In speaking of the experimental geography of Homer, of course I do not intend to imply that he had, even within his narrow sphere, the means that later science has afforded of establishing situations and distances with absolute precision. He could only proceed by the far ruder testimony of the senses, trained in the school of experience. Neither do I mean that the experience was in every case his own, though to a great extent his geographical information was probably original, and acquired by him principally in the exercise of his profession as an itinerating Bard. But by the experimental and real geography of Homer, I mean these two things; first, that the Poet believed himself to be describing pro tanto points upon the earth’s surface as they actually were; secondly, that his means of information were for practical purposes adequate. The evidence of the passage containing the simile of the Thought (Il. xv. 580) would suffice, were there none other, to show that he was himself a traveller; he also lived among a people already accustomed to travel, and familiar with the navigation of a certain portion of the earth’s surface. In a former part of this work I have given several instances to illustrate the disposition of the early Greeks with respect to travel[525]. A people of habits like theirs was well qualified to supply a practical system of geography for the whole sphere with which it was habitually conversant.
But the boldness and maturity of navigation may be measured pretty nearly by the length of its voyages. The geographical particulars of the Wanderings, however dislocated and distorted, show us that the people who had supplied them had acquired a considerable acquaintance with all the waters within, and probably also, nay, I should be disposed to say certainly, some that were without, the Straits of Gibraltar. But in all the poems of Homer we find the traces of Greek knowledge and resort become fainter and fainter, as we pass beyond certain points. On the Greek Peninsula, to the south of the Ambracian gulf on the west and of Mount Olympus on the east, we have the signs of a constant intercourse to and fro. The same tokens extend to the islands immediately surrounding it, and reaching at least as far as Crete. Indeed, apart from particular signs, we may say that, without familiar and frequent intercourse among the members that composed it, the empire of Agamemnon could not have subsisted.
But, at certain distances, the mode of geographical handling becomes faint, mistrustful, and indistinct. Distances are misstated, or cease to be stated at all. The names of countries are massed together in such a way as to show that the Poet had no idea of a particular mode of juxtaposition for them. Topographical or local features, of a character such as to identify a description with some particular place or region as its prototype in nature, are erroneously transposed to some situation which, from general indications, we can see must be upon a different and perhaps distant part of the surface of the globe. Again, by ceasing to define distances and directions, he shows from time to time that he has lost confidence in his own collocation, that he is not willing to challenge a comparison with actual nature, and that, from want of accurate knowledge, he feels he must seek some degree of shelter in generalities.
It is obvious that, under the circumstances as they have thus far been delineated, the geography of the poems, with a centre fixed for it somewhere in Greece, say at Olympus or Mycenæ, might be first of all divided into three zones, ranging around that centre. The first and innermost would be that of the familiar knowledge and experience of his countrymen. The second would be that of their rare and occasional resort. The third would be a region wholly unknown to them, and with respect to which they were wholly dependent on foreign, that is on Phœnician, report; much as a Roman, five hundred years ago, would practically depend upon the reports of Venetians and Genoese mariners for all or nearly all his ultra-marine knowledge.
Now, though we may not be able to mark positively at every point of the compass the particular spot at which we step from the first zone to the second, and from the second to the third, yet there is enough of the second zone discernible to make it serve for an effectual delimitation between the first and the third; between the region of experience and that of marvel; of foreign, arbitrary, unchecked, and semifabulous report. Just as we are unable to fix the moment at which night passes into dawn, and dawn into day; but yet the dawn of morning, and the twilight of evening are themselves the lines which broadly separate between the day and the night, lying respectively at the extremities of each. So with the poems of Homer, it may be a question whether a given place, say Phœnicia, is in the first or the second zone; or whether some other, such as Scheria, or as the Bosphorus, is in the second or the third; but it will never be difficult to affirm of any important place named in the poems either that it is not in the zone of common experience, or else that it is not in the zone of foreign fable.
Limits of the Inner Geography.
Let me now endeavour to draw the lines, which thus far have been laid down only in principle.
1. And first it seems plain, that the experimental knowledge of Homer extended over the whole of the continental territory embraced within the Greek Catalogue, including, along with the continent, those islands which he has classed with his mainland, and not in his separate insular group[526].
2. It may be slightly doubtful whether he had a similar knowledge of the islands forming the base of the Ægean. There is a peculiarity in the Cretan description (Il. ii. 645-52), namely, that after enumerating certain cities he closes with general words (649),
ἄλλοι θ’, οἳ Κρήτην ἑκατόμπολιν ἀμφενέμοντο.