The history of Sicily to the Athenian war; with elucidations of the Sicilian odes of Pindar

Chapter I. The Position Of Sicily.— Sicily And Homeric Legend And Geography

PAQl

Site and geography of Sicily — Poetic geography and the dawn of discovery — Early Pluenician and Hellenic enterprise — Homeric Sicania and Sicels — Scylla and Charybdis in Homeric and modern geography — The land of the Cyclops and volcanoes in mythology — The course of Ulysses — Primitive Astronomy and its survivals — Legendary polar circles and primitive geography — Conclusions on Homeric Sicily . 1

Chapter II. The Primitive Population And Hellenic Settlements

OF SICILY.

The ethnography of Sicily as known to Thucydides— Non-Hellenic Sicels, Sicans, and Elymi— Legends and traces of Elymi eastward, and of Sicans and Sicels westward — Crete and Sicily — Hellenic influence on conterminal barbarians — Chalcidian colonies — Dorian colonies — Dorieus the Spartan ......... 31

Chapter III. The Spirit Of Hellenic Colonization

Wars of ravage and of conquest — Early migrations and settlement of Hellas — The re-action of colonization — Phaeacia an Homeric colony — Colony and metropolis in the story of Corcyra — Original constitution of a colony — Assaults on the privileged — Rise and fall of the tyrant —Constituent legislation— Fhahiris and his brazen bull in tradition and history — Stesichorus, politician and poet — Epic subjects in lyric form — The sources of the legend of the ,/Encis . . 48 iv CONTENTS.

Chapter IV. Hippocrates And Gelon, Tyrants Of Gela

PAOB

Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela, 498 B.C.— Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium, 494—476 B.C. — Double betrayal of Zanclseans and Samian refugees, 492 B.C. — The sway of Hippocrates— Reduces Sicels and Ionian cities— Attacks Dorian Syracuse, 491 B.C.— Gelon, tyrant of Gela — His ancestor, Telines of Telos, hierophant of Chthonian gods — Political influence of sacred office — Olympic victory and dedication of Gelon, 488 B.C 66

Chapter V. Gelon, Tyrant Of Syracuse, And Theron, Of Acragas

Acquisition of Syracuse by Gelon, 485 B.C. — Transferred populations and extension of the city — Theron, tyrant of Acragas— Expels Terillus, tyrant of Himera, 482 B.C. — Perils from Carthage coincident with Persian invasion of Greece, 480 B.C.— Hellenic suit to Gelon, 480 B.C. Resources of Syracuse— Pretensions and retort of Gelon —Carthaginian invasion of Sicily— Disaster of fleet of Hamilcar — Theron and Gelon at Himera — Stratagem and victory of Gelon —Destruction of Carthaginians — Use and fruits of victory — Captives and spoil — Works at Acragas— Syracusan coins and symbols — Dedications for victory — Alliances of the tyrants— Glory and popularity of Gelon, 478 B.C 76

Chapter VI. Aristodemus Of Cum^e

Missions from Rome to Gelon andCumfe, circ. 492 B.C. — Story of Cumse — Great victory over barbarians, 524 B.C. — Factions in the city — Relief of Aricia besieged by Aruns, sou of Porsena, 504 B.C. — Seizure of tyranny by Aristodemus— His enormities, policy, and destruction, 490 B.C. . . . . . . . .113

Chapter VII. Hiero, Tyrant Of Syracuse

Succession of Gelon, 478 B.C. —Hiero and Polyzelus joint guardians of heir— Present sovereignty of Hiero— Jealousies and revolt of Polyzelus—Interference of Theron— Si mouides as conciliator— Hiero and Themistocles at Olympia, 476 B.C.— ^Etna founded — Expedition to Curate, 474 B.C. and naval victory over Etruscans — Dedicated helmet in British Museum — Death of Theron, 472 B.C. — Succession and fall of his son Thrasydseus, 471 B.C. — Acragas a republic . 121

CONTENTS. v

Chapter VIII. Hiero Of Syracuse— Patron Of Art

PAOK

The court of Hiero, 468 B.C.— Luxury and mistrust— The fortune of the Arts under tyrannies— ^Eschylus and Pindar in Sicily— Siraonides of Cos — Bacchylides — Dorian comedy in Hegara and Sicily, 470 B.C. — Epicharmus — Phormis— Olympic dedications— Archaic statuary, Attic and jEginetan, 467 B.C. — The sculptor Pythagoras of Rhegium — The heirs of Anaxi'aus, 477 B.C.— Dedicated statues of their guardian Micythus 136

Chapter IX. Selinus: Architecture In Sicily

The story of Selinus, 600—409 B.C. — Extent of its ruins — Scantiness of records — Sicilian Doric Architecture and Attic — Development of Architecture observable at Selinus— Colossal temples at Agrigentum — Architecture at Syracuse ........ 153

Chapter X. The Subversion Of The Tyrannies

The heir of Gelon under guardianship of Thrasybulus— Family dissentions — Designs and fall of Thrasybulus and overthrow of the dynasty — Syracuse an aristocracy according to definition of Aristotle, 465 B.C.— Gelonian insurrection suppressed — Counter revolutions throughout Sicily, 461 B.C. —Rise of the Sicel Ducetius— Political development of Central Hellas overtaken in Sicily — Democracy established at Syracuse, 452 B.C. — Agitation and destruction of Tyndurion — Petalism — Naval expeditions westward against Etruscans 164

Chapter XI. Ducetius, The Sicel

Ducetius organizes confederacy of Sicel towns — Founds Palike — Besieges iMotyon in Agrigentino territory — Successes against Syracusans — Subsequent dfleiit iiiul desertion — Ducetius a refugee at Syracuse — Is received generously and relegated to Corinth — Jealousy of i^'us at influence of Syracuse — Loses battle and sues for peace — Ducetius re-appears in Sicily, 44G n.t\— Plans cut short by death — Syracuse sul>jug;iU-s the Sicels, WJ U.C. 179 vi CONTENTS.

Chapter XII. Syracuse A Republic

MM

.Syracuse a democracy, 437 B. c. —Parallel development of Syracuse and

Athens after defeats of barbarians — Increased revenue — Extended armaments by sea and land — Temporary concord— superseded by renewed antagonism of Dorian and Ionian cities — The reversion of empire to Macedon and Rome — First views of Athens upon Sicily — First hostile expeditions — The history of Thucydidea . . .186

Chapter XIII. Philosophy In Sicily— Xenophanes, Empedocles

Ulterior consequences of political convulsions — Propagation of philosophy westward from Asia Minor — Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Anaxagoras — Xenophanes posterior to Pythagoras — anterior to Parmenides — His physics and cosmogony as deduced from observation — The divinity of Xenophanes — Denunciation of anthropomorphic and fantastic gods — Of poetic and of popular theology — Empedocles, 470 — 432 B.C. — His pretensions and parade — Theory of elements and constructive physics — Empedocles on life — The survival of the worthiest in ancient speculation — Dogmatism in philosophy — Cultivation of Rhetoric in Sicily as an art— Korax, Tisias, Gorgias . 105

Chapter I. Choric Poetry— In Succession To Epic And Elegiac

Hellenic politics and social condition during the life of Pindar — Sequences and survivals of poetic forms — Epic poetry — Elegiac — Iambic — Lyric and 3Ielic — Choric poetry associates dancing with instrumental music und song — Anticipatory hints in the earliest Epos — Poetic requirements of the Hellenic auditory — The occasions and varieties of Pindar's choric poetry . . . . . .213

CONTENTS. vii

Chapter II. Characteristics Of The Efinicia Of Pindar

PAGE

Epinician odes— Subordination of accompaniments to the poetry — Vivacity of its transitions— Complexity of metrical aud rhythmical systems — Conventions of the glory of a victory in the games — National and tribal — Enthusiasm for the union of beauty with excelling achievement as divine— A divine or heroic mythus the appropriate poetic parallel — The conditions of appropriate parallels —Characteristic topics and commonplaces of Epinicia — Emphatic sympathy of poet and victor — The collection of Sicilian odes — Pan-hellenism of Pindar 224

Chapter III. Ancestral Traditions And Claims Of Hiero And Theron

Telines, ancestor of Hiero, from Telos and Caria — Hierophant of Triopian Demeter — Tenacity of tribal and sacred traditions — Pelasgic Triopia in Caria — At Argos — In Thessaly primarily and at Delphi — Hereditary connection of Hiero with Thessalian mythus — Recognised at large in the odes — Process of tracking the migratory worship and its functionaries — Correction of Epinician theory of Dissen — Theron, claimant of descent fromOZdipus and Cadmus — Connected with Minyan tradition and clan of ^Egids —Alliances and relatives of Hiero and Theron 240

Chapter IV. Ode To Thrasybulus, Of Acragas. (sixth Pythian Ode.)

For chariot victory gained by his father Xenocrates, 494 B.C. — Filial piety, mythic and contemporary — The ode translated — Ode to Midas of Agrigentum — (Twelfth Pythian Ode) for victory in fluteplaying, 490 B o. — The flute in Phrygia and Boeotia — The polyce* phalous nome — The ode translated 257

Chapter V

THE ODES TO AGESIDAMUS, AN EPIZEPHYRIAN LOCRIAN. (TENTH AND ELEVENTH OLYMPIC ODES.)

For victory in pugilistic contest of boys, 476 B.C. — Topics of odes for boy-victories — Indirect negation of Locrian disrepute — Locrian friendship— The odes translated 268 viii CONTENTS.

Chapter VI. Ode To Hiero, Of Syracuse

(SECOND PYTHIAN ODE.)

PAGE

For a victory with chariot of colts— In what games imcertain — Probable date of ode, 477—6 B.C.— Reputed difficulty of the ode— Indirect vindication of courses of Hiero— Direct assertion of his merit as benefactor — The apologue in poetry of Pindar and Archiloehus — Lyric parallelisms— The ode translated 278

Chapter VII. Odes To Theron, Of Acragas— For A Victory In The Chariot Race

(SECOND AND THIRD OLYMPIC ODES.)

Political incidents at date of victory, 476 B.C. — Quarrel and happy reconciliation with Hiero — Parallel of mythical vicissitudes — Lyric irony — Translation of Second Olympic Ode — The occasion and topics of the third — Demonstration of the course of its transitions — The ode translated 293

Chapter VIII. Ode To Hiero As

(FIRST PYTHIAN ODE.)

For a victory in Pythian chariot race, 474 B.C. — Contemporary events and circumstances— Eruption of ^tna— Painful disorder of Hiero — His victory over Etruscans, &c. — The theme of Ode — Harmony composing and compensating for difficulties — Hiero as Philoctetes — The statue by Pythagoras — The meed of clemency— The ode translated 309

Chapter IX

ODES TO CHROMIUS, BROTHER-IN-LAW OF HIERO. (FJRST AND NINTH NEMEAN ODES.)

Both odes written by Pindar in Sicily after 472 B.C. — The first for a chariot victory at Nemea — The ninth for chariot victory in Pythian games of Sicyon — Chromius in youth and age — Soldier and politician— Chronology of events — The first Neinean ode translated — Difficulty as to drift of its mythical allusions— Commentators thereon — The problem unsolved— Translation of the ode . . 321

CONTENTS. i\

Chapter X. Ode To Hiero, Of Syracuse. (first Olympic Ode.)

PAOR

For victory in the'single-horse race, 472 B.C. — Pindar with other poets at the court of Hiero— Peculiar vivacity of treatment of the ode — Abundant allusions to special mythology of Hiero's hereditary priesthood— The ode translated 337

Chapter XI. Ode To Ergoteles, Of Himera. (twelfth Olympic Ode:)

'For victory in the long foot race, 472 B.C.- Ergoteles, a Cretan refugee, at Himera — The cock as Himerajan and Cretan symbol — The ode translated 349

Chapter XII. Ode To Thrasybulus, Of Acragas. (second Isthmian Ode.)

For an earlier Isthmian chariot victory of his father before 476 B.C. — The odo written after fall of Thrasydaeus and depression of the family — Peculiarly affectionate tone of the ode— The ode translated 354

Chapter XIII. <u)e To Hiero, Of Syracuse

(TnE THIRD PYTHIAN.)

For Pythian victory with the single-horse, written between 470—68 B.C. — Probable political and domestic allusions — The dangerous illness of Hiero — Mythical embellishments from the Thessalian cycle — Legends of health-gods and — Poetic renown as compensation for mortality— The scope of available consolation for Hiero — The ode

translated 860 x CONTENTS.

Chapter XIV. Ode To Agesias, Of Syracuse

(SIXTH OLYMPIC ODE.)

PAQB

Victory in race of mule cars, 476 or 468 B. c. —Genealogy of soothsaying lamidrc — Agesias, soldier and diviner— Arcadian and Syracusan — Duplicate symbolism — Indirect negation of imputed Arcadian swinishness— The ode translated . . 377

Chapter XV. Odes To Psaumis, Of Camarina. (fourth And Fifth Olympic Odes.)

Victory with the mule-car, 452 B.C. — Mythical element unexplained- Rebuilding of Camarina— Symbols of its river and lake on coins — The odes translated 392

BOOK I.

THE HISTORY OF SICILY TO THE WAR WITH ATHENS.

TIIE

HISTOEY OF SICILY,

Chapter I. The Position Of Sicily— Sicily And H<?meeio Legend And Geogeaphy

THE island of Sicily lies in the very midst of that Midland Sea that washed the shores of all the most interesting empires of antiquity, and, placed between the southernmost point of the Italian peninsula and an advancing promontory of Africa, seems to divide it into two great gulfs, Eastern and Western. The distance of Cape Boeo, the ancient Lilybseum, from Africa is less than 90 miles ; on the north the Faro di Messina at its narrowest is not more than 3971 yards (2j miles) across (Smyth). The island, therefore, has some appearance of being an interrupted extension of the peninsula, as the intermediate Lipari islands on the north, summits of submarine eminences, show as links of a volcanic chain extending from Vesuvius on the Campanian coast towards Sicilian ^Etna. The natural productions of the island also attest a conii' < lion or its semblance with Italy rather than with Africa ; scientific observation, however, declines to recognise its mountain system as a continuation of the Apennines.

The general form of Sicily may be nearly included in an isosceles triangle, having one of the pair of sides on the north extending due east and west, and the unequal side, which is shorter by about one third, trending from the point of Italy west by south. The superficial extent of 'Sicily does not exceed 10,600 square miles, but it is not very different from that of Peloponnesus. The prevailing character of the interior is given by a lofty table land supported and bounded by ranges that descend steeply along the northern coast, and slope down much more gradually to comparatively open plains on the southern. The higher district is intersected by ridges, and crowned again by lofty mountains rising higher and still higher ; the site of Henna, on a steep hill upon a central plain, is more than 3000 feet above the sea ; it commands a view over the greater portion of the island, and of lines of mountains beyond mountains that have been compared in appearance to waves under a storm. jEtna, itself a volcanic system of 100 miles in circumference, rises independently by the sea on the shorter eastern coast, within a landward semicircle of mountains, as if occupying what at one time might have been a vast bay.

In accordance with such a conformation the streams of the Island, of longest course, flow uuturally southni.\r. i.] SICILIAN GEOGRAPHY.

and eastward, and must always — the most of them — have been subject to sudden and violent floods ; but in antiquity, before the feeding forests were so generally extirpated, they must also have been less liable than at present to extreme exhaustion, and no doubt they enhanced the wonderful fertility that even yet is inalienable from advantages of natural soil and happy climate. The ancient productiveness of Sicily, in corn especially, and then in wine and cattle, was celebrated, no doubt with some exaggeration, but with a basis of truth that only in Egypt elsewhere might not have been fairly taxed as exaggeration. Nature's bounties may be frustrated by barbarous ignorance, by bad laws affecting ownership and division of land, — by insecurity of life and property arising out of subjection to exhausting tyranny, foreign or domestic — but otherwise rich land makes a rich population, and in the days of Sicily's better constitution these resources gave great command of imported wealth, and a power of supporting labour for works of display or defence, or luxury — such as remain to astonish us in the ruins twice ruined of Agrigentum and Syracuse.

The triple aspects of the shores and promontories of Sicily may seem to symbolize the threefold influences to which it was subjected by its intermediate and central position — at the very crossroads of conflict I'i->i«lr> the original barbaric occupation, which for the part comes into L-viil'-in-f 1«^> l.y activity than

B 2

4 THE HISTOBY OF SICILY. [CTTAF. T.

inertness — here Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans appeared in turns as settlers and conquerors ; Greek interchanged merchandise or crossed swords with Carthaginian, Carthaginian with Roman, and Roman with Greek again, in antiquity ; as Saracen, Norman, and Teuton took their turns in later days. The prime advantage of central position was in this way very seriously qualified, and the confluence of the peoples interfered with political settlement, much as the conflicting currents of the adjacent straits baffled steady navigation.

But it is as Greek, and by its reaction on Central Greece, that the early civilization of Sicily chiefly interests us in its history, and promises to repay research and study. The native historians have perished, and the literary records that might supply their place are unfortunately scanty and fragmentary ; the poets, orators, and philosophers of her palmy days only live in extracts or criticisms, or in references that are less often direct than only to be divined ; brilliant but confused, these glancing rays are unintelligible, or untrustworthy, until corrected in all various ways for reflections and refractions. Sagacity no less than industry is taxed severely to recombine dispersed allusions ; it has to be taxed still more severely to withhold from propounding the plausible as a certainty, or taking pleasure to repeople historical vacuity with phantasms that it will consume the more valuable time of some later historian to exorcise.

.] POETIC OEOORA1-IIV. 5

Given, however, consciousness of responsibility and confidence in power of self-restraint, enough that is satisfactory can still be gleaned and garnered to reward the student of ancient Sicilian story.

The primitive condition of every country is ever wrapt in delusive mists, and it is well that the explorer should be watchful of the line beyond which half-lights become as hopeless as the utter darkness that sooner or later of necessity comes down. We turn, however, to the Homeric poems — the Odyssey particularly — to enquire for traces of early Sicilian history, with an interest that is sharpened by hope that Sicilian antiquities on their part may reciprocate illustration to the Homeric poetry or age.

The very simplicity of criticism could alone expect to elicit from such a poem of wild adventure and unlicensed imagination, how much precisely the author knew of whatever real territories his hero touches. There is no true poetic purpose in making a parade of geographical knowledge — there easily may be in finessing it. When by the plan of the poet we are to be carried, step by step, from the region of the known not merely to the unexplored but the fabulous

\\ •• must be prepared to find the border line even gratuitously confused and indistinct. Some certainties as to the poet's knowledge we may gather, but it would In- daring to infer how ignorant the ignorance of his liL-aivrs might not allow him to be or to pretend to lie, or to disallow that he might not on a time

6 THE HISTORY OF SICILY. [CIIAP. i.

indulge himself by transmuting fact familiar enough to them, into fiction grossly incongruous, yet so treated as to seem even more real than the familiar truth, and certainly — such things have been — far too delightful for the protests of outraged and indignant literal truth to be allowed to interfere with it.

It is immediately after Ulysses, voyaging homewards from Troy, doubles Cape Malea, and misses the Isle of Cythera, that his geographical bearings as he is driven southward become in the highest degree uncertain, hazy, interrupted, and even the points of the compass scarcely to be relied on. Then, after the break, we find him again in some spots that can with sufficient certainty be identified and localised ; but the gleam is transient, and obscurity soon interposes between these and the Phaeacian resting-place from which, sleeping, unconscious, darkling, he is borne in a self-guided vessel with mysterious conductors on his latest voyage home.

The general conclusion that has been drawn often before from this can scarcely be contravened — that the original audience of the poet had not the familiarity with the Western regions that comes of perpetual intercourse between kindred tribes— little or none of the familiarity that we find in the Iliad has attached descriptive epithets, accurate to this day, to every site and rock that is mentioned in Central Greece or bordering on the ^Egean. And history has ui-11 authenticated testimony that leaves no doubt on ni.vr. i.] TIIK PAWN OF DISCOVERY. 7

tin1 point. It was only tardily, at dates certainly long a ft IT the composition of the poem — at dates indeed well known, that the overflowing population of settled Greece diffused itself in systematic colonisation westward. Previously, and for long continuance, it had turned to the eastern coasts of the ^Egean, and even the remoter coasts of the Euxine ; and these colonies had founded colonies again before Hellenic enterprise undertook systematically to plant a firm and frequent foot either in Italy or Sicily.

But adventure of merchant, of pirate, of merchant pirate, has scope for many a long year before the colonisation that it even discourages while inevitably opening a way for it. Italy and Sicily were probably long to the Greek of the western coasts, and sometimes of the eastern, what the Spanish Main continued to be, for a period, to the English colonisers of North America, to rovers and buccaneers from home. The obscurity that nevertheless continued seems to have owed something to a recognised policy of the ancient trader, who guarded an effectively exclusive privilege to trade, by concealing his route to an emporium or exaggerating its dangers.

Out of such a state of things come some certainties mul many wild tales — tales that are sure to be improved as retold, and that tradition and imagination at last are not disposed to resign out of respect t<> lii-ttiT knowledge and prosaic matters of fact. The piu.-t, like the poetically gifted novelist — I had almost

8 THE UISTORY OF SICILY. [CHAP. i.

said historian — of later times, saves them for imagination by combining some verities, while he elaborates the fiction; and we ought to be aware by this time that when poetical effect is at stake, an historical fact must be notorious indeed if it is not sacrificed by fiction without scruple, and unchallenged too.

Sicels are twice mentioned in the Odyssey, and each time in connection with traffic in slaves. The suitors advise Telemachus to ship off his very undesirable and unprofitable guests— one of them happens to be his father in disguise — and sell them to the Sicels, who will give a good market price ; Laertes is tended in his age by an aged Sicel female slave, wife of his servant Dolius. In historical times we find an asylum for the refuge of slaves at the native Sicel sanctuary of Palike in Sicily, and under circumstances that argue a primitive date for the institution. The presumption, however, in favour of identity of races would of course hold good equally, though the seat of the Homeric Sicels were not Sicily — as I think more probable — but Italy or elsewhere.

In the same last book of the Odyssey we have Ulysses fabricating a tale how he — Eperitus son of Apheidas, son of Polypemonides, as he styles himself — driven to Ithaca by cross winds, was of origin from Alybas in Sicania, where he assures Laertes that five years previously he had seen his absent son. The string of personal names — mere insinuated evidence that the wanderer belonged to a family that could

CHAP, i.] HOMERIC SICAMA. 9

boast of grandfathers — have been put to the torture for significant information, but in vain, and they confess nothing. There may be something more in the conjunction of Alybas and Sicania — even an argument that Sicania was the Homeric name of Sicily, unless we are to disallow the originality of this last book, a question that I put aside; Alybas has remarkable assonance with the tribal Ely mi, the historical neighbours of the Sicans at the west of the island; and conversely again, the Trojan origin persistently ascribed to these Ely mi directs us to an Alybe not remote from Mysia, whence come allies to Hector catalogued as Alizonians.

Remarkable monumental confirmations of the traditional movements of populations from Asia Minor to Sicily will meet us hereafter. But it is by following Ulysses as a navigator that we come upon the clearest traces of a knowledge of Sicily, and also of limiting ignorance — a little uncertain, whether real or assumed.

o

It is just before passing over into decided fable land that we find on our way unquestionable local allusions in the highly wrought, highly exaggerated description of the perils of a strait which can only be that between Italy and Sicily, the rock of Scylla, the current and whirlpool of Charybdis; that this is a heightened study after the natural scene has never been seriously disputed, however the significance of local knowledge in such a critical instance has been overlooked, even after its admission, not to say eluded. The instance is particularly valuable as giving a certain scale for the liberty of embellishment the poet allowed himself, even when his information was most exact. Successful navigators through this strait surely knew not only the existence of peninsula and island, but did not make the passage for nothing, and told either truth or falsehood as pleased or suited them, of coasts on either side and beyond ; and the poet certainly lay under no obligation to be more scrupulous.

For him the entrance of the strait from the west is between the rocks of Scylla and Charybdis ; the rock of Scylla, as he describes it, rises to a sharp peak at an immense height always hidden in clouds ; its sides are so smooth and polished as to be inaccessible to man, though clambering with twenty hands and feet. In the middle of the rock, high up beyond flight of arrow, was the cave haunted by the monster Scylla, barking hideously fronvsix dire heads, and watching to extend them, long necked, open-mouthed, to seize in their triple rows of teeth six sailors from any vessel imprudently approaching.

Smyth, as becomes a sailor, makes very light indeed of the terrors of Scylla, and indeed of the navigation of the strait generally, which nevertheless by his own showing, but for his constantly extenuating clauses, would seem to be still troublesome enough. " I as a sailor," he says, "never perceived any difference between the effect of the surges here and on any other coast, yet I have frequently watched it closely in bad weather. It is now, as I presume it ever was, a common rock of

.] SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 11

bold approach, a little worn at its base, and surmounted by a castle with a sandy bay on each side." He continues : "A tolerable road leads up, though the steepness of ascent in various places renders many windings necessary ; the neighbourhood is exceedingly romantic, and there are many public buildings, but they often suffer so severely by lightning, especially the castle, that fatal accidents are frequent " (pp. 107-8).

The frequency of such storms implies the thunder that would explain perhaps the uproar ascribed to Scylla. " The steepness of the beaches " that is mentioned by Smyth further on seems to have helped the notion of inaccessibility.

The other opposite rock in Homer's description is lower — a wild fig tree is upon it, and below it Charybdis sucks down the dark water ; thrice a day she sends it up and thrice sucks it down again fearfully. At this moment not Poseidon himself could save the vessel, and the advice of Circe is that Ulysses should rather hug the opposite shore, and abide the inevitable ravage of Scylla.

The modern hydrographer supplies this description : " Outside the tongue of land, or Braccio di St. Rainiere, that forms the harbour of Messina, lies the Galofaro or celebrated vortex of Charybdis, which has, with more reason than Scylla, been clothed with terrors by the writers of antiquity. To the undecked boats of the IJhc-ians, Locrians, Zancleans and Greeks it must have been formidable; for even in the present day small craft are sometimes endangered by it, and I have seen several men-of-war, and even a seventy-four gun ship, whirled round on its surface. It appears to be an agitated water of from seventy to ninety fathoms in depth, circling in quick eddies. It is owing probably to the meeting of the harbour and lateral currents with the main one, the latter being forced over in this direction by the opposite point of Pezzo." (Smyth, Sicily, p. 123.)

Smyth testifies also to the accuracy of the following notice by Thucydides: —

" The strait in question is the sea that is between Rhegium and Messene, where Sicily is at least distance from the continent; and this is the so-called Chary bdis where Ulysses is said to have sailed through ; it is from its narrowness and the currents caused by inrush from the open Tyrrhene and Sicilian seas, that it has naturally become accounted dangerous." (Thucyd. 4; 24.)

The tone of this paragraph carries a rebuke of the fabulous which, as the original audience of Herodotus were contemporaries of Thucydides, might not be thrown away.

As other incidents of the Channel, we read : — " In settled seasons there is a central stream runnin^ north and south at the rate of from two to five miles an hour —on each side there is a counter or returning set at uncertain distances from the beach, often forming eddies to the central current. Though properly speaking only a current, it is go\vnn -«1, when not influenced by strong

.-MAP. i.] HOMERIC GEOGRAPHY. 13

winds, by the moon. When the main current runs to the northward it is called the ascending or flood, and the contrary the descending or ebb. There is usually an interval of from 15 to 60 minutes between the changes, and the tide runs six hours each way." Baffling winds and heavy gusts from the mountainous coasts are admitted to endanger smaller vessels.

The correspondence between the poetry and the prose in respect of the frequency of flux and reflux — sucking down and regorging — transgresses no licence th.it adventurous fiction does not always allow itself with scientific description, and is altogether far too definite to be challenged as not localised with certainty.

The poet makes the very most of the strait and its perils ; he takes Ulysses through them, first with his full ship's company, and then back again, as an isolated waif on a mass of drifting wreck ; so he obtains a double adventure, with Scylla first, and the second time with the ingulfing whirlpool. To this necessity for an artistic object, well-known geography had, I believe, a little to give way, and its lines were blurred accordingly to mask the inconsistency. This will appear if we follow forth, as well as we may, the course of his navigation both before and afterwards.