CHAP. I. from father to son, of the ancient migrations of the INTROD. Hellenic race from the lands of the rising sun. Whether the Hellenes really came from the Punjab and Himalayas to the shores of the Red Sea, and thence through Aethiopia and Aegypt to the territories of the Pelasgi, is a question which cannot be discussed here. Homer however was certainly aware of the existence of black men, at the eastern extremity of the earth, for he says, Neptune visited the Aethiopians, "the farthest of men, who are divided into two, some under the rising and some under the setting sun." He also mentions the Erembi, or Arabs, and the Lotophagi, or lotus-eaters, and Pygmaei, or dwarfs, of Libya. The regions to the westward stood in a very different relation. Greece was nearly on the western verge of the world as it was known to Homer, and the stream of mankind was constantly flowing in a westerly direction. Therefore the weak reflux of positive information from that quarter exhibited little more than the impulses of hope and superstition, and the straits which separate Italy and Sicily are the portals which conducted Homer to the realms of fancy.' B. c. 750. Hesiod, like Homer, represents the river Ocean as Hesiod. surrounding the earth. He describes Atlas as supporting the vault of heaven, and alludes to the Elysian plain as the islands of the blessed. His ac 1 Of Sicily, or Thrinacia, as he calls it, Homer had some faint knowledge; the names of the Sicani and Siculi had reached him, and the account of the Cyclops is too true a picture of savage life to allow us to suppose it a mere sketch of fancy. From Sicily, Ulysses proceeded to the isles of Aeolus, where he obtained a bag containing the winds, but on the tenth day afterwards, when Ithaca was already in sight, his companions cut the bag, and a hurricane drove the ship back to the isles of Aeolus. Ulysses next reached the country of the Laestrygones, a race of cannibals; and it is historically important to observe that Homer places these fairly in the region of the miraculous. He next arrives at Aeaea, the island of Circe, from which he appears to lose sight altogether of the land of certainty. The hero, receiving the instructions of Circe, crosses the ocean to the shores of Proserpine. Sailing the whole day, he comes at last to the ends of the ocean, where the Cimmerians dwell, wrapped in profound gloom. Having here visited the infernal regions, he re-embarks, quits the ocean, and reaches the isle of Circe; and in his voyage homewards, he passes the Planetae or wandering rocks, escapes the Sirens with the dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, and thus returns once more within the circle of probability. CHAP. I. INTROD. quaintance with the west was more extended; and in particular he mentions the Ligurians, who at that time probably occupied the whole southern coasts of Europe beyond Italy and as far as Spain. He notices the island Erytheia at the influx of the ocean into the Mediterranean, and gives to the Nile, which Homer calls the Aegyptus, its proper designation. Aeschylus. Pindar. Scylax of Hecataeus of Miletus. In the succeeding age are to be found the same general views. The circumfluent ocean appears in Aeschylus. In the south we find a black nation, and a river called the Aethiops, which may perhaps answer to the Niger. Northward we get as far as the Cimmerians of the Crimea; and far above them, the Arimaspi, the Griffins, and the Gorgons fill up the back-ground of the picture. Pindar about the same time shows us that Sicily and the neighbouring coasts of Italy were known and civilized. He represents Aetna as a volcano, and names the Pillars of Heracles at the entrance to the Mediterranean, and the Hyperboreans in the distant north. The works of these authors, as we have already seen, were known to Herodotus. He was also acquainted with the survey of the river Indus conducted by Scylax of Caryanda at the command of Darius; together with the works of a few minor writers, of which nothing has been preserved beyond a few fragments. The most celebrated geographer, however, who preceded Herodotus was Hecataeus of Miletus. Our author frequently corrects his statements, and by so doing recognises him as the most important of his predecessors. Hecataeus wrote "Travels round the Earth," by which a description of the Mediterranean Sea, and of southern Asia as far as India, was understood. He also improved and completed the map of the earth sketched by Anaximander; and it was 2 1 iv. 44. See also the account of the river Indus in the body of the present volume. 2 Anaximander was also a native of Miletus, and wrote his little work, "upon nature," in B. C. 547, when he was 64 years old, which may be said to be the earliest philosophical work in the Greek language. He possessed a gnomon, or sun dial, which he had doubtless obtained from probably this map which Aristagoras carried to INTROD. Sparta before the Ionian revolt, and upon which he CHAP. I. showed king Cleomenes the countries, rivers, and royal stations along the great highway between Sardis and Susa.1 The various points in which the geography of Hecataeus comes in contact with that of Herodotus will be found further discussed in the body of the work.3 2 of philoso over by He Such then was the state of geographical know- Conjectures ledge prior to the time of Herodotus. The theories phers passed and conjectures of philosophers were but scarcely rodotus. noticed by a traveller who based all his notions and opinions upon personal experience and observation. Herodotus wrote for the great body of the people, and not for the schools, and it is this fact, probably, Babylon, and made observations at Sparta, by which he determined ex- 2 A map of the extent of the geographical knowledge possessed by Hecataeus is inserted by Klausen in his edition of the fragments of Hecataeus, and copied with some modifications by Mure in the 4th vol. of his Lan. and Lit. of Ancient Greece. It however contains exceedingly few historical names, and scarcely anything that will illustrate the geography of Herodotus. 3 Herodotus frequently shows himself inclined to quarrel with Hecataeus. He sneers at his genealogy of sixteen ancestors, of which the sixteenth was a god (ii. 143); at his describing the earth "round as if from a turner's lathe" (iv. 36); at his making the Nile to flow from the river Ocean (ii. 23), and the latter to flow round the earth (iv. 36); and also quaintly jests with his predecessor's account of the Hyperboreans (Ibid.), and of the man who carried an arrow round the earth, without eating. On the other hand, Herodotus represents the political character of Hecataeus in a very favourable light, as a sagacious councillor, an honest patriot, and a man of action, especially free from the superstitions of the age. In the council convened by Aristagoras to concert measures for the Ionian revolt, Hecataeus alone discountenanced the project on the very simple ground of the overwhelming power of the Persian empire (v. 36). Finding his remonstrances useless, he proposed to seize the treasures in the temple of Apollo at Branchidae as the best means of replenishing the military chest. This proposal was also rejected. Subsequently he advised Aristagoras to fortify the isle of Leros as a central military and naval station, but this also was overruled. An inscription however has been recently discovered in the island, by which Hecataeus, whether the historian or some of his descendants, is specially honoured as a founder or benefactor by the Lerians. Cf. Mure, Lan. and Lit. of Anc. Greece, Book iv. ch. iii. § 2. CHAP. I. INTROD. which gave rise to the story of his reciting his history at Olympia. Unlike Thales and his successors, he made no effort to discover the origin and principle of the universe, and even his inquiries respecting the causes and varieties of climate are characterized by the most childlike simplicity, which must even have appeared ridiculous in the eyes of his more scientific contemporaries. In short, he evidently indulged in no such experiments or laborious investigations into the inner secrets of nature, as we may suppose to have been carried out by the Chaldees of Babylon, or Rabbinical sages of the Jewish schools, but contented himself with the most superficial glances at the external world around him. These however belong to the next chapter. Review of his old age. At last we contemplate Herodotus in fulness of years and all his labours completed, settled in calm. retirement in Thurium on the Gulf of Tarentum. He was doubtless held in the highest respect by all the citizens, as one of the fathers of the colony. Here he had worked up his collected materials, and some of the illustrations of his descriptions are borrowed from the neighbouring localities.' His life extended considerably into the Peloponnesian war, and the old man must have seen his father-land exhausting itself in internal quarrels. But the records of these find no place in his history. The glorious events of his early youth, and the marvellous results of his travels, filled his capacious memory, and alone occupied his attention. His eye could follow the sun in its daily course from the far east to the legendary west, and even in its supposed winter progress over the arid sands of Aethiopia. At the same time the mysterious and distant nations upon which it shone, the steppes of Scythia, the table-lands of Asia, the oases of Africa, the Caspian and Euxine Seas, and all the vast territories between the Nile and the Tanais, the Indus and the Pillars of Heracles, all passed before his mental vision like a map of wonders, a map of old memories and youthful 1 iv. 15, 99. |