But likewise as to the second, Homer has given us some indications of their wealth: (a) in the name Ἀφείδας (the open-handed) ascribed by Ulysses to his father; (b) in that of Ἐπήριτος (object of contention) assumed for himself; (c) perhaps also in the name Ἀλύβας, akin to that of Ἀλύβη[456], where there was silver, and to that of Ἀρύβας a rich Sidonian[457]. This name probably indicates the possession of metallic mines, which for that period we may consider as a special sign of advancement and opulence.
Then if we turn for a moment to the historic period, it is in this very country that we find planted the great and luxurious cities of Sybaris and Crotona[458].
Now as the people called Siceli, and the country called Sicania, are thus placed in relations of proximity by Homer, so they continue throughout all antiquity. The reports collected by Thucydides represent the Sicanians as giving their name to Sicily, and displacing the former name Trinacria, which is identical with the Homeric Thrinacie. At a later time, the Sicilians passed from Italy into Sicily, and, as was said, upon rafts; that is to say, across the strait, and consequently from the country which, as I contend, is the Homeric Sicania. These Siceli were rumoured to have overcome the Sicani, and to have again changed the name of the island to Sicily. It is yet more material to note, that Thucydides says there were still Siceli in Italy when he himself lived: and he adds the tradition that Italus, a king of theirs, gave his name to the Peninsula[459].
To these reports, which form a part of the account given by Thucydides, we may add the statement of Dionysius, that the Σικελοὶ were the oldest inhabitants of Latium, and were displaced by the Pelasgi[460]. This implies their movement southward, and makes it probable that we should meet them in Bruttium, on their way to Sicily, perhaps pressing, in that region, upon the Sicani.
Such an hypothesis would be in entire agreement with Homer, who evidently represents the Sicanian as older than the Sicelian name: for the first had become territorial, when the latter was only tribal or national. And all this is in agreement with Thucydides in the essential point, that he makes the Sicanians precede the Siceli: while, though the tradition he reports brings the Sicani from Spain under pressure from the Ligures[461], he need not mean to exclude the supposition, that they may have come by land down the Italian peninsula. Though it is probably wrong to confound the Siceli with the Sicani[462], it would thus on all hands appear, that they were but successive waves of the tide of immigration advancing southward.
There is a further evidence that Homer meant to place Sicania within the Greek maritime world, and not beyond it. It is this. In his fabulous narrative to Laertes, Ulysses apprises the old man, that he had seen his son five years before in Sicania, hopeful of reaching his home[463]. Now this is a proof that the place was in the Inner or known sphere of geography: for in the outer circle, as for instance at Æolia, he never has any knowledge or reckoning of his own as to the power of reaching home: it was Æolus who gave him the Zephyr to take him home, not he who knew that if he got a Zephyr he would reach home. And in like manner he is supplied with express directions by Calypso: while Menelaus, not being absolutely beyond the known world, has no instructions for his voyage from Proteus, who plays for him the part of divine informant.
Thus then it appears, that Homer knew something of that part of the Italian continent, which we may term the sole of the foot. Again, if we look onward to the heel, Iapygia or Apulia, and observe its proximity to Corcyra or Scheria, we shall perceive that mariners in the time of Homer might take the route, which was afterwards pursued by the Athenian fleet under Nicias and his colleagues. But this is conjectural; and as Scheria was so faintly known, we must suppose Apulia to have been still more faintly conceived. Beyond Apulia Homer gives no sign of any acquaintance whatever with Italy. It therefore at once appears possible that he had no idea of the junction by land between the Greek and Italian peninsulas, and that he had imaged to the northward only an expanse of sea. I postpone, however, the further discussion of this subject.
Epirus and the Thesproti.
Epirus in Homer.
The Ithacan Suitors threaten to send Irus (Od. xviii. 84, 115), and again Ulysses (Od. xxi. 307), to a certain lawless and cruel king named Echetus; and in the two first passages we have the additional indication ἤπειρόνδε. This expression used in Ithaca can refer to no other mainland than that of the Greek Peninsula: of which even the nearer parts[464] pass by that name.