Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/46

 32 STRABO. BOOK I. Cyaneae, called by some the Symplegades, 1 or Jostling Rocks, which render the passage through the Strait of Constanti- nople so difficult, also afforded matter to our poet. The actual existence of a place named -5Sa, stamped credibility upon his -ZEsea ; so did the Symplegades upon the Planctae, (the Jostling Rocks upon the Wandering Rocks,) aid the passage of Jason through the midst of them ; in the same way Scylla and Charybdis accredited the passage [of Ulysses] past those rocks. In his time people absolutely regarded the Euxine as a kind of second ocean, and placed those who had crossed it in the same list with navigators who had passed the Pillars. 2 It was looked upon as the largest of our seas, and was therefore par excellence styled the Sea, in the same way as Homer [is called] the Poet. In order there- fore to be well received, it is probable he transferred the scenes from the Euxine to the ocean, so as not to stagger the general belief. And in my opinion those Solymi who possess the highest ridges of Taurus, lying between Lycia and Pisidia, and those who in their southern heights stand out most con- spicuously to the dwellers on this side Taurus, and the inha- bitants of the Euxine by a figure of speech, he describes as being beyond the ocean. For narrating the voyage of Ulysses in his ship, he says, " But Neptune, traversing in his return From Ethiopia's sons, the mountain heights Of Solymfe, descried him from afar." 3 It is probable he took his account of the one-eyed Cyclopae from Scythian history, for the Arimaspi, whom Aristseus of Proconnesus describes in his Tales of the Arimaspi, are said to be distinguished by this peculiarity. 1 1 . Having premised thus much, we must now take into consideration the reasons of those who assert that Homer 1 Several small islands, or rather reefs, at the entrance of the Strait of Constantinople. They took their name of Symplegades from the varying positions they assumed to the eyes of the voyager, owing to the sinuosities of the Strait. 2 Unfortunately for Strabo's illustration, no Grecian navigator had ever passed the Strait of Gibraltar in Homer's time. 3 The powerful Shaker of the Earth, as he was returning from the Ethiopians, beheld him from a distance, from the mountains of the So- lymi. Odyssey v. 282.