Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3

There are even etymological signs, independent of Homer, which deepen the association between the East and the Under-world. Some writers have compared the name Cimmeria with the Arabic word kahm, black, and ra, the mark of the oblique case in Persian: Mæotis with the Hebrew Maweth, meaning death: and have treated the ancient Tartarus as equivalent to the modern Tartary, and as formed by the reduplication of Tar, in Tarik, the Persic word for darkness⁶⁴⁸.

Contraction of the Homeric East.

Next let me wind up what relates to the contraction and compression of the Homeric East.

Homer’s experience did not supply him with any example of a great expanse of land: but the detail and configuration of the countries, with which he was acquainted, was minute. This probably was the reason why he so readily assumed the existence of that sea to the northward of Thrace, in which he has placed the adventures of Ulysses. To that sea, as we perceive from the terms of days which he has assigned to the passages of Ulysses, he attached his ideas and his epithets for vastness; epithets, which he never bestowed on regions of land; and ideas, which were sure, indeed, to form a prominent feature in the Phœnician reports, that must have supplied him with material. Acting on the same principle, it would appear that he greatly shortens the range of Asia Minor eastwards. Through the medium of the Solymi (Il. vi. 184, 204) he appears to bring the Solyman mountains close upon Lycia. A chain now bearing that name skirts the right bank of the Indus: but it is probable that Homer identified, or rather confounded, them with the great chain of the Caucasus between the Euxine and the Caspian, and with the Taurus joining it, and bordering upon Lycia: for, on the one hand, we cannot but connect them with the Solymi, the warlike neighbours of the Lycians: and on the other, since Neptune, from these mountains, sees Ulysses making his homeward voyage from Ogygia, it follows that they must have been conceived by Homer to command a clear view of the Euxine, and of its westward extension. Thus he at once brings Egypt nearer to Crete (helping us to explain the Boreas of Od. xiv. 253), and Phœnicia nearer to Lycia: and it is in all likelihood immediately behind Phœnicia that he imagined to lie the country of the Persians and the ἄλσεα Περσεφονείης (Od. x. 507), on the shore of that eastern portion of Oceanus, for which the reports both of the Caspian and of the Red Sea, probably, as we have seen, have formed parts of his materials. Thus we find much and varied evidence converging to support the hypothesis, that Homer greatly compressed his East, and brought Persia within moderate distance of the Mediterranean.

In the obscure perspectives of Grecian legend, we seem to find various points of contact between Egypt, Phœnicia, and Persia; and each of these points of contact favours the idea that Persia and Phœnicia were closely associated in Homer’s mind.

Proteus, a Phœnician sea-god, is placed only at a short distance from the Egyptian coast. Helios, strongly associated with Egypt through his oxen, is associated with Phœnicia and with the remoter east by his relationship to Circe, and by his residence, the ἀντολαὶ Ἠελίοιο. And again, from the family of Danaus, a reputed Egyptian, descends Perseus, in whose name we find a note of relationship between the Persians and the Greeks. Lycia, too, is near the Solymi, and the Solyman hills are really Persian. Here is a new ray of light cast on Homer’s passion for the Lycians of the War⁶⁴⁹.

A few words more will suffice to complete a probable view of the terrestrial system of Homer.

The Ocean surrounds the earth. On its south-eastern beach are the groves of Persephone, and the descent to the Shades: on its north-western, the Elysian plain. The whole southern range between is occupied by the Αἰθίοπες, who stretch from the rising to the setting sun⁶⁵⁰. The natural counterpart in the cold north to their sun-burnt swarthy faces is to be found in the Cimmerians, Homer’s Children of the Mist⁶⁵¹. Accordingly, they are placed by the Ocean mouth, hard by the island of Circe and the Dawn; nearly in contact, therefore, with the Ethiopians of the extreme east. Two hypotheses seem to be suggested by Homer’s treatment of the north. Perhaps Homer imagined that the Cimmerians occupied the northern portion of the earth from east to west, as the Ethiopians occupied the southern: a very appropriate conjecture for the disposal of the country from the Crimea to the Cwmri. On the other hand, it seems plain that Homer must have received from his Phœnician informants two reports, both ascribed to the North, yet apparently contradictory: the one of countries without day, the other of countries without night. The true solution, could he have known it, was by time; each being true of the same place, but at different seasons of the year. Not aware of the facts, Homer has adopted another method. While preserving the northern locality for both traditions, he has planted the one in the north-west, at the craggy city of Lamus; and the other in the north-east, together with his Cimmerians.

Outline of his terrestrial system.

On the foundation of the conclusions and inferences at which we have thus arrived, I have endeavoured to construct a map of the Homeric World. The materials of this map are of necessity very different. First, there is the inner or Greek world of geography proper, of which the surface is coloured in red.

Next, there are certain forms of sea and land, genuine, but wholly or partially misplaced, which may be recognised by their general likeness to their originals in Nature.

Thirdly, there is the great mass of fabulous and imaginative skiagraphy, which, for the sake of distinction, is drawn in smooth instead of indented outline.

The Map represents, without any very important variation, the Homeric World drawn according to the foregoing argument. To facilitate verification, or the detection of error, I have made it carry, as far as possible, its own evidences, in the inscriptions and references upon it.

EXCURSUS I.
ON THE PARENTAGE AND EXTRACTION OF MINOS

In former portions of this work, I have argued from the name and the Phœnician extraction of Minos, both to illustrate the dependent position of the Pelasgian race in the Greek countries⁶⁵², and also to demonstrate the Phœnician origin of the Outer Geography of the Odyssey⁶⁵³. But I have too summarily disposed of the important question, whether Minos was of Phœnician origin, and of the construction of the verse Il. xiv. 321. This verse is capable grammatically of being so construed as to contain an assertion of it; but upon further consideration I am not prepared to maintain that it ought to be so interpreted.

Genuineness of Il. xiv. 317-27.

The Alexandrian critics summarily condemned the whole passage (Il. xiv. 317-27), in which Jupiter details to Juno his various affairs with goddesses and women. ‘This enumeration,’ says the Scholiast (A) on verse 327, ‘is inopportune, for it rather repels Juno than attracts her: and Jupiter, when greedy, through the influence of the Cestus, for the satisfaction of his passion, makes a long harangue.’ Heyne follows up the censure with a yet more sweeping condemnation. Sanè absurdiora, quam hos decem versus, vix unquam ullus commentus est rhapsodus⁶⁵⁴. And yet he adds a consideration, which might have served to arrest judgment until after further hearing. For he says, that the commentators upon them ought to have taken notice that the description belongs to a period, when the relations of man and wife were not such, as to prevent the open introduction and parading of concubines; and that Juno might be flattered and allured by a declaration, proceeding from Jupiter, of the superiority of her charms to those of so many beautiful persons.

Heyne’s reason appears to me so good, as even to outweigh his authority: but there are other grounds also, on which I decline to bow to the proposed excision. The objections taken seem to me invalid on the following grounds;

1. For the reason stated by Heyne.

2. Because, in the whole character of the Homeric Juno, and in the whole of this proceeding, it is the political spirit, and not the animal tendency, that predominates. Of this Homer has given us distinct warning, where he tells us that Juno just before had looked on Jupiter from afar, and that he was disgusting to her; (v. 158) στυγερὸς δέ οἱ ἔπλετο θυμῷ. It is therefore futile to argue about her, as if she had been under the paramount sway either of animal desire, or even of the feminine love of admiration, when she was really and exclusively governed by another master-passion.

3. As she has artfully persuaded Jupiter, that he has an obstacle to overcome in diverting her from her intention of travelling to a distance, it is not at all unnatural that Jupiter should use what he thinks, and what, as Heyne has shown, he may justly think, to be proper and special means of persuasion.

4. The passage is carefully and skilfully composed; and it ends with a climax, so as to give the greatest force to the compliment of which it is susceptible.

5. All the representations in it harmonize with the manner of handling the same personages elsewhere in Homer.

6. The passage has that strong vein of nationality, which is so eminently characteristic of Homer. No intrigues are mentioned, except such as issued in the birth of children of recognised Hellenic fame. The gross animalism of Jupiter, displayed in the Speech, is in the strictest keeping with the entire context; for it is the basis of the transaction, and gives Juno the opportunity she so adroitly turns to account.

7. Those, who reject the passage as spurious, because the action ought not at this point to be loaded with a speech, do not, I think, bear in mind that a deviation of this kind from the strict poetical order is really in keeping with Homer’s practice on other occasions, particularly in the disquisitions of Nestor and of Phœnix. Such a deviation appears to be accounted for by his historic aims. To comprehend him in a case of this kind, we must set out from his point of departure, according to which, verse was not a mere exercise for pleasure, but was to be the one great vehicle of all knowledge: and a potent instrument in constructing a nationality. Thus, then, what the first aim rejected, the second might in given cases accept and even require. Now in this short passage there is a great deal of important historical information conveyed to us.

We may therefore with considerable confidence employ such evidence as the speech may be found to afford.

Let us, then, observe the forms of expression as they run in series,

 
οὐδ’ ὁπότ’ ἠρασάμην Ἰξιονίης ἀλόχοιο⁶⁵⁵.
οὐδ’ ὅτε περ Δανάης καλλισφύρου Ἀκρισιώνης⁶⁵⁶.
οὐδ’ ὅτε Φοίνικος κούρης τηλεκλείτοιο⁶⁵⁷.
 

Sense of Il. xiv. 321.

Taken grammatically, I presume the last verse may mean, (1) The daughter of the distinguished Phœnix: or (2) The daughter of a distinguished Phœnician: or (3) A distinguished Phœnician damsel.

a. Against the first it may be urged, that we have no other account from Homer, or from any early tradition, of this Phœnix, here described as famous.

b. Against the second and third, that Homer nowhere directly declares the foreign origin of any great Greek personage.

c. Also, that in each of the previous cases, Homer has used the proper name of a person nearly connected in order to indicate and identity the woman, whom therefore it is not likely that he would in this single case denote only by her nation, or the nation of her father.

d. Against the third, that, in the only other passage where he has to speak of a Phœnician woman, he uses a feminine form, Φοίνισσα: ἔσκε δὲ πατρὸς ἐμοῖο γυνὴ Φοίνισσ’ ἐνὶ οἴκῳ (Od. xv. 417). But Φοίνιξ is grammatically capable of the feminine, as is shown by Herod. i. 193⁶⁵⁸.

e. Also that Homer, in the few instances where he uses the word τηλεκλειτὸς, confines it to men. He, however, gives the epithet ἐρικυδὴς to Latona.

The arguments from the structure of the passage, and from the uniform reticence of Homer respecting the foreign origin of Greek personages, convince me that it is not on the whole warrantable to interpret Φοίνιξ in this place in any other manner, than as the name of the father of Minos.

The name Φοίνιξ, however, taken in connection with the period to which it applies – nearly three generations before the Troica– still continues to supply of itself no trifling presumption of the Phœnician origin of Minos.

It cannot, I suppose, be doubted that the original meaning of Φοίνιξ, when first used as a proper name in Greece, probably was ‘of Phœnician birth, or origin.’ But, if we are to judge by the testimony of Homer, the time, when Minos lived, was but very shortly after the first Phœnician arrivals in Greece; and his grandfather Phœnix, living four and a half generations before the Troica, was in all likelihood contemporary with, or anterior to, Cadmus. At a period when the intercourse of the two countries was in its infancy, we may, I think, with some degree of confidence construe this proper name as indicating the country of origin.

Collateral evidence.

The other marks connected with Minos and his history give such support to this presumption as to bring the supposition up to reasonable certainty. Such are,

1. The connection with Dædalus.

2. The tradition of the nautical power of Minos.

3. The characteristic epithet ὀλοόφρων; as also its relation to the other Homeric personages with whose name it is joined.

4. The fact that Minos brought a more advanced form of laws and polity among a people of lower social organization; the proof thus given that he belonged to a superior race: the probability that, if this race had been Hellenic, Homer would have distinctly marked the connection of so distinguished a person with the Hellenic stem: and the apparent certainty that, if not Hellenic, it could only be Phœnician.

The positive Homeric grounds for believing Minos to be Phœnician are much stronger, than any that sustain the same belief in the case of Cadmus: and the negative objection, that Homer does not call him by the name of the country from which he sprang, is in fact an indication of the Poet’s uniform practice of drawing the curtain over history or legend, at the point where a longer perspective would have the effect of exhibiting any Greek hero as derived from a foreign source, and thus of confuting that claim to autochthonism which, though it is not much his way to proclaim such matters in the abstract, yet appears to have operated with Homer as a practical principle of considerable weight.

EXCURSUS II.
ON THE LINE ODYSS. V. 277

I have the less scruple in making the verse Od. v. 277 the subject of a particular inquiry, because the chief elements of the discussion are important with reference to the laws of Homeric Greek, as well as with regard to that adjustment of the Outer Geography, which I have supported by a detailed application to every part of the narrative of the Odyssey, and which I at once admit is in irreconcilable conflict with the popular construction of the account of the voyage from Ogygia to Scheria, as far as it depends upon this particular verse.

The passage is⁶⁵⁹ (the τὴν referring to Ἄρκτον in v. 273)

 
τὴν γὰρ δή μιν ἄνωγε Καλυψὼ, δῖα θεάων,
ποντοπορευέμεναι ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ χειρὸς ἔχοντα.
 

The points upon which the signification of the last line must depend, seem to be as follows:

1. The meaning of the important Homeric word ἀριστερός.

2. The form of the phrase ἀριστερὰ χειρὸς, which is an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον in Homer.

3. The force of the preposition ἐπὶ, particularly with the accusative.

The second of these points may be speedily dismissed. For (1) the only question that can arise upon it would be, whether (assuming for the moment the sense of ἀριστερὸς) ‘the left of his hand’ means the left of the line described by the onward movement of his body, or the left of the direction in which his hand, that is, his right or steering hand, points while upon the helm; which would be the exact reverse of the former. But, though the latter interpretation would be grammatically accurate, it is too minute and subtle, as respects the sense, to agree with Homer’s methods of expression. And (2) some of the Scholiasts report another reading, νηὸς, instead of χειρὸς, which would present no point of doubt or suspicion under this head.

We have then two questions to consider; of which the first is the general use and treatment by Homer of the word ἀριστερός.

Senses of δεξιὸς and ἀριστερός.

It appears to me well worth consideration whether the δεξιὸς and ἀριστερὸς of Homer ought not, besides the senses of right and left, to be acknowledged capable of the senses of east and west respectively.

The word ἀριστερὸς takes the sense of left by way of derivation and second intention only.

The word σκαιὸς is that, which etymologically and primarily expresses the function of the left hand. The use of this as the principal hand is abnormal, and places the body as it were askew (compare σκάζω, scævus, schief)⁶⁶⁰. In Homer the only word used singly, i. e. without a substantive, to express the left hand is σκαιός. At the same time, we cannot draw positive conclusions from this fact, because ἀριστερὸς could not stand in the hexameter to represent a feminine noun singular, on account of the laws of metre, which in this point are inflexible.

Σκαιῇ means the left hand in Il. i. 501. xvi. 734. xxi. 490. This adjective is but once used in Homer except for the hand: viz., in Od. iii. 295 we have σκαιὸν ῥίον for ‘the foreland on the left.’ But Σκαιαὶ πύλαι may have meant originally the left hand gates of Troy.

The application of δεξιὸς to the right hand (from which we may consider δεξιτερὸς as an adaptation for metrical purposes), is to be sufficiently accounted for, because it was the hand by which greetings were exchanged, and engagements contracted⁶⁶¹. But it is not so with ἀριστερός: and while we contemplate the subject in regard only to the uses of the member, the word σκαιὸς remains perfectly unexceptionable, and even highly expressive and convenient, in its function of expressing the left hand.

It appears that the Greek augurs, in estimating the signification of omens, were accustomed to stand with their faces northwards; or rather, I presume, with their faces set towards a point midway between sunset and sunrise. The most common descriptions of omen in the time of Homer appear to have been (1) the flight of birds, and (2) the apparition of thunder and lightning. The test of a good moving omen was, that it should proceed from the west, and move to the east; and of a bad moving omen, that it should proceed from the east, and move to the west. Possibly we may trace in this conception the cosmogonical arrangement, which planted in the West the Elysian plain, and in the East the dismal and semi-penal domain of Aidoneus and Persephone. Possibly the brightness of the sun, which caused the East to be regarded as the fountain of light, may be the foundation of it: together, on the other hand, with that close visible association between the West and darkness, which the sunset of each day brought before the eyes of men; so that to lie πρὸς ζόφον meant to lie towards the West, and was the regular opposite of lying towards the sun⁶⁶².

Whatever may have been the basis of the doctrine of the augurs, there grew up an established association (1) between the west and what was ill-omened or evil, and through this (2) between what was ill-omened or evil and the left side of a man. The west was unlucky, because the science of augury made it so. The left hand was unlucky, because in the inspection of omens it was western. One half of the objects in the world, and of the actions of the human body, thus lay, from their position relatively to omens, under an incubus of ill-fortune. It was retrieved from this threatening condition, by an euphemism; by the application of a word not merely innocent⁶⁶³, but preeminently good. Everything covered by the blight of evil omen was to be, not only not harmful, but ἀριστερὸς, better than the best. Consequently it would appear that the word ἀριστερὸς probably meant westerly, before it could mean on the left hand: because not the left hand only, but everything westerly, was within the range of the evil to which it was intended to apply a remedy.

In a passage like Il. vii. 238, the meaning of δεξιὸς and ἀριστερὸς is, plainly, right and left. But what is it in the speech of Hector, where he tells Polydamas that he cares not for omens⁶⁶⁴,

 
εἴτ’ ἐπὶ δεξί’ ἴωσι πρὸς Ἠῶ τ’ Ἠέλιόν τε,
εἴτ’ ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ τοίγε ποτὶ ζόφον ἠερόεντα.
 

In the first place, it is a more appropriate, because more direct, method of description with respect to birds of omen to say, they fly eastward or westward, than that they fly to the right or the left hand: since the sense of right and left has no determinate standard of reference, but requires the aid of an assumption that the person is actually looking to the north, so that the words may thus become equivalent to east and west. But in this case, which is one of warriors on the battle-field, would there not be something rather incongruous in interpolating the suggestion of their turning northwards as they spoke, in order to give the proper meaning to these two words? We must surely conceive of Hector standing on the battle-field with his face towards the enemy, if we are to take his posture into view at all. If he stood thus, he would look, as far as we can judge, to the west of north. Now the ζόφος was the north-west with Homer, and not the west: and, conversely, the Ἠὼς inclined to the south of east. In this way he would nearly have his face to the former, and his back to the latter; and if so the meaning of right and left would be not only farfetched, but wholly improper, while the meaning of east and west would be no less correct than natural.

I must add, that there are other places in Homer where difficulty arises, if we are only permitted to construe δεξιὸς and ἀριστερὸς by right and left. I will even venture to say, that there are passages in the Thirteenth Book which render the topography of the battle that it describes, not only obscure, but even contradictory, if ἀριστερὸς in them means left; and which become perfectly harmonious if we allowed to understand it as signifying west.

Illustrated from Il. xiii.

These are respectively Il. xiii. 675 and 765.

In order to apprehend the case, it will be necessary to follow closely the movement of the battle through most of the Book.

1. Il. xiii. 126-9: The Ajaxes are opposed to Hector, νηυσὶν ἐν μέσσῃσιν, 312, 16.

2. The centre being thus provided for, Idomeneus proceeds to the left, στρατοῦ ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ (326), which is the station of Deiphobus; and makes havock in this quarter.

3. Deiphobus, instead of fighting Idomeneus, thinks it prudent to fetch Æneas, who is standing aloof, 458 and seqq.

4. Summoned by Deiphobus, Æneas comes with him, attended also by Paris and Agenor, 490.

5. They conjointly carry on the fight at that point, with indifferent success (495-673), but no decisive issue.

6. Hector, in the centre, remains ignorant that the Trojans were being worsted νηῶν ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ by the Greeks, 675.

7. By the advice of Polydamas he goes in search of other chiefs to consider what is to be done; of Paris among the rest, whom he finds, μάχης ἐπ’ ἀριστερά (765). With them he returns to the centre, 753, 802, 809.

Now the following propositions are, I think, sound:

1. When Homer thus speaks of ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ in Il. xiii. 326, 675, and 765, respectively, he evidently means to describe in all of them the same side of the battle-field. Where Idomeneus is, in 329, thither he brings Æneas in 469, who is attended at the time by Paris, 490; and there Paris evidently remains until summoned to the centre in 765.

2. If Homer speaks with reference to any particular combatant, of his being on the left or the right of the battle, he ought to mean the Greek left or right if the person be Greek, and the Trojan left or right if the person be Trojan.

3. This is actually the rule by which he proceeds elsewhere. For in the Fifth Book, when Mars is in the field on the Trojan side, he says, Minerva found him μάχης ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ, Il. v. 355. What is the point thus described, and how came he there? The answer is supplied by an earlier part of the same Book. In v. 35, Minerva led him out of the battle. In v. 36, she placed him by the shore of the Scamander; that is to say, on the Trojan left, and in a position to which, he being a Trojan combatant, the Poet gives the name of μάχης ἐπ’ ἀριστερά.

Now ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ is commonly interpreted ‘on the left.’ But if it means on the left in Il. xiii., then the passages are contradictory: because this would place Paris on both wings, whereas he obviously is described as on the same wing of the battle throughout.

But if we construe ἀριστερὸς as meaning the west in all the three passages, then we have the same meaning at once made available for all the three places, so that the account becomes self-consistent again; and if the meaning be ‘on the west,’ then we may understand that Idomeneus most naturally betakes himself to the west, because that was the quarter of the Myrmidons, where the Greek line was deprived of support. If, however, it be said, that the Greek left is meant throughout, then the expression in v. 765 is both contrary to what would seem reasonable, and at variance with Homer’s own precedent in the Fifth Book.

Thus there is considerable reason to suppose that, in Homer, ἀριστερὸς may sometimes mean ‘west.’ So that if ἐπὶ in Od. v. 277 really means ‘upon,’ the phrase will signify, that Ulysses was to have Arctus on the west side of him, which would place Ogygia in the required position to the east of north.

The force of ἐπὶ in Homer.

The point remaining for discussion is at once the most difficult and the most important. What is the true force of the Homeric ἐπί?

I find the senses of this preposition clearly and comprehensively treated in Jelf’s Greek Grammar, where the leading points of its various significations are laid down as follows⁶⁶⁵:

1. Its original force is upon, or on.

2. It is applied to place, time, or causation. Of these three, when treating of a geographical question, we need only consider the first with any minuteness.

3. Ἐπὶ, when used locally, means with the genitive (a) on or at, and (b) motion towards a place or thing. With the dative (a) on or at, and (b) by or near. With the accusative (a) towards, and (b) ‘extension in space over an object, as well with verbs of rest as of motion.’ Of this sense examples are quoted in πλεῖν ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον for verbs of motion, and ἐπ’ ἐννέα κεῖτο πέλεθρα for verbs of rest. Both are from Homer, in Il. vii. 83, and Od. xi. 577.

The Homeric ἐπὶ δεξιὰ and ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ are also quoted as examples of this last-named sense. But in Od. v. 277, if the meaning be on the left, it is plainly quite beyond these definitions: for so far from being an object extended over space, the star is, as it appears on the left, a luminous point, and nothing more. It was an extension over space, such as the eye has from a window over a prospect; but then that space is the space which lies over-against the star; so that if the space be on the left, the star must be looking towards the left indeed, but for that very reason set on the right. The difference here is most important in connection with the sense of the preposition. If ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ means on the left, it is only on a single point of the left; if it means towards or over-against the right, it means towards or over-against the whole right. Now, the former of these senses is, I contend, utterly out of keeping with the whole Homeric use of ἐπὶ as a preposition governing the accusative: while the latter is quite in keeping with it.

Force of ἐπὶ with ἀριστερά.

The idea of motion, physical or metaphysical, in some one or other of its modifications, appears to inhere essentially in the Homeric use of ἐπὶ with the accusative. In the great majority of instances, it is used with a verb of motion, which places the matter beyond all doubt. In almost all other instances, either the motion of a body, or some covering of space where there is no motion, are obviously involved. Thus the Zephyr (κελάδει⁶⁶⁶) whistles ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον. A hero, or a bevy of maidens, may shout ἐπὶ μακρόν⁶⁶⁷. The rim of a basket is covered with a plating of gold, χρυσῷ δ’ ἐπὶ χείλεα κεκράαντο: that is, the gold is drawn over it⁶⁶⁸. Achilles looks⁶⁶⁹ ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον. The sun appears to mortals ἐπὶ ζείδωρον ἄρουραν⁶⁷⁰. Here we should apparently understand ‘spread,’ or some equivalent word. We have ‘animals as many as are born’ ἐπὶ γαῖαν⁶⁷¹. Or, again, we have ‘may his glory be’ (spread) ἐπὶ ζείδωρον ἄρουραν⁶⁷². Again: ἐπὶ δηρὸν δέ μοι αἰὼν ἔσσεται is, ‘I shall live long⁶⁷³.’ And Achilles seated himself θῖν’ ἐφ’ ἁλὸς πολιῆς⁶⁷⁴. A dragon with a purple back is⁶⁷⁵ ἐπὶ νῶτα δάφοινος. The shoulders of Thersites, compressed against his chest, are, ἐπὶ στῆθος συνοχωκότε⁶⁷⁶. The horses of Admetus stand even with the rod across their backs⁶⁷⁷, σταφύλῃ ἐπὶ νῶτον ἐΐσας. I have not confined these examples to merely local cases, because a more varied illustration, I think, here enlarges our means of judgment. In every case, it appears, we may assert that extension, whether in time or space, is implied; and the proper word to construe ἐπὶ (except with certain verbs of motion, as, ‘he fell on,’ and the like) will be over, along, across, or over-against. Further, we have in Il. vi. 400, according to one reading, the preposition ἐπὶ combined with the verb ἔχειν, and governing the accusative. Andromache appears,

παῖδ’ ἐπὶ κόλπον ἔχουσ’ ἀταλάφρονα.

The recent editions read κόλπῳ: I suppose because the accusative cannot properly give the meaning upon her breast. But we do not require that meaning. The sense seems to be, that Andromache was holding her infant against her breast; that is, the infant was held to it by her hands from the opposite side. The idea of an infant on her breast is quite unsuited to a figure declared to be in motion. But the sense may also be, stretched over or across her breast. Thus we always have extension involved in ἐπὶ with the accusative, whether in range of view or sound, steps of a gradual process, actual motion, pressure towards a point which is initial motion, or extension over space. But the Homeric use of ἐπὶ with the accusative will nowhere, I think, be found applicable to the inactive, motionless position of a luminous point simply as perceived in space. And if so, it cannot be allowable to construe ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ χειρὸς ἔχων, having (Arctus) on his left hand.