From the speech of the Pseudo-Ulysses in the Fourteenth Odyssey, we have the strongest evidence that navigation and agricultural pursuits, which were those of the Pelasgians, stood in sharp opposition to one another. He could not bear tillage, but loved ships and war[603].
ἔργον δέ μοι οὐ φίλον ἦεν,
οὐδ’ οἰκωφελίη, ἥτε τρέφει ἀγλαὰ τέκνα·
ἀλλά μοι αἰεὶ νῆες ἐπήρετμοι φίλοι ἦσαν
καὶ πόλεμοι καὶ ἄκοντες ἐΰξεστοι καὶ ὀïστοί.
It is also plain, from two circumstances at least, that Homer regarded travelling as one great means of mental and practical culture. One is, that he describes this benefit as attained in the case of his great hero Ulysses;
ὃς μάλα πολλὰ
πλάγχθη ...
πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα, καὶ νόον ἔγνω[604].
The other is that, in the very remarkable simile of the Thought, he treats travelling as the great stimulus to the growth of the mind of man:
ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ἀΐξῃ νόος ἀνέρος, ὅς τ’ ἐπὶ πολλήν
γαῖαν ἐληλουθὼς φρεσὶ πευκαλίμῃσι νοήσῃ·
ἔνθ’ εἴην, ἢ ἔνθα· μενοινήῃσί τε πολλά[605].
Both as to navigation then, and as to locomotion, which stand nearly related to each other, it would seem that we ought probably to regard the Hellic stock as the parent of the Greek accomplishment.
Summary of the case.
After this laborious and microscopic investigation, we may now be justified in taking a survey more at ease of the ground which we have traversed so slowly, and in endeavouring to embody our general results in a rude sketch of the succession, places, and functions of the two great races of early Greece.
Relying, therefore, upon what has been produced in the way of proof, I will proceed to fill up its interstices with such conjectures as probable reasoning will supply.