Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/279

 OH JrEOGRAPrfY BY LEGEXD. 247 look in his map for Lilliput, appears an absurdity. But those who fixed the exact locality of the floating island of uEolus or the rocks of the Sirens did much the same ;' and, with their ig- norance of geography and imperfect appreciation of historical evidence, the error was hardly to be avoided. The ancient be- lief which fixed the Sirens on the islands of Sirenusa? off the coast of Naples the Kyklopes, Erytheia, and the La^strygoues in Sicily the Lotophagi on the island of Meninx 2 near the Lesser Syrtis the Phasakians at Korkyra and the goddess Circe at the promontory of Circeium took its rise at a time when these regions were first Hellenized and comparatively little visited. Once embodied in the local legends, and attested by vis- ible monuments and ceremonies, it continued for a long time un- assailed ; and Thucydides seems to adopt it, in reference to Kor- kyra and Sicily before the Hellenic colonization, as matter of fact generally unquestionable, 3 though little avouched as to de- tails. But when geograpical knowledge became extended, and the criticism upon the ancient epic was more or less systematized by the literary men of Alexandria and Pergamus, it appeared to many of them impossible that Odysseus could have seen so many wonders, or undergone such monstrous dangers, within limits so narrow, and in the familiar track between the Nile and the Tiber. The scene of his weather-driven course was then shifted further westward. Many convincing evidences were dis- covered, especially by Asklepiades of Myrlea, of his having vis- ited various places in Iberia : 4 several critics imagined that he 1 See Mr. Payne Knight, Prolegg. ad Homer, c. 49. Comparo Spohn i: de extrema Odysscae partc" p. 97. 2 Strabo. xvii. p. 834. An altar of Odysseus was shown upon this island, as well as some other evidences (av/j./30/M.) of his visit to the place. Apollonius Rhodius copies the Odyssey in speaking of the island of Thri- nakia and the cattle of Helios ("iv. 965, with Schol.J. He conceives Sicily as Thrinakia, a name afterwards exchanged for Trinakria. The Scholiast ad Apoll. (1. c.) speaks of Trinax king of Sicily. Compare iv. 291 with the Scholia. 3 Thucyd. i. 25-vi. 2. These local legends appear in the eyes of Strabo convincing evidence (i. p. 23-26), the tomb of the siren Parthenope at Naples, the stories at Cumse and Dikacarchia about the veKvofiavrelov of Avernus, and the existence of places named after Bains and Misenus, the companions of Odysseus, etc.
 * Etrabo, iii. p. 150-157. Ov yap povov ol KOTU TTJV 'Ira/U'&v KOI