40 GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOMERIC PERIOD. [CHAP.

mentioned among the trees that grew in the garden of Alcinous,
and also as one of the fruits, the sight of which contributed to the

punishment of Tantalus1. The cypress, too, which
the cypress, we ^ growing in Cnlypso's garden-, and which
gave its name to two places that occur in the Homeric catalogue,
Cyparissus and Cyparisseis8, is to be referred to the same origin.
Its primitive home was in the highlands of Afghanistan, and from
that country it migrated first to Persia— where its spiry shape won
for it a sacred character as a symbol of fire-worship — and after-
wards to Syria and the coasts of the Mediterranean4, The last

tree which shall be mentioned as having come
the Plane. ^ Greece from foreign parts, and which is at
the same time the most beautiful, is the plane-tree: but this,
though its original habitat seems to have been in the interior of
Asia, was unconnected with the Phoenicians, for it is not a
Semitic tree5. It passed to Greece by way of Asia Minor, iu
which country it attained a remarkable growth6. The only
passage in Homer in which it is noticed, is the description in the
Iliad of the omen which appeared to the assembled Greeks at
Aulis before they started for Troy, when a snake appeared from
under the altar, "beneath a fair plane-tree, whence flowed a
glittering stream7."

It remains to notice the winds as they are represented in

Homer, for it is through them that the first attempts

TheCardinal , , . , ,. „. .

Points deter- were made to determine the cardinal points. It is

true that two of these P°ints» thc cast and the west,
were already distinguished by the direction of sun-
rise and sunset,— or, as it is otherwise expressed, of dawn and
darkness— which must, in fact, be the most natural starting-points
for the observation of relative position among primitive races,
except those who dwell towards the distant north or south,
Hence in the ISad, Hector, when professing his contempt for
omens, says to Polydamas, "Thou bidst us be obedient to
birds long of wing, whereto I give no heed, nor take any care
1 0^.7.115; 11.589. a od. 5.64,
* n. 2. 519, 593. 4 Hehn, pp. 744 foil., 530.
8 tftf. P- *55- 8 Ibid. p. 254.
* //. a. 307.