“Thee the gods
Have destined to the blest Elysian Isles,
Earth’s utmost boundaries.”[231]
And what this place was, namely, some far western region, is evident from [the mention of] the Zephyr in connexion with it:
“But Zephyr always gently from the sea
Breathes on them.”[232]
This, however, is very enigmatical.
32. But if our poet speaks of the Isthmus of Suez as ever having been the strait of confluence between the Mediterranean and the Red Seas, how much more credit may we attribute to his division of the Ethiopians into two portions, being thus separated by so grand a strait! And what commerce could he have carried on with the Ethiopians who dwelt by the shores of the exterior sea and the ocean? Telemachus and his companions admire the multitude of ornaments that were in the palace,
“Of gold, electrum, silver, ivory.”[233]
Now the Ethiopians are possessed of none of these productions in any abundance, excepting ivory, being for the most part a needy and nomad race. True, [you say,] but adjoining them is Arabia, and the whole country as far as India. One of these is distinguished above all other lands by the title of Felix,[234] and the other, though not dignified by that name, is both generally believed and also said to be pre-eminently Blessed.