αἶψα γὰρ ἦλθεν
κεκληγὼς Ζέφυρος, μεγάλῃ σὺν λαίλαπι θύων·
and the ship goes to pieces in the tempest. At length Zephyr ceases, and Notus blows Ulysses back upon Scylla.
5. If it was the intention of Homer to place Thrinacie by the Bosphorus, then the next point which Ulysses had to make was the Dardanelles.
Scylla and the Dardanelles.
The question therefore is, what conclusion can we draw from the evidence now before us as to the position of Scylla relatively to the Dardanelles? I think a pretty clear one.
We have at least two of those statements, which may be called experimental, now before us. Homer knew the position of the mouth of the Dardanelles. He knew the nature of the wind Notus. And there is a third piece of evidence not unimportant, which we may here properly bring into view. We have seen that, in Il. ii. 845, Homer confines or contains his Thracians (ἔντος ἐέργει) by the Hellespont: and the Hellespont with him means all the waters from the Sea of Marmora to the northern Ægæan inclusive. Now by this he intends only a part of the Thracians, those, say, of the plain of Adrianople. It is presumable therefore that he believed the configuration of the coast at the two extremities of the Dardanelles to be something like at least two of the sides of a square, running N. and W. respectively: for unless it formed a portion of some marked figure, it would not answer his description of including a certain district, and the words would become applicable to the whole of Thrace alike. Therefore it appears that Homer thought the northern coast of the Sea of Marmora trended, from its western point, more rapidly to the north, than is really the case.
The most decisive evidence, however, is that which had been previously named.
When the storm came, which shattered the ship, Ulysses was on the true course from Thrinacie to the Dardanelles. But if we know the point for which he was making in a right line from point x, and if we also know the wind which carried him back to point x, then the line on which point x itself lies is also known. In other words, as Notus, or say the S.S.W. wind, carried him back upon Scylla, Scylla lies to the N.N.E. of the inner mouth of the Dardanelles: and the unnamed wind which takes him back to Scylla is Notus, which we are entitled to consider as blowing (even as Boreas, its counterpart, blows from due N. to the eastward) from any point between the limit of Eurus on the East of South, and 45 or even 90 degrees beyond South to the westward.
Ææa, then, is in the East; with somewhat of an inclination, as measured from Greece, towards the north. Ulysses has much westing to make, in order to get to Scheria. Part of this is made on his passages between Ææa and Ogygia in the farther north. The rest in the course of his long seventeen days’ voyage from the north, which is propelled, as it would appear, by Boreas, and therefore includes also a slight westerly inclination.