Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/53

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
CHAP. II. § 19.
INTRODUCTION.
39

and that the daughter of Atlas[1] dwells there. And the following concerning the Phæacians,

“Remote amid the billowy deep, we hold
Our dwelling, utmost of all human kind,
And free from mixture with a foreign race.”[2]

These passages clearly refer to the Atlantic Ocean,[3] but though so plainly expressed, Polybius slily manages to overlook them. Here he is altogether wrong, though quite correct about tne wandering of Ulysses having taken place round Sicily and Italy, a fact which Homer establishes himself. Otherwise, what poet or writer could have persuaded the Neapolitans to assert that they possessed the tomb of Parthenope[p 1] the Siren, or the inhabitants of Cumæ, Dicæarchia,[p 2] and Vesuvius [to bear their testimony] to Pyriphlegethon, the Marsh of Acherusia,[4] to the oracle of the dead which was near Aornus,[5] and to Baius and Misenus,[q 1] the companions of Ulysses. The same is the case with the Sirenussæ, and the Strait of Messina, and Scylla, and Charybdis, and Æolus, all which things should neither be examined into too rigorously, nor yet [despised] as groundless and without foundation, alike remote from truth and historic value.

19. Eratosthenes seems to have had something like this view of the case himself, when he says, “Any one would believe that the poet intended the western regions as the scene of Ulysses’ wanderings, but that he has departed from fact, sometimes through want of perfect information, at other times because he wished to give to scenes a more terrific and marvellous appearance than they actually possessed.” So far this is true, but his idea of the object which the poet had in

  1. ↑ Calypso.
  2. ↑ 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.
  3. ↑ 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.
  4. ↑ Mare Morto, south of Baïa, and near to the ruins of Mycene.
  5. ↑ Aornus or Avernus: this lake, which lies about one mile north of Baïa, still retains its ancient appellation.
  1. ↑ The ancient name of the city of Naples.
  2. ↑ Puteoli, now Pozzuolo, in Campania.
  1. ↑ Vide Virgil, Æneid vi. 162.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.