[CHAPTER IX.]
THE IONIAN AND THE ÆGADEAN ISLANDS—THE VOYAGES OF ULYSSES SHOWN TO BE PRACTICALLY A SAIL ROUND SICILY FROM TRAPANI TO TRAPANI.
In a later chapter I propose to show that the writer of the Odyssey had the Iliad before her in the state in which we have it now, unimportant copyists' errors alone excepted. I shall show that those Books on which most doubt has been cast by eminent Homeric scholars both on the Continent and in England, are just as fully and freely quoted from as those that are admitted to have been by Homer. I have seen no sufficient reason alleged for doubting that the Catalogues of Il. II. 484-877 formed part of the poem as Homer left it, though it is quite likely that he may have got some one with greater knowledge of Greece to help him. I intend returning to this question, but for the present will ask the reader to accept my assumption that the writer of the Odyssey knew the Catalogues above referred to. The group of the Echinades and the Ionian islands are described as follows in the Catalogue of the Achæan forces:—
And they of Dulichium, with the sacred Echinean islands, who dwelt beyond the sea off Elis—these were led by Meges, peer of Mars, the son of Phyleus, who had erewhile migrated to Dulichium in consequence of a quarrel with his father. And with him there came forty ships.
Ulysses led the brave Cephallenians, who held Ithaca, wooded Neritum, Crocylea, rugged Ægilips, Samos,[1] and Zacynthus, with the mainland also that is over against the islands. These were led by Ulysses, peer of gods in counsel, and with him came twelve ships. (Il. II. 625-637.)
The reader will note that Dulichium, which means "Long Island," does not belong to the Ionian islands, but to the neighbouring group of the Echinades. Let us now see how the islands in the neighbourhood of Ithaca are described in the Odyssey. Ulysses says (ix. 21-26):
"I dwell in Ithaca, an island which contains a high mountain called Neritum. In its neighbourhood there are other islands near to one another, Dulichium, Same and Zacynthus. It lies on the horizon all highest up in the sea towards the west, while the other islands lie away from it to the east."