Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/56

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42
STRABO.
BOOK I.

topographical descriptions he not unfrequently informs us of both these matters. Thus,

“My abode
Is sun-burnt Ithaca.
Flat on the deep she lies, farthest removed
Toward the west, while situate apart,
Her sister islands face the rising day.”[1]

And,

“It has a two-fold entrance,
One towards the north, the other south.”[q 1]

And again,

“Which I alike despise, speed they their course
With right-hand flight towards the ruddy east,
Or leftward down into the shades of eve.”[2]

Ignorance of such matters he reckons no less than confusion.

“Alas! my friends, for neither west
Know we, nor east; where rises or where sets
The all-enlightening sun.”[3]

Where the poet has said properly enough,

“As when two adverse winds, blowing from Thrace,
Boreas and Zephyrus,”[4]

Eratosthenes ill-naturedly misrepresents him as saying in an absolute sense, that the west wind blows from Thrace; whereas he is not speaking in an absolute sense at all, but merely of the meeting of contrary winds near the bay of Melas,[p 1] on the Thracian sea, itself a part of the Ægæan. For where Thrace forms a kind of promontory, where it borders on Macedonia,[5]

  1. ↑ 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.
  2. ↑ 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.
  3. ↑ O my friends, since we know not where is the west, nor where the morning, nor where the sun. Odyssey x. 190.
  4. ↑ The north and west winds, which both blow from Thrace. Iliad ix. 5.
  5. ↑ These two provinces are comprised in the modern division of Roumelia. A portion of Macedonia still maintains its ancient name Makidunia.
  1. ↑ Vide Odyssey xiii. 109, 111.
  1. ↑ Now the Bay of Saros.
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