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Often appears with: thrinacia and helios’s cattle · naval warfare and sea power · geography and the description of places · fate, destiny, and necessity · west wind departure · wandering rocks passage · wandering rocks · voyages and seafaring · truth in poetry · thetis and nereids guide argo · strategy and the aims of war · sirens and anthemoessa
Usually: narrative (3) · wonder (3) · skepticism (2) · argument (1) · reflection (1) · sudden reversal of fortune (1) · the test or trial (1) · curiosity (1) · detachment (1)
“It is not Homer’s manner to indulge in mere mythological stories founded on no substratum of truth.” Polybius, The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 2 (of 2) · insight
“For instance, whether the wanderings of Ulysses did actually occur, and where.” Strabo, The Geography of Strabo, Volume 1 (of 3) · insight
Strabo argues that Homer’s myths about places like Scylla, Charybdis, and Aeolus should neither be dismissed as baseless nor treated as merely true geography, and he says the right question is where the fictional claims apply to real locations.
Scylla, and Charybdis, and Æolus, all which things should neither be examined into too rigorously, nor yet [despised] as groundless and without foundation, alike remote from truth and historic value. 19. Eratosthenes seems to have had something like this view of the case himself, when he says, “Any one would believe that the poet intended the western regions as the scene of Ulysses’ wanderings, but that he has depar…
Polybius transitions to geographical fragments, arguing that Homer mixes truth with myth, giving historical value to poetic descriptions, and justifying comparison between Homeric scenes and real coastlines and fishing.
GEOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENTS _Polybius devoted one book of his history to a separate treatise on the geography of the continents. Strabo, 9, 1, 1._ +1.+ In their Greek histories Eudoxus gave a good, but Ephorus the best, account of the foundations, blood connexions, migrations, and founders of states; but I shall now give some information on the position of countries and their distances, which are the subjects most prope…
Argo is guided through the perils of Scylla, Charybdis, and the Wandering rocks; Thetis and Nereids lift the ship as it is hurled through the air, while pious heroic travel continues past Thrinacia to Helios’s cattle, then into night sailing.
dwell on the Lilybean height. And the heroes, seized by anguish, left the Sirens, but other perils still worse, destructive to ships, awaited them in the meeting-place of the seas. For on one side appeared the smooth rock of Scylla; on the other Charybdis ceaselessly spouted and roared; in another part the Wandering rocks were booming beneath the mighty surge, where before the burning flame spurted forth from the to…
The Argonauts depart at dawn with the west wind, escape the Sirens at Anthemoessa by Orpheus’s music, and proceed as new ship-destroying dangers approach Scylla, Charybdis, and the Wandering rocks.
Thetis. And they broke off in the midst and hurriedly ceased their contests, and prepared their meal and earth-strewn beds, whereon after supper they slept through the night as aforetime. Now when dawn the light-bringer was touching the edge of heaven, then at the coming of the swift west wind they went to their thwarts from the land; and gladly did they draw up the anchors from the deep and made the tackling ready …
The Nereids and Thetis guide the Argo through the Wandering rocks despite Scylla and Charybdis, then the ship passes the mead of Thrinacia with Helios’s cattle before night sailing onward.
dwell on the Lilybean height. And the heroes, seized by anguish, left the Sirens, but other perils still worse, destructive to ships, awaited them in the meeting-place of the seas. For on one side appeared the smooth rock of Scylla; on the other Charybdis ceaselessly spouted and roared; in another part the Wandering rocks were booming beneath the mighty surge, where before the burning flame spurted forth from the to…