CHAPTER II,
GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOMERIC PERIOD,
The Argonautic Legend—Its Historical Significance—Homeric Conception of
the Earth—The River Oceanus—The Giant Atlas—Geography of the
Homeric poems—The North arid East of the Aegean—Interior of Asia
Minor—Greece—Accuracy of Local Epithets—Description of the Styx-
Inaccurate Account of Ithaca—Outer Geography of the Iliad; of the
Odyssey—Ignorance of the Western Countries—Wanderings of Ulysses—
Their Mythical Character—Exceptions to this—Rumours about far distant
Countries—The Pygmies-Long Days and Nights of Northern Europe-
Primitive Trade-routes—The Amber Trade—Route through Pannonia—
Route through Gaul—Entrepot at the Mouths of the Po—Story of the
Sisters of Phaethon—The River Eridanus—The Tin Trade—Tin not im-
ported from India, but from Spain, and Britain—The Cassiterides Islands
— Opinions as to their Situation—Trees imported into Greece; the Palm,
the Pomegranate, the Cypress, the Plane—The Cardinal Points determined
by the Winds—The Four Winds in Homer—Character of the Greek Winds.
IN endeavouring to discover the ideas on the subject of
geography that existed among the Greeks at a primi-
tive period, we naturally turn to the Homeric poems,
as being the earliest literary creations of that people,
and as furnishing a singularly comprehensive view of the range
of knowledge of that time. Yet even before the Iliad and
Odyssey were composed we meet with intimations of attempts
on the part of the Greeks to extend their field of observation,
in the stories of maritime enterprise which were already in circu-
lation. Foremost among these is the fabled voyage of the Argo,
a tale of adventure which is spoken of in the Odyssey as being
even then 'world-famous1/ The elaborate development which
this story underwent at a later time, and the numerous details
which gathered round it, render it difficult to reduce it to its
original form, for the tale of Medea's love became attached to it,
and the return of the Argonauts from Colchis to Greece became
the basis of fanciful narratives of the circumnavigation of the
a, Qd. 12. 70.
2—2