Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/278

 246 HISTORY OF GREECE. Laestrygones, the Kyklopes, the Lotophagi, the Sirens, the Cim merians and the Gorgons, 1 etc. These are places which (to us the expression of Pindar respecting the Hyperboreans) you can- not approach either by sea or by land : 9 the wings of the poet alone can carry you thither. They were not introduced into the Greek mind by incorrect geographical reports, but, on the con- trary, had their origin in the legend, and passed from thence into the realities of geography, 3 which they contributed much to per- vert and confuse. For the navigator or emigrant, starting with an unsuspicious faith in their real existence, looked out for them in his distant voyages, and constantly fancied that he had seen or heard of them, so as to be able to identify their exact situation. The most contradictory accounts indeed, as might be expected, were often given respecting the latitude and longitude of such fanciful spots, but this did not put an end to the general belief in their real existence. In the present advanced state of geographical knowledge, the story of that man who after reading Gulliver's Travels went to 1 Hesiod, Thcogon. 275-290. Homer, Iliad, i. 423. Odyss. i. 23 ; ix BG-206 ; x 4-83 ; xii. 135. Mimncrm. Fragm. 13, Sclmcidcwin. ' Pindar, Pyth. x. 29. Naval <5' ovrc irs^df luv uv evpoif 'Ef "fTreppopeuv uyuva Qavfiarav tdov. Hap' olf -store Uepaevf idaiaaTO T^ajETuf, etc. Hesiod, and the old epic poem called the Epigoni, both mentioned the Hypei boreans (Herod, iv. 32-34). 3 This idea is well stated and sustained by Volcker (Mythische Geographic der Griechen und Romer, cap. i. p. 11^, and by Nitzsch in his Comments on the Odyssey Introduct. Remarks to b. ix. p. xii.-xxxiii. The twelfth and thirteenth chapters of the History of Orchomenos, by 0. Miillcr, aro also full of good remarks on the geography of the Argonautic voyage (pp. 274-299). The most striking evidence of this disposition of the Greeks is to be found in the legendary discoveries of Alexander and his companions, when they marched over the untrodden regions in the east of the Persian empire (see Arrian, Hist. Al. v. 3 : compare Lucian. Dialog. Mortuor. xiv. vol. i. p. 212. Tauch;, because these ideas were first broached at a time when geo- graphical science was sufficiently advanced to canvass and criticize them. The early settlers in Italy, Sicily and the Euxine, indulged their fanciful vision without the fear of any such monitor: there was no surh thing as i map before the days of Anaximander, the disciple of Thales.