XV.] MOUNTAINS AS LOOK-OUT PLACES. 327

use, both in Greek and Latin, of the words for ea look-out
place' (cncoTTia, specula) to signify 'a mountain height.' In the
Iliad we meet with two similes in which this occurs: — "as
when a goatherd from a place of outlook seeth a cloud coming
across the deep before the blast of the west wind"1 ; and again —
"as far as a man seeth with his eyes into the haze of distance as
he sitteth on a place of outlook and gazeth over the wine-dark
sea2." In the Odyssey, also, Ulysses says — " I went up a craggy
hill, a place of outlook3." And Simonides speaks of the summits
of Cithaeron as "lonely watch-towers4." The Latin word is simi-
larly used in Virgil, though this usually occurs in passages where
he is imitating the Greek poets. Thus in the Bucolics he makes
the despairing lover say — " I will fling myself headlong into the
waves from the watch-tower of a soaring mountain summit"6;
and in the Aeneid Turnus when he goes to encounter Pallas is
compared to "a lion, that from a lofty place of outlook hath caught
sight of a bull which stands afar off on the plains contemplating
fight6." Again, in a picturesque passage in the same poem, where
a mountain glen has just been described, we are told that "above
it, in the midst of the watch-towers which form the summit of a
mountain, there lies a table-land withdrawn from view7." The
same thing appears in legend in the story of Lynceus (the

i //. 4. *75, 65

wj 5* tfr1 d?r& VKQirify ettev vtyos alir6\os
fyxfifievov ffar& irbvrov {nrb Ze^tfpoto luijs.

* IL 5.770,771;

6<rffOJ> 5' fapoetWs Avyp tSev <J00a\/io?eri?

ypevos & ffKOTTijj, AeiJcvwv tirl ofrwra -xbvrw,
8 Od. 10. 97;

1 Simon. 130; Kt6aipQv6s r*
5 Eel. 8. 59;
Praeceps aerii specula de mentis in undas
Deferar.
a Aat. 10.454;
Utque leo, specula cum vidit ab alta
Stare procul campis meditantem in praelia taumra.
7 ibid. IT. 526, 7;
Hanc super, in speculis summoque in verdce montis
Planities ignota jacet,