COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 50T
originally directed to plunder and to tne capture of slaves.
Hesiod's disinclination to a seafaring life is probably to be
regarded merely as the expression of an individual opinion, or
as the result of a timid ignorance of nautical affairs, whichr
may have prevailed on the mainland of Greece at the early
dawn of civilisation. On the other hand, the most ancient'
legends and myths abound in reference to distant expeditions
by land and sea, as if the youthful imagination of mankind
delighted in the contrast between its own ideal creations and
a limited
reality; in illustration of this sentiment we may
mention the expeditions of Dionysus and Hercules (Melkarth
in the temple at Gadeira), the wanderings of Io;* of the often-
resuscitated Aristeas; and of the Hyperborean Magician,
Abaris, in whose "guiding arrow' r
f
some commentators have
supposed that they recognised the compass. In these narratives
we trace the reciprocal reflection of passing events, and
ancient cosmical views, and the progressive modification which
the latter effected in these mythical representations of his-
tory. In the wanderings of the heroes returning from Troy,
Aristonicus makes Menelaus circumnavigate Africa more than
five hundred years before Neco sailed from Gadeira to India. {
At the period, which we are here considering, of the his-
tory of Greece, before the Macedonian expeditions into Asia,
there occurred three events which exercised a special influence
in extending the views of the Greeks regarding the universe.
These events were the attempts to penetrate beyond the basin
of the Mediterranean towards the east; the attempts towards
the west and ; the establishment of numerous colonies from the
Pillars of Hercules to the north-eastern extremity of the Euxine,
which, by the more varied form of their political constitution,
* Yb'lker, Mythische Geographie der Griechen und Romer,
th. i.
1832, s. 1-10; Klausen, Ueber die Wanderungen der Io und des Hera-
Ides, in Niebuhr and Brandis Rheinische Museenfur Pliilologie, GeS'
chichte und griecli. Philosophic, Jahrg. iii. 1829, s. 293-323.
f In the myth of Abaris (Herod., iv. 36), the magician
does not
travel through the air on an arrow, but he carries the arrow, " which
Pythagoras gave him (Jambl., de Vita Pythag., xxix. p. 194, Kiess-
ling), in order that it may be useful to him in all difficulties on his long
journey;" Creuzer, Symbolik, th. ii. 1841, s. 660-664. On the repeatedly
disappearing and re-appearing Arimaspian bard, Aristeas of Proconnesus,
see Herod., iv. 13-15.
$ Strabo, lib. i. .p. 38, Casaub.