[299] L’Atlantide, by Paul Gaffarel, in the Revue de Géographie, April, May, June, July, 1880 (vi. 241, 331, 421; vii. 21). See also, in his Étude sur les rapports de l’Amérique et de l’ancien continent avant Christophe Colomb (Paris, 1869).
[300] Atlantis: the antediluvian world, New York, 1882.
[301] Theopomp., Fragmenta, ed. Wieters, 1829, no. 76, p. 72. Geographi Graec. minores, ed. Mueller, i. 289. Aeliani, Var. Hist., iii. 18. The extracts in the text are taken from “A Registre of Hystories, etc., written in Greeke by Aelianus, a Roman, and delivered in English by Abraham Fleming.” London, 1576, fol. 36.
[302] We owe this quip to Tertullian (he at least is the earliest writer to whom I can trace it): “Ut Silenus penes aures Midae blattit, aptas sane grandioribus fabulis” (De pallio, cap. 2).
[303] “Furthermore he tolde one thing among all others, meriting admiration, that certain men called Meropes dwelt in many cittyes there about, and that in the borders adiacent to their countrey, was a perilous place named Anostus, that is to say, wythout retourne, being a gaping gulfe or bottomles pit, for the ground is as it were cleft and rent in sonder, in so much that it openeth like to the mouth of insatiable hell, yt it is neither perfectly lightsome, nor absolutely darksome, but that the ayer hangeth ouer it, being tempered with a certaine kinde of clowdy rednes, that a couple of floodes set their recourse that way, the one of pleasure the other of sorow, and that about each of them growe plantes answearable in quantity and bignes to a great plaine tree. The trees which spring by ye flood of sorow yeldeth fruite of one nature, qualitie, and operation. For if any man taste thereof, a streame of teares floweth from his eyes, as out of a conduite pipe, or sluse in a running riuer, yea, such effect followeth immediately after the eating of the same, that the whole race of their life is turned into a tragical lamentation, in so much that weeping and wayling knitteth their carkeses depriued of vitall mouing, in a winding sheete, and maketh them gobbettes for the greedy graue to swallow and deuoure. The other trees which prosper vpon the bankes of the floode of pleasure, beare fruite cleane contrary to the former, for whosoeuer tasteth thereof, he is presently weined from the pappes of his auncient appetites and inueterate desires, & if he were linked in loue to any in time past, he is fettered in the forgetfulnes of them, so that al remembrance is quite abolished, by litle and litle he recouereth the yeres of his youth, reasuming vnto him by degrees, the times & seasons, long since, spent and gone. For, the frowardnes and crookednes of old age being first shaken of, the amiablenes and louelynesse of youth beginneth to budde, in so much as they put on ye estate of stripplings, then become boyes, then change to children, then reenter into infancie, & at length death maketh a finall end of all.”
Compare the story told by Mela (iii. 10) about the Fortunate Isles: “Una singulari duorum fontium ingenio maxime insignis: alterum qui gustavere risu solvuntur, ita adfectis remedium est ex altero bibere.”
It should be noted that the country described by Theopompus is called by him simply “The Great Continent.”
[304] Strabo, vii. 3, § 6. Perizonius makes this passage in Aelian the peg for a long note on ancient knowledge of America, in which he brings together the most important passages bearing on the subject. He remarks: “Nullus tamen dubito, quin Veteres aliquid crediderint vel sciverent, sed quasi per nebulam et caliginem, de America, partim ex antiqua traditione ab Aegyptiis vel Carthaginiensibus accepta, partim ex ratiocinatione de forma et situ orbis terrarum, unde colligebant, superesse in hoc orbe etiam alias terras praeter Asiam, Africam, & Europam.” In my opinion their assumed knowledge was based entirely on ratiocination, and was not real knowledge at all; but Perizonius well expresses the other view.
[305] Mare Cronium was the name given to a portion of the northern ocean. Forbiger, Handbuch, ii. 3, note 9.
[306] The average of all known rates of speed with ancient ships is about five knots an hour; some of the fastest runs were at the rate of seven knots, or a little more. Breusing, Nautik der Alten, Bremen, 1886, pp. 11, 12. Movers, Die Phœnizier, ii. 3, 190. Movers estimates the rate of a Phœnician vessel with 180 oarsmen at double that of a Greek merchantman. He compares the sailing qualities of Phœnician vessels with those of Venice in the Middle Ages to the disadvantage of the latter. As the ancients had nothing answering to our log, and their contrivances for time-keeping were neither trustworthy nor adapted for use on shipboard, these estimates are necessarily based on a few reports of the number of days spent on voyages of known length,—a rather uncertain method.