II.] INNER GEOGRAPHY OF THE POEMS. 23

reliable piece of geography relates to the Aegean. This is the
description of the course pursued by the Greek chieftains after
leaving Troy. We find them sailing first from Tenedos to Lesbos,
and there debating whether of two routes they shall take across
the sea to reach Greece; the one being straight to Euboea,
leaving Psyra on their left — a voyage which according to the
ideas of navigation of that time could only be undertaken in fair
weather — the other between Chios and cape Mimas on the
peninsula of Erythrae, from whence they would pass to Geraestus,
the southern Euboean promontory1.

In these poems also a generally accurate knowledge of Greece
is shown, though that land is not described by any
collective name. Hellas, in particular, the sub-
sequent appellation of the entire area, is here confined to a
district of Thessaly. The Achelous, which is spoken of as the
mightiest of rivers, and only second to the ocean stream2, forms
the western limit, for while Aetolia is known to the poet, Acar-
nania and Epirus are not mentioned^ The clearest evidence of
familiarity with the country is furnished by the
epithets by which places are designated ; for instance, Local Epithets.
the 'well-walled' Tiryns8, to describe the still famous
fortifications of that city; and especially the 'hollow' Lacedaemon
'full of fissures4/ by which the valley of Sparta is graphically
delineated, deeply sunk as it is between the heights of Parnon
and Taygetus, and seamed with rifts on its surface. The accuracy
of the local epithets in Homer was noticed in ancient times by
Eratosthenes8, and his judgement is corroborated by the obser-
vation of modern travellers. The most remarkable description of
a geographical feature in Greece which we meet
with in the poems, is that of the cascade of the
Styx in Arcadia, which falls over a perpendicular
cliff of great height at the side of one of the deepest and wildest

1 Od. 3. 159—178. a //. ax. 194. 8 //• 3- 559-

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