Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/56
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42
STRABO.
BOOK I.
topographical descriptions he not unfrequently informs us of both these matters. Thus,
“My abodeIs sun-burnt Ithaca.Flat on the deep she lies, farthest removedToward the west, while situate apart,Her sister islands face the rising day.”[1]
And,
And again,
“Which I alike despise, speed they their courseWith right-hand flight towards the ruddy east,Or leftward down into the shades of eve.”[2]
Ignorance of such matters he reckons no less than confusion.
“Alas! my friends, for neither westKnow we, nor east; where rises or where setsThe all-enlightening sun.”[3]
Where the poet has said properly enough,
Eratosthenes ill-naturedly misrepresents him as saying in an absolute sense, that the west wind blows from Thrace; whereas he is not speaking in an absolute sense at all, but merely of the meeting of contrary winds near the bay of Melas,[p 1] on the Thracian sea, itself a part of the Ægæan. For where Thrace forms a kind of promontory, where it borders on Macedonia,[5]
- ↑ But it lies low, the highest in the sea towards the west, but those that are separated from it [lie] towards the east and the sun. Odyssey ix. 25.
- ↑ Which I very little regard, nor do I care for them whether they fly to the right, towards the morn and the sun, or to the left, towards the darkening west. Iliad xii. 239.
- ↑ O my friends, since we know not where is the west, nor where the morning, nor where the sun. Odyssey x. 190.
- ↑ The north and west winds, which both blow from Thrace. Iliad ix. 5.
- ↑ These two provinces are comprised in the modern division of Roumelia. A portion of Macedonia still maintains its ancient name Makidunia.
- ↑ Vide Odyssey xiii. 109, 111.
- ↑ Now the Bay of Saros.