Geography

​Therefore, in such a way indeed, one might poorly raise difficulties about what is stated in the poet concerning the Mysians and the noble Hippemolgi; but what Apollodorus has said by way of introduction in the second book of “On the Ships” would least of all be acceptable. For he praises the declaration of Eratosthenes, because that writer says that both Homer and the other ancients knew Greek matters but had great ignorance of distant places, being inexperienced in long journeys by land, and inexperienced in seafaring. And in support of these views, he says that Homer calls Aulis “rocky”, just as it is, and Eteonus “many-ridged”, and Thisbe “rich in doves”, and Haliartus “grassy”; but that neither he himself nor the others knew of distant places. At any rate, though about forty rivers flow into the Pontus, he mentions not one of even the most famous, such as the Ister, the Tanais, the Borysthenes, the Hypanis, the Phasis, the Thermodon, and the Halys; and further, that he does not mention the Scythians, but invents certain noble Hippemolgi, Galactophagi, and Abii; and that he had learned of the Paphlagonians in the interior from those who approached the places by land, but was ignorant of the coast; and naturally so. For this sea was unnavigable at that time and was called Axenus because of its stormy weather and the savagery of the surrounding tribes, and especially the Scythians, who sacrificed strangers, ate human flesh, and used skulls as drinking cups; but later it was called Euxinus when the Ionians founded cities on the coast. Similarly, he was ignorant of matters concerning Egypt and Libya, such as the risings of the Nile and the silting up of the sea, of which he makes mention nowhere, nor of the isthmus between the Red Sea and the Egyptian Sea, nor of the regions of Arabia, Ethiopia, and the Ocean, unless we are to pay attention to Zeno the philosopher when he writes: “I came to the Ethiopians, the Sidonians, and the Arabs.” And it is not surprising in the case of Homer; for even those still younger than he were ignorant of many things and told monstrous tales—Hesiod speaking of Half-dogs, Big-heads, and Pygmies; Alcman of Web-footed men; Aeschylus of Dog-headed men, Breast-eyed men, One-eyed men, and countless other things. And from these he proceeds to the prose writers, who speak of the Rhipaean mountains, the Ogygian mountain, and the dwelling-place of the Gorgons and the Hesperides, and the land of Meropis in Theopompus, the Cimmerian city in Hecataeus, the land of Panchaea in Euhemerus, and in Aristotle river-stones made of sand which melt from rains, and that in Libya there is a City of Dionysus, which it is not possible for the same person to find twice. And he also censures those who say that the wandering of Odysseus according to Homer took place around Sicily; for if, on the one hand, it is necessary to claim that the wandering took place there, but that the poet transferred it to the Ocean for the sake of myth-making... And there is pardon for the others, but not at all for Callimachus, who indeed lays claim to scholarship, since he says Gaudos is the island of Calypso, and Corcyra is Scheria. And he accuses others of lying about Gerena, and the Acacesium, and Demus in Ithaca, and Pelethronium on Pelion, and the Glaucopium in Athens. And having added some small matters of this kind to these, he stops, having borrowed most of them from Eratosthenes, which, as we also mentioned before, were not well said. For, on the one hand, that those of later times became more experienced than those of old in such matters must be granted both to Eratosthenes and to him; but to push this so far beyond measure, and especially in the case of Homer, seems to me that one might justly censure them and say the opposite, namely, that about the things they themselves are ignorant of, they bring charges against the poet. Some of these matters, then, will receive their proper mention in the detailed accounts, and others in the general discussions.