[6] He tells us also, that the Ethiopians are far removed, and bounded by the ocean: far removed,—
The Ethiopians, utmost of mankind,
These eastward situate, those toward the west.
1
Odyssey i. 23
Nor was he mistaken in calling them separated into two divisions, as we shall presently show: and next to the ocean,—
For to the banks of the Oceanus,
Where Ethiopia holds a feast to Jove,
He journey’d yesterday.
2
Iliad i. 423
Speaking of the Bear, he implies that the most northern part of the earth is bounded by the ocean:
Only star of these denied
To slake his beams in Ocean’s briny baths.
3
Iliad xviii. 489; Odyssey v. 275.
Now, by the
Bear and the
Wain, he means the Arctic Circle; otherwise he would never have said,
It
alone is deprived of the baths of the ocean, when such an
infinity of stars is to be seen continually revolving in that part of the hemisphere. Let no one any longer blame his ignorance for being merely acquainted with one Bear, when there are two. It is probable that the second was not considered a constellation until, on the Phoenicians specially designating it, and employing it in navigation, it became known as one to the Greeks.
4
Such is the case with the Hair of Berenice, and Canopus, whose names are but of yesterday; and, as Aratus remarks, there are numbers which have not yet received any designation. Crates, therefore, is mistaken when, endeavouring to amend what is correct, he reads the verse thus:
οἷος δ’ ἄμμορός ἐστι λοετρῶν,
replacing
οἴη by
οἶς, with a view to make the adjective agree
with the Arctic Circle, which is masculine; instead of the Arctic Constellation, which is feminine. The expression of Heraclitus is far more preferable and Homeric, who thus figuratively describes the Arctic Circle as the Bear,—
The Bear is the limit of the dawn and of the evening, and from the region of the Bear we have fine weather. Now it is not the constellation of the Bear, but the Arctic Circle, which is the limit of the rising and the setting stars.