respect to the winds and climates, Homer shows the wide extent of his geographical knowledge, for in his topographical descriptions he not unfrequently informs us of both these matters. Thus,
“My abode Is sun-burnt Ithaca. Flat on the deep she lies, farthest removed Toward the west, while situate apart, Her sister islands face the rising day.”[150]
And,
“It has a two-fold entrance, One towards the north, the other south.”[151]
And again,
“Which I alike despise, speed they their course With right-hand flight towards the ruddy east, Or leftward down into the shades of eve.”[152]
Ignorance of such matters he reckons no less than confusion.
“Alas! my friends, for neither west Know we, nor east; where rises or where sets The all-enlightening sun.”[153]
Where the poet has said properly enough,
“As when two adverse winds, blowing from Thrace, Boreas and Zephyrus,”[154]
Eratosthenes ill-naturedly misrepresents him as saying in an absolute sense, that the west wind blows from Thrace; whereas he is not speaking in an absolute sense at all, but merely of the meeting of contrary winds near the bay of Melas,[155] on the Thracian sea, itself a part of the Ægæan. For where Thrace forms a kind of promontory, where it borders on Macedonia,[156] it takes a turn to the south-west, and projects into the ocean, and from this point it seems to the inhabitants of Thasos, Lemnos, Imbros, Samothracia,[157] and the surrounding sea, that the west winds blow.[158] So in regard to Attica, they seem to come from the rocks of Sciros,[159] and this is the reason why all the westerly winds, the north-west more particularly, are called the Scirones. Of this Eratosthenes was not aware, though he suspected as much, for it was he who described this bending of the land [towards the south-west] which we have mentioned. But he interprets our poet in an absolute sense, and then taxes him with ignorance, because, says he, “Zephyr blows from the west, and off Spain, and Thrace does not extend so far.” Does he then think that Homer was not aware that Zephyr came from the west, notwithstanding the careful manner in which he distinguishes its position when he writes as follows:
“The east, the south, the heavy-blowing Zephyr, And the cold north-wind clear.”[160]
Or was he ignorant that Thrace did not extend beyond the Pæonian and Thessalian mountains.[161] To be sure he was well acquainted with the position of the countries adjoining Thrace in that direction, and does he not mention by name both the maritime and inland districts, and tells us of the Magnetæ,[162] the Malians,[163] and other Grecian [territories], all in order, as far as Thesprotis;[164] also of the Dolopes[165] bordering on Pæonia, and the Sellæ who inhabit the territory around Dodona[166] as far as the [river] Achelous,[167] but he never mentions Thrace, as being beyond these. He has evidently a predilection for the sea which is nearest to him, and with which he is most familiar, as where he says,
“Commotion shook The whole assembly, such as heaves the flood Of the Icarian deep.”[168]
In support of this opinion of the two winds they adduce Thrasyalces and our poet himself, forasmuch as he mentions the north-west with the south,
“From the north-west south,”[169]
and the west with the north,
“As when two adverse winds, blowing from Thrace, Boreas and Zephyrus.”[170]