Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/486

 470 OEUM. of the Messenian gulf, represented by the modem town of Vitylo, which has boriowed its name from it. Pausanias says that it was 80 stadia from Thalamae and 150 from Messa; the hitter distance is too great, but there is no doubt of the identity of Oetylus and Vitylo; and it appears that Pausanias made a mistalve in the names, as the distance between Oetylus and Caenepolis is 150 stadia. Oetylus is mentioned by Homer, and was at a later time one of the Elcuthero-Laconian towns. It was still governed by its ephors in the third century of the Christian era. Pausanias saw at Oetylus a temple of Sarapis, and a wooden statue of Apollo Carneius in the agora. Among the modern liouses of Vitylo there are remains of Hellenic walls, and in the church a beautiful fluted Ionic column supporting a beam at one end of the aisle, and three or four Ionic capitals in the wall of the church, probably the remains of the temple of Sarapis. (Horn. II. ii. 585 ; Strab. viii. p. 360; Fans. ill. 21. § 7,25. §10, 26. § 1 ; Steph. B. s. v.; Ptol. /. c. ; Bcickh, I. c. : Morritt, in Walpole's Turkey, p. 54 ; Leake, Morea, vol. i. p. 31 3 ; Boblaye, Eecherches, cfc. p. 92 ; Curtius, Peloponnesos, vol. ii. p. 283.) OEUAI (pTov), a mountain fortress situated in eastern Locris, above Opus, and destroyed by an earthquake. (Strab. i. p. 60.) According to Gell its ruins are to be seen on a steep hill, 25 minutes above Livanitis. (Itin. p. 232.) OEUM or lUM (OUv, Oiov, 'l6i>: Etli. Oldrn^, 'IttTTjs), the chief town of the district Sciritis in La- conia, commanded the pass through which was the road from Tegea to Sparta. It probably stood in the Klisiira, or narrow pass through the watershed of the mountains forming the natural boundary between Laconia and Arcadia. When the Theban army under Epaminondas first invaded Laconia in four divisions, by four different passes, the only division which encountered any resistance was the one which marched through the pass defended by Oeum. But the Spartan Ischolaus, who commanded a body of troops at this place, was overpowered by superior numbers; and the invading force thereupon pro- ceeded to Sellasia, where they were joined by the other divisions of the army. (Xen. Hell. vi. 5. §§ 24 — 26.) In Xenophon the town is called 'loV and the inhabitants 'larai; but the form Olov or Olov is probably more correct. Such towns or villages, situated upon mountainous heights, are frequently called Oeum or Oea. (Comp. Harpocrat. s. v. Ohf.) Probably the Oeum in Sciritis is referred to in Ste- phanus under Olos' iroXixviov Teyea^. hia)({ios Ml/(to7s ■ 01 TToKiTaL Oiarai. Oeum is not mentioned subsequently, unless we suppose it to be the same place as Iasus ("lacror), which Pausanias describes as situated within the frontiers of Laconia, but belonging to the Achaeans. (Pans. vii. 13. § 7; comp. Suid. s.v.''laaos; Leake, Morea, vol. iii. p. 30 ; Eoss, Reisen ini Peloponnes, p. 179; Curtius, Peloponnesos, vol. ii. p. 264.) OEUM CERAMEICUM. [Attica, p. 326, a.] OEUM DECELEICUM. [Attica, p. 330, a.] OGDAEML [Marmarica.] OGLASA, a small island in the Tyrrhenian or Lifjurian sea, between Corsica and the coast of Etruria. (Plin. iii. 6. s. 12.) It is now called Monte Crista. [E. H. B.J OGY'GIA (^CiyvyiT]) is the name given by Homer in the Odyssey to the island inhabited by the nymph Calypso. He describes it as the central point or navel of the sea {o/xcpaXo^ ^aAdffcrr]^), far from all OGYKIS. other lands ; and the only clue to its position that he gives us is that Ulysses reached it after being borne at sea for eight days and nights after he had escaped from Charybdis; and that when he quilted it again he sailed for seventeen days and nights with a fair wind, having the Great Bear on his left hand (i.e. in an easterly direction), until he came in sight of the land of the Phaeacians. (Horn. Odyss. i. 50, 85, v. 55, 268—280, xii. 448.) It is hardly neces- sary to observe that the Homeric geography in re- gard to all these distant lands must be considered as altogether fabulous, and that it is impossible to attach any value to the distances above s'ven. We are wholly at a loss to account for the localities assigned by the Greeks in later days to the scenes of the Odyssey : it is certain that nothing can less accord with the data (such as they are) supplied by Homer than the identifications they adopted. Thus the island of Calypso was by many fixed on the coast of Bruttium, near the Lacinian promontory, wheie there is nothing but a mere rock of very small size, and close to the shore. (Plin. iii. 10. s. 15 ; Swinburne's Travels, vol. i. p. 225.) Others, again, placed the abode of the goddess in the island of Gaulos (or Gozo), an opinion apparently first ad- vanced by Callimachus (Strab. i. p. 44, vii. p. 299), and which has at least some semblance of proba- bility. But the identification of Phaeacia with Cor- cyra, though more generally adopted in antiquity, has really no more foundation than that of Ogygia with Gaulos : so that the only thing approaching to a geographical statement fails on examination. It is indeed only the natural desire to give to the creations of poetic fancy a local habitation and tan- gible reality, that could ever have led to the asso- ciating the scenes in the Odyssey with particular spots in Sicily and Italy; and the view of Erato- sthenes, that the geography of the voyage of Ulysses was wholly the creation of the poet's fancy, is cer- tainly the only one tenable. At the same time it cannot be denied that some of the fables there related were founded on vague rumours brought by voyagers, probably Phoenicians, from these distant lands. Thus the account of Scylla and Charybdis, however ex- aggerated, was doubtless based on truth. But the very character of these marvels of the far west, and the tales concerning them, in itself excludes the idea that there was any accurate geographical knowledge of them. The ancients themselves were at variance as to whether the wanderings of Ulysses took place within the limits of the Mediterranean, or were ex- tended to the ocean beyond. (Strab. i. pp. 22 — 26.) The fact, in all probability, is that Homer had no conception of the distinction between the two. It is at least very doubtful whether he was acquainted even with the existence of Italy; and the whole expanse of the sea beyond it was undoubtedly to him a region of mystery and fable. The various opinions put forth by ancient and modern writers concerning the Homeric geography are well reviewed hyJkerl(Geog7-aphie der Griechen u. Runier, vol. i. part ii. pp. 310 — 319); and the inferences that may really be drawn from the lan- guage of the poet himself are clearly stated by him. lb. part i. pp. 19—31.) [E. H. B] OGYEIS (Jn.-yvpis, Strab. xvi. p. 766), an island, off the southern coast of Carmania about 2000 stadia, which was traditionally said to contain the tomb of king Erythras, from which the whole sea was supposed to have derived its name. It was marked by a huge mound planted with wild palms. Strabo