2. It appears clear that the Bœotians and Phocians did not together form a division of the army: for, in the Thirteenth Book, the Bœotians fight in company with the Athenians or Ionians, the Locrians, Phthians, and Epeans, but not with the Phocians. Il. xiii. 685, 6.
3. Neither did the Bœotians belong to the left wing of the army at all: for they are found defending the centre of the ships against Hector and the Trojans, with the two Ajaxes in their front. Il. xiii. 314-16, 674-84, 685, 700; 701, 2; 719, 20.
4. There is nowhere the smallest sign, that the Greek army was divided into wings and centre at all.
5. The order of the Catalogue is a geographical order, and not that of a military arrangement. Therefore it was requisite for Homer to tell us how the troops were arranged in the Review. This he has effected by telling us that the Phocians, the second of his tribes, drew up on the right of the Bœotians: which we have only to consider tacitly repeated all through, and the order is thus both complete and propitious. But, according to the other construction, the Poet begins with an arrangement by wings, of which we hear nowhere else: and then he forthwith forgets and abandons it.
6. I do not think ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ can be construed to the left of the army. The army has nowhere been named. The phrases ἐπὶ δεξιὰ and ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ require us to have a subject clearly in view. It is frequently named, as in ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ μάχης. When it is connected with omens, it means to the west, and ἐπιδέξια the reverse. Again, οἰνοχοεῖν ἐπιδέξια is to begin pouring wine from the left, and towards the right end of the rank whom the cupbearer may be serving. The ‘army’ has not been mentioned since the reassembling in v. 207.
These objections appear to me fatal to the construction now under our view. They do not indeed touch the question whether ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ should be interpreted on the left, or (on the right and) towards the left. That must, I think, be decided by the general principles of augury duly applied to order and enumeration.
On the whole, then, I contend that it is wrong to construe Od. v. 277, ‘to sail with Arctus on his left hand.’ It would be much more nearly right, and would, in fact, convey the meaning, though not in a grammatical manner, if we construed it ‘to sail with Arctus on his right hand.’ But the manner of construing it, grammatically and accurately, as I submit, is this: ‘to sail with Arctus looking towards the left (of his hand, or his left hand);’ that is to say, looking from his right. And generally, that the proper mode of construing ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ and ἐπὶ δεξιὰ in Homer is, towards the left, towards the right; or, conversely, from the right, from the left.
This meaning is in exact accordance with the North-eastern, and is entirely opposed to the North-western, hypothesis. And I venture to believe that, itself established by sufficient evidence from other passages in the poems, it enables us to give a meaning substantially, though perhaps not minutely self-consistent, though of course one not based upon the true configuration of the earth’s surface as it is now ascertained, to every passage in Homer which relates to the Outer Geography of the Odyssey.
Both ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ and ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ χειρὸς are used repeatedly in the Hymn to Mercury[680]. One of the passages resembles in its form that of the eagle, Il. xii. 219. It is this: