“Therefore hard
I clench’d the boughs, till she disgorged again
Both keel and mast. Not undesired by me
They came, though late; for at what hour the judge,
After decision made of numerous strifes
Between young candidates for honour, leaves
The forum, for refreshment’s sake at home,
Then was it that the mast and keel emerged.”[276]
Every word of this indicates a considerable length of time, especially when he prolongs it to the evening, not merely saying at that time when the judge has risen, but having adjudicated on a vast number of cases, and therefore detained longer than usual. Otherwise his account of the return of the wreck would not have appeared likely, if he had brought it back again with the return of the wave, before it had been first carried a long way off.
37. Apollodorus, who agrees with Eratosthenes, throws much blame upon Callimachus for asserting, in spite of his character as a grammarian, that Gaudus[277] and Corcyra[278] were among the scenes of Ulysses’ wandering, such an opinion being altogether in defiance of Homer’s statement, and his description of the places as situated in the exterior ocean.[279]