24 GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOMERIC PERIOD. [CTIAP.

chasms in that country. This was associated in the minds of the
people with their primitive traditions about a river of Hades,
which they conceived of as a mighty stream falling down in a
cataract to the underworld, and then running with a great volume
of water to infinite distance. Homer speaks of this as the ' down-
dropping' water of Styx1, and the ' precipitous streams of the water
of Styx2'; and the same thing is expressed by Hesiod in a some-
what amplified form when he calls it the 'cold water which is
poured down from a lofty inaccessible cliffY and the 'primaeval
imperishable water of Styx, which it pours down through a pre-
cipitous spot4.' The account, however, which is given of the
islands to the west of Greece, though it contains sufficient elements
of truth to prevent it from being characterised as fictitious, is
irreconcilable with the idea of personal observation. Not only
is the poet's conception of the grouping of those objects different
from the reality, but in the description of Ithaca,

Inaccurate /' , ' ,

Account of which forms the central point among them, there
ithaca. are features which no ingenuity can harmonise with

the actual appearance of that island. No person who had seen it
could have spoken of it as in any sense 'low-lying5/ and there
is nothing in its vicinity that at all corresponds to the islet of
Asteris, which figures conspicuously in one portion of the story8.
All the information which the poet possessed about this neighbour-
hood would appear to have been obtained at second-hand. In
concluding the review which has thus been given of the Homeric
geography of Greece and of the neighbourhood of the Aegean,
it should be added that the so-called 'Catalogue of Ships1 has
been admitted as an authority alongside of the poems themselves.

1 11. 15. 37; TO KareffifLwov Sxiryos 05to/>.
8 //. 8. 369; Sru-yoj Waros
* 785-7;

y $ r IK vrfrpw KaTaXeJjSerai
Ibid. 805, 6;

tiy&yiov, r
* tfa/caXj, Od. 9. 25.
e O/. 4. 846.