324 ESTIMATES OF MOUNTAINS IN ANTIQUITY. [CHAP.
remarks, 'is wont to happen in connexion with this mountain.
On the summit of the peak, about the time of the rising of
the dogstar, owing to the stillness of the surrounding atmo-.
sphere the highest point is far above the current of the winds,
and while it is still night the sun is seen to rise, emitting
its rays not in a spherical form, but so that its brilliancy is
dispersed in various directions, with the appearance of a number
of flames striking the horizon. After a while these contract into a
single area, until they cover a space of three hundred feet, and
at last when the daylight has spread, the disk of the sun fully •
manifests itself, and imparts to day its wonted character1.' The
process of change which is here depicted in somewhat inflated
language is not altogether easy to explain, but the description
seems to have been suggested by something which was seen
from a lofty ridge. The height of Ida is about 5,000 feet. A
humorous notice of a panorama viewed from a mountain summit
. . is found in the Dialogue of Lucian which is en-
irfUcian on u
a Mountain titled Contemplantes or c The Sight-seers.1 In this,
iew' Charon, who has been allowed a day's holiday
from his usual occupation as ferry-man of the dead, requests
Hermes, on the strength of their common interest in introducing
the shades to the lower regions, to act as his cicerone to explain to
him the unfamiliar sights of the world of the living, with which he
was only acquainted through the grief for the loss of former
enjoyments manifested by those who made the passage in his
boat. When Hermes consented to this, it was agreed that a
high mountain would be a suitable point from which to take
a survey of the earth; and accordingly, following the suggestion
of Homer, they pile Ossa and Pelion on Olympus. The mass
thus formed, however, proved too low for their purpose, so they
proceeded to add Oeta and Parnassus also, and took their seats
respectively on the two summits of the last-named mountain. In
this detail, we may remark, Lucian betrays the influence of
Roman poetry, for when the Greek poets spoke of the 'twin
peaks' of Parnassus, they meant the two cliffs which rise above
Delphi, and it was only through misinterpretation on the part of
the Romans that it came to be thought that the mountain itself
1 Diodor. 17. 7. 4—7.