Now there is no direct evidence in Homer connecting Deucalion with Thessaly. The later tradition, however, places him there: and this tradition may probably claim an authority as old as that of Hesiod. A fragment of that poet[299], with the text partially corrupt, speaks of Locrus, leader of the Leleges, as among those whom Jupiter raised from the earth for Deucalion. This reference to Locrus immediately suggests the name of the Locrian race, and so carries us into the immediate neighbourhood of Thessaly; and the general purport of the words is to express something a little like the later tradition about Deucalion, which had that country for its scene. Combining this with the negative evidence afforded by the Homeric text, we thus find established a communication seemingly direct between Crete under Minos, and Thessaly, to which country we have already found it probable that Deucalion immigrated, and where he may have reigned.
The usual statement is, that the name Deucalion was common to two different persons, one the son of Minos, and the other the king of Thessaly. But we must be upon our guard against the device of the later Greek writers, who at once unravelled the accumulated intricacies that had gradually gathered about their traditions, and enlarged the stock of material for pampering vanity, and exciting the imagination, by multiplying the personages of the early legends. As regards the case now before us; the tradition, which makes Hellen son of the latter of these Deucalions, would certainly make him considerably older than he could be if a son of Minos. It must be admitted, that Homer repeats the name of Deucalion, for a Trojan so called is slain by Achilles in Il. xx. 478. It has pleased the fancy of the poet there to use the names of a number of dead heroes to distinguish the warriors who fell like sheep under the sword of the terrible Achilles: we find among them a Dardanus, a Tros, and a Moulius; and it is so little Homer’s practice to use names without a peculiar meaning, that we may conjecture he has done it, in preference to letting Achilles slaughter a crowd of ignoble persons, in order that in every thing his Protagonist might be distinguished from other men. But the poet seems to take particular care to prevent any confusion as to his great Greek, and indeed as to all his great living, personages. I am not aware of more than one single passage in the Iliad[300], among the multitude in which one or other of the Ajaxes is named, where there can be a doubt which of the two is meant. It is exceedingly unlikely that if a separate Deucalion of Thessaly had been known to Homer, he should not have distinguished him from the Deucalion of Crete. This unlikelihood mounts to incredibility, when we remember (1) that this other Deucalion of Thessaly is nothing less than the asserted root of the whole Hellenic stock, and (2) that the poet repeatedly uses the patronymic Deucalides as an individual appellation for Idomeneus, whereas the adverse supposition would make all the Achæans alike Δευκαλίδαι. We may therefore safely conclude at least, that Homer knew of no Deucalion other than the son of Minos.
Of Rhadamanthus and the Phæacians.
We come now to Rhadamanthus, who is thrice mentioned by Homer. Once[301], as born of the same parents with Minos[302]. Once, as enjoying like him honours from Jupiter beyond the term of our ordinary human life: for he is placed amidst the calm and comforts of the Elysian plain. The third passage is remarkable. It is where Alcinous[303] promises Ulysses conveyance to his home, even should it be farther than Eubœa, which the Phæacian mariners consider to be their farthest known point of distance, and whither they had conveyed Rhadamanthus,
ἐποψόμενον Τίτυον, Γαιήιον υἱόν·
on his way to visit, or inspect, or look after, Tityus. This Tityus we find in the νεκυία suffering torture for having attempted violence upon Latona[304], as she was proceeding towards Pytho, through Panopeus. Panopeus was a place in Phocis, on the borders of Bœotia, and on the line of any one journeying between Delos and Delphi.
There is in this legend the geographical indistinctness, and even confusion, which we commonly find where Homer dealt with places lying in the least beyond the range of his own experience or that of his hearers, as was the case with Phæacia. If Tityus was in Panopeus, the proper way to carry Rhadamanthus was by the Corinthian gulf. But from various points in the geography of the Odyssey, it may, in my opinion, be gathered, that Homer had an idea, quite vague and indeterminate as to distance, of a connection by sea between the north of the Adriatic, and the north of the Ægean, either directly, or from the sea of Marmora: and it suited his representation of the Phæacians, and best maintained their as it were aerial character, to give them an unknown rather than a known route. However that might be, if we look into the legend in order to conjecture its historic basis, it appears to suggest the inferences which follow:
1. That according to tradition, the empire or supremacy of Minos, which may in some points have resembled that afterwards held by Agamemnon, embraced both Corcyra and likewise middle Greece, where Panopeus and Pytho or Delphi lay.
We must, however, presume the empire of Minos to have been in great part insular. There were contemporary kingdoms on the mainland, which give no sign of dependence upon it.
2. That the Phæacians acted as subjects of Minos in carrying Rhadamanthus by sea from one part of the dominions of that king to another.