1. Herodotus, Histories, 1.202 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 1.202. The Araxes is said by some to be greater and by some to be less than the Ister. It is reported that there are many islands in it as big as Lesbos, and men on them who in summer live on roots of all kinds that they dig up, and in winter on fruit that they have got from trees when it was ripe and stored for food; ,and they know (it is said) of trees bearing a fruit whose effect is this: gathering in groups and kindling a fire, the people sit around it and throw the fruit into the flames; then the fumes of it as it burns make them drunk as the Greeks are with wine, and more and more drunk as more fruit is thrown on the fire, until at last they rise up to dance and even sing. Such is said to be their way of life. ,The Araxes flows from the country of the Matieni (as does the Gyndes, which Cyrus divided into the three hundred and sixty channels) and empties itself through forty mouths, of which all except one issue into bogs and swamps, where men are said to live whose food is raw fish, and their customary dress sealskins. ,The one remaining stream of the Araxes flows in a clear channel into the Caspian sea .This is a sea by itself, not joined to the other sea. For that on which the Greeks sail, and the sea beyond the pillars of Heracles, which they call Atlantic, and the Red Sea, are all one: |
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4. Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, 2.47.1-2.47.6 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 2.47.1. Now for our part, since we have seen fit to make mention of the regions of Asia which lie to the north, we feel that it will not be foreign to our purpose to discuss the legendary accounts of the Hyperboreans. of those who have written about the ancient myths, Hecataeus and certain others say that in the regions beyond the land of the Celts there lies in the ocean an island no smaller than Sicily. This island, the account continues, is situated in the north and is inhabited by the Hyperboreans, who are called by that name because their home is beyond the point whence the north wind (Boreas) blows; and the island is both fertile and productive of every crop, and since it has an unusually temperate climate it produces two harvests each year. 2.47.2. Moreover, the following legend is told concerning it: Leto was born on this island, and for that reason Apollo is honoured among them above all other gods; and the inhabitants are looked upon as priests of Apollo, after a manner, since daily they praise this god continuously in song and honour him exceedingly. And there is also on the island both a magnificent sacred precinct of Apollo and a notable temple which is adorned with many votive offerings and is spherical in shape. 2.47.3. Furthermore, a city is there which is sacred to this god, and the majority of its inhabitants are players on the cithara; and these continually play on this instrument in the temple and sing hymns of praise to the god, glorifying his deeds. 2.47.4. The Hyperboreans also have a language, we informed, which is peculiar to them, and are most friendly disposed towards the Greeks, and especially towards the Athenians and the Delians, who have inherited this good-will from most ancient times. The myth also relates that certain Greeks visited the Hyperboreans and left behind them there costly votive offerings bearing inscriptions in Greek letters. 2.47.5. And in the same way Abaris, a Hyperborean, came to Greece in ancient times and renewed the good-will and kinship of his people to the Delians. They say also that the moon, as viewed from this island, appears to be but a little distance from the earth and to have upon it prominences, like those of the earth, which are visible to the eye. 2.47.6. The account is also given that the god visits the island every nineteen years, the period in which the return of the stars to the same place in the heavens is accomplished; and for this reason the nineteen-year period is called by the Greeks the "year of Meton." At the time of this appearance of the god he both plays on the cithara and dances continuously the night through from the vernal equinox until the rising of the Pleiades, expressing in this manner his delight in his successes. And the kings of this city and the supervisors of the sacred precinct are called Boreadae, since they are descendants of Boreas, and the succession to these positions is always kept in their family. |
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9. Strabo, Geography, 7.3.6
| 7.3.6. Now although such difficulties as these might fairly be raised concerning what is found in the text of Homer about the Mysians and the proud Hippemolgi, yet what Apollodorus states in the preface to the Second Book of his work On Ships can by no means be asserted; for he approves the declaration of Eratosthenes, that although both Homer and the other early authors knew the Greek places, they were decidedly unacquainted with those that were far away, since they had no experience either in making long journeys by land or in making voyages by sea. And in support of this Apollodorus says that Homer calls Aulis rocky (and so it is), and Eteonus place of many ridges, and Thisbe haunt of doves, and Haliartus grassy, but, he says, neither Homer nor the others knew the places that were far away. At any rate, he says, although about forty rivers now into the Pontus, Homer mentions not a single one of those that are the most famous, as, for example, the Ister, the Tanais, the Borysthenes, the Hypanis, the Phasis, the Thermodon, the Halys; and, besides, he does not mention the Scythians, but invents certain proud Hippemolgi and Galactophagi and Abii; and as for the Paphlagonians of the interior, he reports what he has learned from those who have approached the regions afoot, but he is ignorant of the seaboard, and naturally so, for at that time this sea was not navigable, and was called Axine because of its wintry storms and the ferocity of the tribes that lived around it, and particularly the Scythians, in that they sacrificed strangers, ate their flesh, and used their skulls as drinking-cups; but later it was called Euxine, when the Ionians founded cities on the seaboard. And, likewise, Homer is also ignorant of the facts about Egypt and Libya, as, for example, about the risings of the Nile and the silting up of the sea, things which he nowhere mentions; neither does he mention the isthmus between the Erythraean Sea and the Egyptian Seas, nor the regions of Arabia and Ethiopia and the ocean, unless one should give heed to Zeno the philosopher when he writes, And I came to the Ethiopians and Sidonians and Arabians. 9 But this ignorance in Homer's case is not amazing, for those who have lived later than he have been ignorant of many things and have invented marvellous tales: Hesiod, when he speaks of men who are half-dog, of long-headed men, and of Pygmies; and Alcman, when he speaks of web footed men; and Aeschylus, when he speaks of dog-headed men, of men with eyes in their breasts, and of one-eyed men (in his Prometheus it is said); and a host of other tales. From these men he proceeds against the historians who speak of the Rhipaean Mountains, and of Mt. Ogyium, and of the settlement of the Gorgons and Hesperides, and of the Land of Meropis in Theopompus, and the City of Cimmeris in Hecataeus, and the Land of Panchaea in Euhemerus, and in Aristotle the river-stones, which are formed of sand but are melted by the rains. And in Libya, Apollodorus continues, there is a City of Dionysus which it is impossible for the same man ever to find twice. He censures also those who speak of the Homeric wanderings of Odysseus as having been in the neighborhood of Sicily; for in that case, says he, one should go on and say that, although the wanderings took place there, the poet, for the sake of mythology, placed them out in Oceanus. And, he adds, the writers in general can be pardoned, but Callimachus cannot be pardoned at all, because he makes a pretence of being a scholar; for he calls Gaudos the Isle of Calypso and Corcyra Scheria. And others he charges with falsifying about Gerena, and Aeacesium, and Demus in Ithaca, and about Pelethronium in Pelion, and about Glaucopium in Athens. To these criticisms Apollodorus adds some petty ones of like sort and then stops, but he borrowed most of them from Eratosthenes, and as I have remarked before they are wrong. For while one must concede to Eratosthenes and Apollodorus that the later writers have shown themselves better acquainted with such matters than the men of early times, yet to proceed beyond all moderation as they do, and particularly in the case of Homer, is a thing for which, as it seems to me, one might justly rebuke them and make the reverse statement: that where they are ignorant themselves, there they reproach the poet with ignorance. However, what remains to be said on this subject meets with appropriate mention in my detailed descriptions of the several countries, as also in my general description. |
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