Sicily itself was just known only as
the land of wonders and fables, though the fable of the Cyclops, who lived
in it, evidently must nave been derived from some obscure report of its
volcano. The fables Homer relates respecting countries to the west of
Sicily, cannot even be regarded as having any connection with, or
resemblance to the truth. Beyond the Euxine also, in the other direction,
all is fable. Colchis seems to have been known, though not so accurately as
the recent Argonautic expedition might have led us to suppose it would have
been. The west coast of Asia Minor, the scene of his great poem, is of
course completely within his knowledge; the Phoenicians and Egyptians are
particularly described, the former for their purple stuffs, gold and silver
works, maritime science and commercial skill, and cunning; the latter for
their river Egyptos, and their knowledge of medicine. To the west of Egypt
he places Lybia, where he says the lambs are born with horns, and the sheep
bring forth three times a year.
In the Odyssey he conducts Neptune into Ethiopia; and the account he gives
seems to warrant the belief, that by the Ethiopians he meant not merely the
Ethiopians of Africa, but the inhabitants of India: we know that the
ancients, even so late as the time of Strabo and Ptolemy, considered all
those nations as Ethiopians who lived upon the southern ocean from east to
west; or, as Ptolemy expresses it, that under the zodiac, from east to
west, inhabit the inhabitants black of colour.
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