Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/68

 54 STRABO. HOOK i. which is equal to saying, " in his return from the southern regions," l meaning by the Solymi, as I remarked before, not those of Pisidia, but certain others merely imaginary, having the same name, and bearing the like relation to the naviga- tors in [Ulysses'] ship, and the southern inhabitants there called Ethiopians, as those of Pisidia do in regard to Pontus and the inhabitants of Egyptian Ethiopia. What he says about the cranes must likewise be understood in a general sense. " Such clang is heard Along the skies, when from incessant showers Escaping, and i'rom winter's cold, the cranes Take wing, and over ocean speed away. Woe to the land of dwarfs ! prepared they fly For slaughter of the small Pygmaean race." l For it is not in Greece alone that the crane is observed to emigrate to more southern regions, but likewise from Italy and Iberia, 3 from [the shores of] the Caspian, and from Bac- triana. But since the ocean extends along the whole south- ern coast, and the cranes fly to all parts of it indiscriminately at the approach of winter, we must likewise believe that the Pygmies 4 were equally considered to inhabit the whole of it. 1 This would be true if Homer had lived two or three centuries later, when the Greeks became acquainted with the Ethiopians on the eastern and western coasts of Africa. But as the poet was only familiar with the Mediterranean, there is no question that the Ethiopians mentioned in this passage are those of Phoenicia and Palestine. 2 Which, after they have escaped the winter and immeasurable shower, with a clamour wing their way towards the streams of the ocean, bearing slaughter and fate to the Pygmaean men. Iliad iii. 3. 3 Gosselin is of opinion that this Iberia has no reference to Spain, but is a country situated between the Euxine and Caspian Seas, and forms part of the present Georgia. He assigns as his reason, that if Strabo had meant to refer to Spain, he would have mentioned it before Italy, so as not to interrupt the geographical order, which he is always careful to observe. 4 Pygmy, (Trwyjuatoc,) a being vhose length is a Trvyju./}, that is, from the elbow to the hand. The Pygmaei were a fabulous nation of dwarfs, the Lilliputians of antiquity, who, according to Homer, had every spring to sustain a war against the cranes on the banks of Oceanus. They were believed to have been descended from Pygmasus, a son of Dorus and grandson of Epaphus. Later writers usually place them near the sources of the Nile, whither the cranes are said to have migrated every year to take possession of the field of the Pygmies. The reports of them have been embellished in a variety of ways by the ancients. Hecatajus, for