastern coasts of Thessaly.

[142] Pieria and Emathia, two countries of Macedonia.

[143] The mountains of Macedonia; this latter name was unknown to Homer, who consequently describes as Thracian, the whole of the people north of Thessaly.

[144] The Mount Santo of the moderns.

[145] Juno, hastening, quitted the summit of Olympus, and having passed over Pieria, and fertile Emathia, she hastened over the snowy mountains of equestrian Thrace, most lofty summits.... From Athos she descended to the foaming deep. Iliad xiv. 225.

[146] Odyssey iv. 83.

[147] Euripides, Bacchæ, towards commencement.

[148] Sophocles.

[149] The inaccuracy of the description consists in this; that Bacchus leaving Lydia and Phrygia should have taken his course by Media into Bactriana, and returned by Persia into Arabia Felix. Perhaps too, for greater exactness, Strabo would have had the god mention particularly the intermediate countries through which he necessarily passed, as Cappadocia, Armenia, Syria, &c.

[150] But it lies low, the highest in the sea towards the west, but those that are separated from it [lie] towards the east and the sun. Odyssey ix. 25.

[151] Vide Odyssey xiii. 109, 111.

[152] Which I very little regard, nor do I care for them whether they fly to the right, towards the morn and the sun, or to the left, towards the darkening west. Iliad xii. 239.

[153] O my friends, since we know not where is the west, nor where the morning, nor where the sun. Odyssey x. 190.

[154] The north and west winds, which both blow from Thrace. Iliad ix. 5.

[155] Now the Bay of Saros.

[156] These two provinces are comprised in the modern division of Roumelia. A portion of Macedonia still maintains its ancient name Makidunia.

[157] The modern names of these places are Thaso, Stalimene, Imbro, and Samothraki.

[158] Strabo, as well as Casaubon in his notes on this passage, seems to have made an imperfect defence of Homer. The difficulty experienced, as well by them as Eratosthenes, arose from their overlooking the fact that Macedonia was a part of Thrace in Homer’s time, and that the name of Macedon did not exist.

[159] These rocks were situated between the city of Megara and the isthmus of Corinth.

[160] And the south-east and the south rushed together, and the hard-blowing west, and the cold-producing north. Odyssey v. 295.

[161] The western part of Thrace, afterwards named Macedonia; having Pæonia on the north, and Thessaly on the south.

[162] The Magnetæ dwelt near to Mount Pelion and the Pelasgic Gulf, now the Bay of Volo.

[163] These people dwelt between Mount Othrys, and the Maliac Gulf, now the Gulf of Zeitun.

[164] The maritime portion of Epirus opposite Corfu.

[165] In the time of Homer the Dolopes were the neighbours of the Pæonians, and dwelt in the north of that part of Thrace which afterwards formed Macedonia. Later, however, they descended into Thessaly, and established themselves around Pindus.

[166] Dodona was in Epirus, but its exact position is not known.

[167] Now Aspro-potamo, or the White River; this river flows into the sea at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth.

[168] And the assembly was moved, as the great waves of the Icarian sea. Iliad ii. 144.

[169] Ἀργέσταο Νότοιο, Iliad xi. 306, xxi. 334. Ἀργέστης strictly speaking means the north-west, and although, to an English ear, the north-west south seems at first absurd, yet in following up the argument which Strabo is engaged in, it is impossible to make use of any other terms than those which he has brought forward, and merely to have translated ἀργέσταο Νότοιο by Argest-south, would have mystified the passage without cause. We do not here attempt to reconcile the various renderings of ἀργέσταο Νότοιο by Homeric critics, as Strabo’s sense alone concerns us.

[170] The north and west winds, which both blow from Thrace. Iliad ix. 5.

[171] Ἀργέστης Νότος, the clearing south wind, Horace’s Notus Albus;—in the improved compass of Aristotle, ἀργέστης was the north-west wind, the Athenian σκείρων.

[172] Τοῦ λοιποῦ Νότου ὅλου Εὔρου πως ὄντος. MSS. _i. e. all the other southern winds having an easterly direction_. We have adopted the suggestion of Kramer, and translated the passage as if it stood thus, τοῦ λοιποῦ Νότου ὀλεροῦ πως ὄντος.

[173] As when the west wind agitates the light clouds of the clearing south, striking them with a dreadful gale. Iliad xi. 305.

[174] Gosselin observes that Hesiod lived about forty years after Homer, and he mentions not only the Nile, but also the Po, with which certainly Homer was unacquainted. He speaks too of the Western Ocean, where he places the Gorgons, and the garden of the Hesperides. It is very likely that these various points of information were brought into Greece by the Carthaginians. The name _Nile_ seems to be merely a descriptive title; it is still in use in many countries of India, where it signifies _water_. The river known subsequently as _the Nile_, was, in Homer’s time, called the _River of Egypt_, or the _River Egyptus_; by the latter of which titles he was acquainted with it. See Odyssey xvii. 448.

[175] By this expression is intended the Atlantic.

[176] Gosselin remarks that the arguments made use of by Strabo are not sufficiently conclusive. The country with which the Greeks were best acquainted was Greece, undoubtedly, and it is this land which Homer has described with the greatest exactness of detail.

[177] An island opposite to Alexandria, and seven stadia distant therefrom. The Ptolemies united it to the mainland by means of a pier, named Hepta-stadium, in allusion to its length. The sands which accumulated against the pier became the site of the present city of Alexandria. It was not on this island that the celebrated Pharos of Alexandria was erected, but on a desolate rock a little to the N.E. It received the same name as the island, to which it was joined by another pier. As to the passage of Homer, (Odyssey iv. 354-357,) where he says that Pharos is one day’s sail from the Egyptus, he does not mean Egypt, as Strabo fancies, but the mouth of the Nile, which river in his time was called the Egyptus, and probably fell into the sea about one day’s sail from Pharos.

[178] We have before remarked that the Ethiopia visited by Menelaus was not the country above Egypt, generally known by that name, but an Ethiopia lying round Jaffa, the ancient Joppa.

[179] “The priests stated also that Menes was the first of mortals that ever ruled over Egypt; to this they added that in the days of that king, all Egypt, with the exception of the Thebaic nome, was but a morass; and that none of the lands now seen below Lake Mœris, then existed; from the sea up to this place is a voyage by the river of seven days. I myself am perfectly convinced the account of the priests in this particular is correct; for the thing is evident to every one who sees and has common sense, although he may not have heard the fact, that the Egypt to which the Hellenes navigate, is a land annexed to the Egyptians, and a gift from the river; and that even in the parts above the lake just mentioned, for three days’ sail, concerning which the priests relate nothing, the country is just of the same description.” Herod. ii. § 5.

[180] The Ethiopians, who are divided into two parts, the most distant of men, some at the setting of the sun, others at the rising. Odyssey i. 23.

[181] Odyssey i. 23.

[182] Many ancient writers entertained the opinion that the regions surrounding the terrestrial equator were occupied by the ocean, which formed a circular zone, separating our continent from that which they supposed to exist in the southern hemisphere. To the inhabitants of this second continent they gave the name of Antichthones.

[183] The Southern Ocean.

[184] Or nearest to the equator.

[185] The isthmus of Suez.

[186] Odyssey i. 23.

[187] This explanation falls to the ground when we remember, that prior to the reign of Psammeticus no stranger had ever succeeded in penetrating into the interior of Egypt. This was the statement of the Greeks themselves. Now as Psammeticus did not flourish till two and a half centuries after Homer, that poet could not possibly have been aware of the circumstances which Strabo brings forward to justify his interpretation of this passage which he has undertaken to defend.

[188] Africa.

[189] The Red Sea.

[190] The Strait of Gibraltar.

[191] The Tartessians were the inhabitants of the island of Tartessus, formed by the two arms of the Bætis, (the present Guadalquiver,) near the mouth of this river. One of these arms being now dried up, the island is reunited to the mainland. It forms part of the present district of Andalusia. The tradition, says Gosselin, reported by Ephorus, seems to me to resemble that still preserved at Tingis, a city of Mauritania, so late as the sixth century. Procopius (Vandalicor. ii. 10) relates that there were two columns at Tingis bearing the following inscription in the Phœnician language, “We are they who fled before the brigand Joshua, the son of Naue (Nun).” It does not concern us to inquire whether these columns actually existed in the time of Procopius, but merely to remark two independent facts. The first is the tradition generally received for more than twenty centuries, that the coming of the Israelites into Palestine drove one body of Canaanites, its ancient inhabitants, to the extremities of the Mediterranean, while another party went to establish, among the savage tribes of the Peloponnesus and Attica, the earliest kingdoms known in Europe. The second observation has reference to the name of Ethiopians given by Ephorus to this fugitive people, as confirming what we have before stated, that the environs of Jaffa, and possibly the entire of Palestine, anciently bore the name of Ethiopia: and it is here we must seek for the Ethiopians of Homer, and not in the interior of Africa.

[192] Africa.

[193] This piece is now lost.

[194] τὸ μεσημβρινὸν κλίμα.

[195] Æschylus.

[196] This piece is now lost.

[197] Odyssey ix. 26.

[198] Strabo is mistaken in interpreting πρὸς ζόφον towards the north. It means here, as every where else, “towards the west,” and allusion in the passage is made to Ithaca as lying west of Greece.

[199] Whether they fly to the right towards the morn and the sun, or to the left towards the darkening west. Iliad xii. 239.

[200] O my friends! since we know not where is the west, nor where the morning, nor where the sun that gives light to mortals descends beneath the earth, nor where he rises up again. Odyssey x. 190.

[201] In Book x.

[202] For yesterday Jove went to Oceanus to the blameless Ethiopians, to a banquet. Iliad i. 423.

[203] The powerful shaker of the earth, as he was returning from the Ethiopians, beheld him from a distance, from the mountains of the Solymi. Odyssey v. 282.

[204] This would be true if Homer had lived two or three centuries later, when the Greeks became acquainted with the Ethiopians on the eastern and western coasts of Africa. But as the poet was only familiar with the Mediterranean, there is no question that the Ethiopians mentioned in this passage are those of Phœnicia and Palestine.

[205] Which, after they have escaped the winter and immeasurable shower, with a clamour wing their way towards the streams of the ocean, bearing slaughter and fate to the Pygmæan men. Iliad iii. 3.

[206] Gosselin is of opinion that this Iberia has no reference to Spain, but is a country situated between the Euxine and Caspian Seas, and forms part of the present Georgia. He assigns as his reason, that if Strabo had meant to refer to Spain, he would have mentioned it before Italy, so as not to interrupt the geographical order, which he is always careful to observe.

[207] Pygmy, (πυγμαῖος,) a being whose length is a πυγμὴ, that is, from the elbow to the hand. The Pygmæi were a fabulous nation of dwarfs, the Lilliputians of antiquity, who, according to Homer, had every spring to sustain a war against the cranes on the banks of Oceanus. They were believed to have been descended from Pygmæus, a son of Dorus and grandson of Epaphus. Later writers usually place them near the sources of the Nile, whither the cranes are said to have migrated every year to take possession of the field of the Pygmies. The reports of them have been embellished in a variety of ways by the ancients. Hecatæus, for example, related that they cut down every corn-ear with an axe, for they were conceived to be an agricultural people. When Hercules came into their country, they climbed with ladders to the edge of his goblet to drink from it; and when they attacked the hero, a whole army of them made an assault upon his left hand, while two made the attack on his right. Aristotle did not believe that the accounts of the Pygmies were altogether fabulous, but thought that they were a tribe in Upper Egypt, who had exceedingly small horses, and lived in caves. In later times we also hear of Northern Pygmies, who lived in the neighbourhood of Thule: they are described as very short-lived, small, and armed with spears like needles. Lastly, we also have mention of Indian Pygmies, who lived under the earth on the east of the river Ganges. Smith, Dict. Biog. and Mythol. Various attempts have been made to account for this singular belief, which however seems to have its only origin in the love of the marvellous.

[208] It must be observed that the Arabian Gulf, or Red Sea, does not run parallel to the equator, consequently it could not form any considerable part of a meridian circle; thus Strabo is wrong even as to the physical position of the Gulf, but this is not much to be wondered at, as he supposed an equatorial division of the earth into two hemispheres by the ocean.

[209] 15,000 of the stadia employed by Strabo were equivalent to 21° 25’ 43”. The distance from the Isthmus of Suez to the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, following our better charts, is 20° 15’. Strabo says nearly 15,000 stadia; and this length may be considered just equal to that of the Arabian Gulf. Its breadth, so far as we know, is in some places equal to 1800 stadia.

[210] The Arabian Gulf, or Red Sea.

[211] The Mediterranean.

[212] Aristotle accounts for Homer’s mentioning Thebes rather than Memphis, by saying that, at the time of the poet, the formation of that part of Egypt by alluvial deposit was very recent. So that Memphis either did not then exist, or at all events had not then obtained its after celebrity. Aristotle likewise seems to say that anciently Egypt consisted only of the territory of the Thebaid, καὶ τὸ ἀρχαῖον ἡ Αἴγυπτος, Θῆβαι καλούμεναι.

[213] The Mediterranean.

[214] Gosselin says, “Read 4000, as in lib. xvii. This correction is indicated by the following measure given by Herodotus:

From the sea to Heliopolis 1500 stadia
From Heliopolis to Thebes 4860
————
6360

The stadium made use of in Egypt at the time of Herodotus consisted of 1111-1/9 to a degree on the grand circle, as may be seen by comparing the measure of the coasts of the Delta furnished by that historian with our actual information. The length of this stadium may likewise be ascertained by reference to Aristotle. In the time of Eratosthenes and Strabo, the stadium of 700 to a degree was employed in Egypt. Now 6360 stadia of 1111-1/9 to a degree make just 4006 stadia of 700: consequently these two measures are identical, their apparent inconsistency merely resulting from the different scales by which preceding authors had expressed them.” This reasoning seems very plausible, but we must remark that Col. Leake, in a valuable paper “On the Stade as a Linear Measure,” published in vol. ix. of the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, is of opinion that Gosselin’s system of stadia of different lengths cannot be maintained.

[215] Namely Crates and Aristarchus. The last was of Alexandria, and consequently an Egyptian. Crates was of Cilicia, which was regarded as a part of Syria.

[216] This is a very favourite axiom with Strabo, notwithstanding he too often forgets it himself.

[217] The Phrygians were considered to be more timid than any other people, and consequently the hares of their country more timid than those of any other. We see then a two-fold hyperbole in the expression that a man is more timid than a Phrygian hare.

[218] Alcæus of Mitylene in the island of Lesbos, the earliest of the Æolian lyric poets, began to flourish in the forty-second Olympiad (B. C. 610). In the second year of this Olympiad we find Cicis and Antimenidas, the brothers of Alcæus, fighting under Pittacus against Melanchrus, who is described as the tyrant of Lesbos, and who fell in the conflict. Alcæus does not appear to have taken part with his brothers on this occasion; on the contrary, he speaks of Melanchrus in terms of high praise. Alcæus is mentioned in connexion with the war in Troas, between the Athenians and Mitylenæans, for the possession of Sigæum. During the period which followed this war, the contest between the nobles and the people of Mitylene was brought to a crisis. The party of Alcæus engaged actively on the side of the nobles, and was defeated. When he and his brother Antimenidas perceived that all hope of their restoration to Mitylene was gone, they travelled over different countries. Alcæus visited Egypt, and appears to have written poems in which his adventures by sea were described. Horace, Carm. ii. 13. 26. See Smith’s Dict. of Biog. and Mythol.

[219] But in it there is a haven with good mooring, from whence they take equal ships into the sea, having drawn black water. Odyssey iv. 358.

[220] Certainly having suffered many things, and having wandered much, I was brought in my ships, and I returned in the eighth year; having wandered to Cyprus, and Phœnice, and the Egyptians, I came to the Ethiopians and Sidonians, and Erembians, and Libya. Odyssey iv. 81.

[221] On the coasts of the Mediterranean.

[222] Strabo intends to say that the ships of Menelaus were not constructed so as to be capable of being taken to pieces, and carried on the backs of the sailors, as those of the Ethiopians were.

[223] Having mentioned the Phœnicians, amongst whom the Sidonians are comprised, he certainly would not have enumerated these latter as a separate people.

[224] That is to say, that he made the entire circuit of Africa, starting from Cadiz, and doubling the Cape of Good Hope. Such was the opinion of Crates, who endeavoured to explain all the expressions of Homer after mathematical hypotheses. If any one were to inquire how Menelaus, who was wandering about the Mediterranean, could have come into Ethiopia, Crates would answer, that Menelaus left the Mediterranean and entered the Atlantic, whence he could easily travel by sea into Ethiopia. In this he merely followed the hypothesis of the mathematicians, who said that the inhabited earth in all its southern portion was traversed by the Atlantic Ocean, and the other seas contiguous thereto.

[225] The Isthmus of Suez. This isthmus they supposed to be covered by the sea, as Strabo explains further on.

[226] Thus far he, collecting much property and gold, wandered with his ships. Odyssey iii. 301.

[227] Odyssey iv. 83.

[228] Strabo here appears to have followed Aristotle, who attributes to Sesostris the construction of the first canal connecting the Mediterranean, or rather the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, with the Red Sea. Pliny has followed the same tradition. Strabo, Book xvii., informs us, that other authors attribute the canal to Necho the son of Psammeticus; and this is the opinion of Herodotus and Diodorus. It is possible these authors may be speaking of two different attempts to cut this canal. Sesostris flourished about 1356 years before Christ, Necho 615 years before the same era. About a century after Necho, Darius the son of Hystaspes made the undertaking, but desisted under the false impression that the level of the Red Sea was higher than that of the Mediterranean. Ptolemy Philadelphus proved this to be an error, by uniting the Red Sea to the Nile without causing any inundation. At the time of Trajan and Hadrian the communication was still in existence, though subsequently it became choked up by an accumulation of sand. It will be remembered that a recent proposition for opening the canal was opposed in Egypt on similar grounds.

[229] Mount El Kas.

[230] Tineh.

[231] But the immortals will send you to the Elysian plain, and the boundaries of the earth. Odyssey iv. 563.

[232] But ever does the ocean send forth the gently blowing breezes of the west wind. Odyssey iv. 567.

[233] Odyssey iv. 73. See Strabo’s description of electrum, Book iii. c. ii. § 8.

[234] Blessed.

[235] The name of Arabia Felix is now confined to Yemen. A much larger territory was anciently comprehended under this designation, containing the whole of Hedjaz, and even Nedjed-el-Ared. It is probable that Strabo here speaks of Hedjaz, situated about two days’ journey south of Mecca.