The two spheres of Geography. 253 familiar with the navigation of a certain portion of the earth's surface. In a former part of this work I have given several instances to illustrate the disposition of the early Greeks with respect to travela. A people of habits like theirs was well qualified to supply a practical system of geography for the whole sphere with which it was habitually conversant. But the boldness and maturity of navigation may be measured pretty nearly by the length of its voyages. The geographical particulars of the Wanderings, however dislocated and distorted, show us that the people who had supplied them had acquired a considerable acquaintance with all the waters within, and probably also, nay, I should be disposed to say certainly, some that were without, the Straits of Gibraltar. But in all the poems of Homer we find the traces of Greek knowledge and resort become fainter and fainter, as we pass beyond certain points. On the Greek Peninsula, to the south of the Ambracian gulf on the west and of Mount Olympus on the east, we have the signs of a constant intercourse to and fro. The same tokens extend to the islands immediately surrounding it, and reaching at least as far as Crete. Indeed, apart from particular signs, we may say that, without familiar and frequent intercourse among the members that composed it, the empire of Agamemnon could not have subsisted. But, at certain distances, the mode of geographical handling becomes faint, mistrustful, and indistinct. Distances are misstated, or cease to be stated at all. The names of countries are massed together in such a way as to show that the Poet had no idea of a particular mode of juxtaposition for them. Topographical or local features, of a character such as to identify a descripa Achæis, or Ethnology; sect. vii. p. 336. tion with some particular place or region as its prototype in nature, are erroneously transposed to some situation which, from general indications, we can see must be upon a different and perhaps distant part of the surface of the globe. Again, by ceasing to define distances and directions, he shows from time to time that he has lost confidence in his own collocation, that he is not willing to challenge a comparison with actual nature, and that, from want of accurate knowledge, he feels he must seek some degree of shelter in generalities. It is obvious that, under the circumstances as they have thus far been delineated, the geography of the poems, with a centre fixed for it somewhere in Greece, say at Olympus or Mycenæ, might be first of all divided into three zones, ranging around that centre. The first and innermost would be that of the familiar knowledge and experience of his countrymen. The second would be that of their rare and occasional resort. The third would be a region wholly unknown to them, and with respect to which they were wholly dependent on foreign, that is on Phoenician, report; much as a Roman, five hundred years ago, would practically depend upon the reports of Venetians and Genoese mariners for all or nearly all his ultra-marine knowledge. Now, though we may not be able to mark positively at every point of the compass the particular spot at which we step from the first zone to the second, and from the second to the third, yet there is enough of the second zone discernible to make it serve for an effectual delimitation between the first and the third; between the region of experience and that of marvel; of foreign, arbitary, unchecked, and semifabulous report. Just as we are unable to fix the moment at which Limits of the Inner Geography. 255 night passes into dawn, and dawn into day; but yet the dawn of morning, and the twilight of evening are themselves the lines which broadly separate between the day and the night, lying respectively at the extremities of each. So with the poems of Homer, it may be a question whether a given place, say Phoenicia, is in the first or the second zone; or whether some other, such as Scheria, or as the Bosphorus, is in the second or the third; but it will never be difficult to affirm of any important place named in the poems either that it is not in the zone of common experience, or else that it is not in the zone of foreign fable. Let me now endeavour to draw the lines, which thus far have been laid down only in principle. 1. And first it seems plain, that the experimental knowledge of Homer extended over the whole of the continental territory embraced within the Greek Catalogue, including, along with the continent, those islands. which he has classed with his mainland, and not in his separate insular groupb. 2. It may be slightly doubtful whether he had a similar knowledge of the islands forming the base of the Ægean. There is a peculiarity in the Cretan description (Il. ii. 645-52), namely, that after enumerating certain cities he closes with general words (649), ἄλλοι θ', οἳ Κρήτην ἑκατόμπολιν ἀμφενέμοντο. Still he uses characteristic epithets: and in another place (Od. xiv. 257), he defines (of course by time) the distance from Crete to Egypt. So again in Rhodes (656), Camirus has the characteristic epithet of ȧpyvóels. On the whole we may place this division within νόεις. the first zone of Homeric geography. 3. Homer would appear to have had an accurate knowledge of the positions of the islands of Lemnos, b Il. ii. 645-80. Samothrace, Imbros, Lesbos, Samos, and Chios". These we may consider, without further detail, as answering practically for the whole Ægean sea. 4. Homer knew the positions of Emathia and Pieria, relatively to one another and to Greece; and the general course of the southern ranges of the Thracian mountains". The Trojan Catalogue appears to show that he also knew the coast-line westward from the Dardanelles, as far as to the river Axius. There we may consider that his Pieria begins, with Greece upon its southern and western border. 5. It would appear that Homer had a pretty full knowledge of the southern coast-line of the Propontis. He seems to place the Thracians of the Trojan Catalogue on the northern side of that sea, but his language is quite general with respect to this part of it. On the south side, however, and in the whole north-western corner of Asia Minor, we appear to find him at home". Thus much we may safely conclude from the detail of the Trojan Catalogue; from the particular account of the Idæan rivers in the Twelfth Iliadf; from the latter part of the journey of Juno in the Fourteenths; and from the speech of Achilles in the Twenty-fourth", which fixes the position of Phrygia relatively to Troy. 6. From the point of Lectum to the southward, Homer shows a knowledge of the coast-line as far as Lycia in the south-western quarter of Asia Minor. But here we must close his inner sphere. The Solyman mountains supply the only local notice in the poems which can be said to belong to the interior country, and of these his to a certain extent. Handbuch der Alten Geographie, sect. 4. Il. xiv. 225-30. xiii. 10-16, 33. xiv. 281. xxiv. 78, 753, 434. Od. iii. 169-72. p. 10. f Il. xii. 17-24. h Il. xxiv. 543-6. The intermediate or doubtful Zone. 257 conceptions are evidently as far as possible from geographical. In the Sixth Iliad he appears to conceive of the Solyman people as bordering upon Lycia. Although the name has suggested to some a connection with Jerusalem, we ought to consider it as representing that for which it stands in geography, a part of the grand inland mass of Asiatic mountains. But from the proximity of the Solymi to Lycia, Homer would appear to have moved them greatly westward. Again, when Neptune in the Fifth Odyssey sees Ulysses from the Solyman mountains on his way from Ogygia, we must suppose that Homer conceived them to command some point of a neighbouring and continuous line of sea, which would allow of such a prospect. He would hardly have made Neptune see Ulysses from Lycia, or from a point across the mountains of Thrace, or from one on the other side of the actual Mount Taurus. We have now, I think, made the circuit of the whole zone, and it is a small one, of the real or experimental geography of Homer. Let us take next the intermediate zone, which marks the extreme and infrequent points of Greek resort. Beginning in the west and north-west, we have found Sicania (now Upper Calabria), Epirus, and the country of the Thesprotians, marking the points of this intermediate region. To the northward, we may fix it at Emathia. In the north-east, it seems to be bounded by the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora. The Thracians of Homer inhabit a country which he calls epißola, Il. xx. 485, and which the Hellespont enclosed (éépye), that is to say, washes on two sides at least. The Hellespont, as in this place it is termed ayappoos, signifies to the Eastern part of its waters in i Achæis, or Ethnology, sect. iv. p. 235. h Il. vi. 184. S |