Page:Legendaryislands00babcuoft.djvu/13

 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION We cannot tell at what early era the men of the eastern Medi- terranean first ventured through the Strait of Gibraltar out on the open ocean, nor even when they first allowed their fancies free rein to follow the same path and picture islands in the great western mystery. Probably both events came about not long after these men developed enough proficiency in navigation to reach the western limit of the Mediterranean. We are equally in lack of positive knowledge as to what seafaring nation led the way. The weight of authority favors the Phoenicians, but there are some indications in the more archaic of the Greek myths that the Hellenic or pre-Hellenic people of the Minoan period were promptly in the field. These bequests of an olden time are most efficiently exploited, in the matter-of-fact and very credulous /'Historical Library" of Diodorus Siculus, 1 about the time of Julius Caesar, who feels himself fully equipped with information as to the far-ranging campaigns of Hercules, Perseus, and other wor- thies. His identifications of tribes, persons, and places find an echo which may be called modern in Hakluyt's map of I58y, 2 illustrating Peter Martyr, which shows the Cape Verde Islands as Hesperides and Gorgades vel Medusiae. But this, though curious, is, of course, irrelevant as corroboration. Diodorus himself was a long way from his material in point of time, but from him we may at least possibly catch some glimmer of the origin of the mythical narratives, some refraction of the events that suggested them. l The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian, in 15 Books, to which are added the fragments of Diodorus, and those published by H. Valesius, I. Rhodo- mannus, and F. Ursinus, transl. by G. Booth, Esq., 2 vols., London, 1814; reference in Vol. i, Bk. 3, Ch. 4, p. IQS. and Bk. 4, Ch. i, pp. 235 and 243. transl. by J. A. Ekelof and C. R. Markham, Stockholm, 1889. p. 131.
 * A. E. Nordenskiold: Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of Cartography,