Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/29

 CHAP. i. 16. INTRODUCTION. self on having associated with the Lapithae, 1 to whon " having been invited thither from the Apian 2 land So does Menelaus : <( Cyprus, Phoenicia, Sidon, and the shores Of Egypt, roaming without hope I reach'd ; In distant Ethiopia thence arrived, And Lib^'a, where the lambs their foreheads show With budding horns defended soon as yean'd." 3 Adding as a peculiarity of the country, " There thrice within the year the flocks produce."* Y And of Egypt : " Where the sustaining earth is most pro- lific." 5 And Thebes, " the city with an hundred gates, Whence twenjjMLhousand chariots rush to war." 6 Such information greatly enlarges our sphere of knowledge, by informing us of the nature of the country, its botanical and zoological peculiarities. To these should be added its marine history ; for we are in a certain sense amphibious, not exclu- sively connected with the land, but with the sea as well. Hercules, on account of his vast experience and observation, was described as " skilled in mighty works." 7 All that we have previously stated is confirmed both by the testimony of antiquity and by reason. fOne consideration however appears to bear in a peculiar manner on the case in point ; viz. the importance of geography in a political view. For the sea and the earth in which we dwell furnish theatres 1 A people of Thessaly, on the banks of the Peneus. 2 The former name of the Morea, and more ancient than Peloponnesus. Iliad i. 270. 3 Having wandered to Cyprus, and Phoenice, and the Egyptians, I came to the Ethiopians, and Sidonians, and Erembi, and Libya, where the lambs immediately become horned. Odyssey iv. 83. 4 Odyssey iv. 86. 3 Homer says, ry TrXtTcrra (p'spei ^ti'^wpoc dpovpa fcapjuaica. Odyssey iv. 229. Which Cowper properly renders : " Egypt teems With drugs of various powers. " Strabo, by omitting the word (pap^aica from his citation, alters to a certain degree the meaning of the sentence. 6 Iliad ix. 383, et seq. 7 Odyssey xxi. 26.