Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3

3. Besides this, Ulysses traverses very long distances[626 - See Od. x. 28 and 80.], in order to reach Ææa from Hypereia: but Thrinacie, on the other hand, is very near Ææa, so that he has not retraced his distance, and therefore cannot be in Sicily.

Where then were situated these Cyclopes, to whose country Ulysses came after quitting the Lotophagi? It is plain that they were not within the Greek maritime world, or Homer would, we may be sure, have indicated their position by the time of the voyage, or by the quarter from which the wind blew to take him there.

I submit that Homer meant to place the Cyclopes in Iapygia, the heel of Italy; a region nearly corresponding, on the west of the Ionian sea, with the position of Scheria on the east. This hypothesis is consistent with the whole evidence in the case, and might well stand on that ground only. But it is, I think, also sustained by a separate argument from the migration of the Phæacians[627 - Od. vi. 4.].

The Phæacians, descended like the Cyclopes from Neptune, were recent inhabitants of Scheria; they formerly dwelt near the Cyclopes in Hypereia, and were dislodged from thence by the violence of their brutal neighbours. They removed under Nausithous, and settled in Scheria.

They were flying from a race who had no ships with which to follow them. If Hypereia in which they lived was Iapygia, any place in the situation of Scheria, or near it, would be a natural place of refuge for them. But if they had been in Sicily, Homer in all likelihood would not have carried them beyond the neighbouring coast of Italy, which would have afforded them the security they desired.

IV. From Iapygia or Hypereia, the country of the Cyclopes, Ulysses proceeds to pay his double visit to Æolia. We are not assisted in the first instance (Od. ix. 565. x. 1.) by any indication of wind or distance. It is not unfair to presume that Stromboli, with its active volcano, was the prototype of this gusty island. But, like other places, it is not on the site of its prototype. For Æolus gives Ulysses a Zephyr or north-west wind, which would have carried him home, had it not been for the folly of his comrades (Od. x. 25, 46). The Æolia of Homer then must conform to these two conditions:

1. It must lie north-west of Ithaca.

2. There must be a continuous open sea between them; and one uninterrupted by land, so that one and the same wind may carry a ship all the way.

To meet these conditions, we have only to move Æolia northward. For the northern part of Italy has no existence in the Outer Geography. It is swept away, along with the great mass of the European continent, and the θάλασσα covers all.

After the opening of the bag (x. 48, 54) the ship is driven back by a θύελλα upon Æolia. But here we have had another valuable indication. They had enjoyed the Zephyr nine full days, and they were in sight of home on the tenth (v. 28, 9), when the folly was committed. Therefore Æolia is between nine and ten days’ sail to the north-west of Ithaca: or, with an allowance of fifty miles for the distance to the horizon, there will be about one thousand miles between them.

V. The fifth stage is Læstrygonia: and it is reached after seven days’ rowing (x. 80). There is no indication of direction in the voyage: but we have a sure proof that the prototype of this place was far north; namely, that there is here perpetual day;

ποιμένα ποιμὴν
ἠπύει εἰσελάων, ὁ δέ τ’ ἐξελάων ὑπακούει.

It cannot, I think, be doubted that Homer obtained information of a region displaying this natural peculiarity from Phœnician mariners, who had penetrated into the German Ocean to the northward of the British Isles. His retentive mind has, then, made an early record of this, along with so many other singular reports, out of which a large proportion have been verified.

There is another proof that we are here nearly, or rather quite, at the furthest bound of distance ever reached by Ulysses. For the united distances (1) from within sight of Ithaca to Æolia, and (2) from Æolia to Læstrygonia, make seventeen days, the same number occupied in a much slower craft on the voyage from Ogygia to Scheria.

It will be found, under the rules of calculation which have been adopted, that we may place Læstrygonia at near seventeen hundred miles from Iapygia. If we are to suppose that by the name Artacie, given to the fountain in Læstrygonia, he means an allusion to a place of that name in the Euxine, I take this as a new sign of his dim and confused extension of that sea to the westward.

The name Læstrygonia appears to belong to a city, not to a country. It is τηλέπυλος, and it is also Λάμου αἰπὺ πτολίεθρον. Homer avoids calling it either a land (γαίη) or an island (νῆσος). By the former term he sometimes designates large islands as well as portions of a continent. The epithet αἰπὺ points to a steep and rocky site: but his forbearing to fix it as continent or island seems to show, that he was himself in doubt upon the point. The trait of perpetual day, however, speaks most explicitly for the bona fides of the tradition on which the Poet proceeds, and for the latitude from whence it came: and it seems far from improbable that Iceland may have been the dimly perceived original of Læstrygonia; of which the site in the Odyssey is near the actual site of Denmark.

VI. The sixth stage is Ææa. This could only be reached by a long passage from Læstrygonia. The Poet has not ventured to define its extent or direction. But he leaves himself an ample margin by the declaration from the mouth of Ulysses, that he knew nothing on his arrival of the latitude or longitude (Od. x. 190-2): and he is content with planting it immovably near the point of sunrise, though with a great vagueness of conception (Od. x. 135-9; xii. 1-4).

There is indeed something near a verbal contradiction between the declaration of Ulysses in Od. x., that he, being then at Ææa, did not know where to look for sunrise or for sunset, and his narrative in xii. 3, 4, where he so directly associates the island with the land of sunrise. But he had remained there a full year in friendly company with Circe (x. 466-9), and he was instructed by her as to his movements, so that we may, I presume, fairly consider that during that time he learned what on his first arrival was strange to him.

The course from Læstrygonia to Ææa is primâ facie conjectural: but it is not really so, for Læstrygonia is fixed by the times and winds from Hypereia; and Ææa is practically determined by its local relations to Ocean-mouth, Thrinacie, and the Bosphorus.

The Euxine does not abound in islands, such as we might appropriate to Circe and the Sirens: for it is little likely that a rock like the Isle of Serpents, which on a recent occasion acquired a momentary notoriety, should have been noticed particularly in the navigation of the heroic age. It is much more likely, that Homer brought his islands for the Euxine from among the materials provided by his western traditions. We may however reasonably presume that Homer meant to place Ææa at the east end of the Euxine, not far perhaps from the Colchis of Æetes: and in that neighbourhood I shall venture to deposit three islands, vaguely corresponding with the Baleares, which may have been transplanted into this vicinity together with the other traditions of the western Ocean-mouth.

(1) From hence, under the directions of Circe, they sail for one day with a toward breeze, to the Ocean-mouth, hard by that abode of the Cimmerians, which is wrapt in perpetual mist and night (Od. xi. 1-19). Circe promised them the aid of Boreas, when Ulysses, alarmed at the unusual journey he was to make, asked who would guide him. I therefore infer that Boreas was to blow not before, but after, they had entered the Ocean-mouth, and was to carry them up the stream. Before reaching it, we may assume that, as usual on his way outwards, he was sailing with a wind from some southern quarter.

(2) In the Ocean-river, they haul their vessel high and dry, and proceed by land up the stream to the mouth of the Shades or under-world (Od. xi. 20-2).

(3) From the mouth of the Shades they return to their ship, and in it down (κατὰ) the Ocean stream, and to the Ææan island. They go first by rowing, and then by a favourable breeze, of which the direction is not mentioned (Od. xi. 638-40; xii. 1-3: also xxiii. 322-5.)

VII. Σειρήνων νῆσος. This island is reached with an ἴκμενος οὖρος; the quarter is not named, nor is the distance, but from the terms of the passages it would appear to have been very short. (Od. xii. 149-54, 165-7; also 39, and xxiii. 326.)

VIII. Avoiding the Πλαγκταὶ, the hero passes between Scylla and Charybdis, to Thrinacie, the island of the Sun. The strait is reached forthwith, αὐτίκα (Od. xii. 201), after leaving the island, and Thrinacie is reached forthwith in like manner (αὐτίκα v. 261) after leaving the strait (Od. xi. 106, 7; xii. 262; xxiii. 327-9. The last passage appears to place the Πλαγκταὶ and the Scylla passage close together, as it says that he came to them both, though he passed only through Scylla).

In Thrinacie he is detained by Notus, blowing for a month, and by the total absence of any wind but Notus and Eurus. The common point of these winds is, that they are chiefly in the southern hemisphere. Also it would seem from this part of the Fourth Book that Boreas was evidently the wind that Ulysses required to help him forward on his way home, rather than Zephyrus: for it was the latter wind that caught them when they were already on their passage, and brought the hurricane in which the ship went to pieces (Od. xii. 408).

Accordingly, as the Bosphorus is geographically fixed, I place Thrinacie beside it, and Scylla beside Thrinacie.

It will be observed that, after allowance is made for too much northing in the north coast of the Propontis, the mouth of Scylla will be at the point, from which a N. N. E. wind would have brought Ulysses to the Dardanelles, and would thus have placed him, by the shortest cut, at the very gate of the Ægæan, and of the known route to his home.

The Crimea has so much the character of an island, and its south-eastern face appears to be both in scenery and climate so delightful, while again its proximity to the Ocean-mouth of the Odyssey is so suitable, that we might be tempted to consider it as representing the abode of the Sirens. But it is too large for one of Homer’s νῆσοι. Probably, too, the isle of Sirens should lie on the direct route from Ææa to the Straits.

IX. When out of sight of the island (403), the ship encounters a violent Ζέφυρος, and founders. Ulysses mounts on a couple of spars (424). In one night Notus drifts him upon the passage of Scylla and Charybdis, which he traverses in safety (427-30, 442-6), and then drifting on, apparently with the same wind, he reaches, on the tenth day, the island of Calypso, Ὠγυγίη νῆσος (xii. 447, 8; xxiii. 333), which is the ὄμφαλος or central point of the θάλασσα (Od. i. 50): that is to say which, as nearly due north from Greece, not only is conceived to be alike removed from the supposed eastern and western Ocean, but also if not equidistant, yet very distant, at all points from main land.

X. The next stage to Ogygia is Scheria, Σχερίη (Od. vi. 8), or the γαίη Φαιήκων (Od. v. 345). Leaving Ogygia on his raft (v. 263 and seqq.), he keeps Arctos set on his right, and looking towards his left hand, till on the eighteenth day (v. 278), he arrives in sight of Scheria. Neptune, coming up from among the Ethiopians, discerns him afar, from the Solyman mountains (282). The storm rises, and the raft is tossed in a hurricane of all the winds (293 and 331, 2). At length it founders (370): Minerva sends a brisk Boreas, and the hero drifts to Scheria, arriving on the third day (382-98). Homer gives to Scheria the name of ἤπειρος (Od. v. 348, 50); and it does not appear clear that he considered it as an island. At the same time, the term ἤπειρος may mean the shore: and the word γαίη may be used, like Κρήτη τις γαί’ ἐστιν, for an island, if it be presumed to be of extraordinary size.

XI. Ἰθάκη. The living ship of the Phæacians leaves somewhat early in the day, after the proper rites; the goods having been stowed at daybreak (Od. xiii. 18, and seqq.) No wind is named: but, with a speed more rapid than that of a hawk, the vessel, propelled by oars, reaches Ithaca before the next dawn. Od. xiii. 78, 86, 93-5.

Directions and distances from Ææa.

We have however still to consider the directions and distances of the tour, from Ææa onwards, on the way home.

Homer plainly intends to describe very short passages, first to the island of the Sirens, next from that island to Scylla, and then from Scylla to the landing on the coast of Thrinacie. They are not defined: but they by no means correspond with the very considerable eastward stretch of the Euxine from the Bosphorus.

It has already been observed that Homer shortens the eastern recess of the Mediterranean, and brings Egypt nearly to the southward of Crete: and that this is part of a system of compression which abbreviates all the distances of his Outer geography eastward from Lycia. We have now come to another example of the working of this idea in his mind: placing Ææa and the Sirens so near the Bosphorus, he plainly curtails the eastward Euxine, like the eastward Mediterranean.

Ten days floatage northwards from Scylla would give us a distance of nearly five hundred miles in that direction, up to the point where we should fix the island of Calypso.

But from Ogygia to within sight of Scheria, Ulysses occupies eighteen days in sailing by raft: which will give us for the whole distance at sixty miles per diem, with an allowance of fifty miles, as the distance from which Ithaca had become visible, about eleven hundred and thirty miles. We have also to consider the further question, how far Scheria is to be placed from Ithaca. We must reckon the time occupied by the hawk-like ship at not less than sixteen hours; and we cannot reckon the distance below one hundred and eighty or ninety miles. Thus Ogygia ought to be reckoned at fully thirteen hundred miles from Ithaca. Læstrygonia is, as we have found, nearly seventeen hundred from Ithaca. And the site of Ogygia will be upon the point which is both at the distance of five hundred miles from the Homeric or transposed Scylla, and of eleven hundred and thirty miles from the Homeric Scheria. This point will, I think, lie a little to the west of the real site of Kieff.

The actual distance from Ithaca to the middle point of Corfu may be about eighty miles. Corfu is said to resemble in its natural features the Scheria of Homer. But if this be admitted, we must remove the site of the island in the direction of Dalmatia to more than double its real distance from Ithaca, so as to satisfy the conditions of the Phæacian voyage. It will then be near the point where we may, consistently with all the representations of Homer, cut off the Greek peninsula, and substitute for the northward land the great spaces of his sea.

The island of Calypso, thus determined, will satisfy in a great degree the conditions of the ὄμφαλος θαλάσσης. It may be nearly equidistant from Ææa and the Cimmerian country in the south-east, from Scylla in the south, and from the possible extension of the Cimmerian country to the north. Towards Æolia and Læstrygonia on the west the distances will indeed be greater; but as among very great distances Homer may naturally fail to maintain the close measurements of small ones.

Tours of Menelaus and Ulysses compared.

Thus, then, we have brought Ulysses home; and now let us proceed to examine the undeveloped, but still rather curious, relation between the tours of the two chieftains, Ulysses and Menelaus.

The readers of Dante will recollect with what complex precision, as a poetical Architect, he has actually, for the purposes of his work, built an Universe of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Every line of his poem has a determinate relation to a certain point in space, fixed in his own mind; but whether every such point be fixed or not in nature is no more material, than if it were simply one to be determined by axes of coordinates. Intricate as the fabric is, this great brother of Homer in his art never for a moment lets drop the thread of his labyrinth, but holds it steadily from the beginning of the first canto to the end of the hundredth. Homer, composing for a younger world, had to deal with all ideas whatsoever in simpler forms; but, I think, it is discernible that in his way he, too, made a systematic distribution of the Outer Earth, as he had rather vaguely conceived it in his teeming imagination.

We are apt to forget, from the comparatively summary manner in which the subject is dismissed by the Poet, that the voyages and travels of Menelaus occupy a time almost as long as those of Ulysses. He has but recently returned, says Nestor to Telemachus, in the last year of his father’s wanderings[628 - Od. iii. 318.]: and Menelaus himself states, that he came home only in the eighth year after the capture of Troy[629 - Od. iv. 82.]. And as in point of time, so likewise they are geographically in correspondence. To Menelaus Homer has given, in outline, the southern world from east to west, and to Ulysses, in detail, the northern world from west to east. It is true that he made Ulysses begin his Wanderings, properly so called, with the Lotophagi in Africa: but this is because it was necessary to throw him at Malea, by some wide and irrecoverable deviation, off his route to Ithaca. So Menelaus loses his course at the very same critical point, the Malean Promontory[630 - Od. iii. 286-90.]. Then the two strike off to the opposite ends of the diameter: Menelaus to Crete, for Cyprus, Phœnicia, and Egypt, in the south-east; Ulysses to Africa, for the Cyclopes, Æolia, and Læstrygonia, in the north-west. Again, Menelaus visits Libya to the westward, where, it will be remembered, he is to find his home after death in the Elysian fields. The counterpart of this is in the eastward movement of Ulysses along a northern zone to the isle of Circe, and in his visit to the Shades. Again, it is Phœnicia, which in the south-east forms a kind of boundary line between the known and the unknown world. Accordingly Homer has given us an idealized Phœnicia on the north-western line. Perhaps only partial, but still perfectly real, resemblances of character establish a poetical relation between the Φοίνικες and the Φαίηκες. Other parts of the Phæacian character might seem to have been borrowed from the Egyptians. No one, I think, can doubt that Homer had the Phœnicians to some extent in his mind, when he invented the Phæacians. But he has given us another etymological sign of the connection. The Φοίνικες stand in evident connection with Συρίη[631 - Od. xv. 402. Much difficulty has been raised about this Συρίη: see Wood on Homer, pp. 9-16; but surely without need. We have no occasion to translate καθύπερθε into trans, πέρην, or beyond. The Συρίη νῆσος, or Syros, has the same bearing in respect to Delos, as Ψυρίη in respect to Chios, which is called καθύπερθε Χίοιο, Od. iii. 170. It may perhaps mean to windward, and this would correspond with the idea of Ζέφυρος as the prevailing wind of the Ægæan. Another difficulty is made about the phrase ὅθι τροπαὶ ἠελίοιο, which is interpreted as describing the position relatively to Delos. I know not why this should constitute a difficulty at all, if Syros is to the west and north of Delos. But there would be no difficulty, even if Delos were west of Syros: for the words ὅθι τροπαὶ ἠελίοιο may apply grammatically to either of the two islands as viewed from the other.]. Who but they could give that name to the island where Eumæus was born? an island with which we see them to have been in relations by a double token; the first, a Phœnician slave carried thither by the Taphians; and the second, Eumæus as a boy carried off thence by the Phœnicians, who had paid it a visit with a cargo of fine goods. The island of Ψυρίη, lying north-west from Chios, probably owed its title to the same source: if not also Σκῦρος, corrupted from Συρός. Surely then, like Φαίηκες from Φοίνικες, so Homer made Σχερίη from Συρίη. It being always remembered that Scheria is for Homer, like Phœnicia, a maritime land. It is nowhere called an island; from which we know, that Homer either believed it to be attached to the continent, or to form, like Crete[632 - Od. xix. 172.], a continent of itself.

The Erembi of Menelaus are generally understood to be the Arabians. The Æthiopes, whom he also visits, extend from the extreme east to the furthest west of the surface of the earth; and they possibly may have a counterpart in the Cimmerians of the north. In the same zone with the Æthiopes, on the borders of Ocean to the south, a passage of the Iliad places the ἄνδρες Πυγμαῖοι[633 - Il. iii. 2-6.]. Herodotus supports Homer in this, as in most other particulars. And the researches of the most recent travellers sustain the assertion of these two old ethnologists of Greece, that there are dwarfed races in the interior of Africa, accessible from Egypt.

Thus, then, it would appear in general that the voyage and travels of Menelaus, together with those of Ulysses, including in the former his final passage to Elysium, cover the entire surface of the earth, such as Homer had conceived it. This, however, can only be taken generally, and tells us little of what Homer thought concerning the actual form of the earth’s surface, while it leaves untouched various questions regarding its distribution in detail. With some of these let us now endeavour to deal.

And first, what was Homer’s belief concerning the form of the earth?

Earth of Homer probably oval.

The passage of the poems which bears most directly upon the solution of this question is that which describes the Shield of Achilles. We here learn that, in finishing his work, Vulcan gave it the great River Ocean for a border[634 - Il. xviii. 607.]. From this it follows conclusively, that the form of the Shield was that which Homer also conceived to be nearest to the form of the surface of the Earth.