74 : The Atlantic 



There is more to the Trojan wars, however, than even the magic 

 of Helen's beauty. It was an EngUsh poet who asked of Helen, "Is 

 this the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless 

 towers of Ilium?" In Homer, however, the facts often outrun the 

 fantasy; thus in the Iliad, the very catalogue of the ships belies the 

 fable. It shows us that ships and the sea were permanent and essential 

 to the Greek way of life and that against this background the fatal 

 beauty of Helen is an episode. The catalogue of ships is the work of 

 a devoted enthusiast. To the modern student it may seem a dull rec- 

 ord but to the ancient Greeks it was lively news. 



This fleet was not a temporary accident. The people who could 

 construct it and bring it together at one time and place were old 

 hands at ship construction and navigation. The attack on Troy rep- 

 resents a large-scale concerted effort at naval transport in the inter- 

 ests of war. History and archaeology agree that the Trojan War of 

 Homer is best interpreted as an episode in a long-drawn-out effort 

 of the Greeks to maintain control over trade and transport in the 

 Aegean. In this interest they would need also to control the Helles- 

 pont, which was at once both entrance to the Black Sea and an all 

 but complete land bridge into Asia. The strong settlement at Ilium 

 was a threat to such control. 



Homer was a literary man rather than either a historian or a ge- 

 ographer or indeed a captain of ships and armies, yet his is the chief 

 record and the chief insight into the geography of his time. His ob- 

 ject was entertainment and he was speaking to the people and for 

 the people and therefore probably he was reflecting only what was 

 common knowledge mingled with myth and tradition. A glance at 

 the map taken in conjunction with the views of the historians and 

 scholars will show the limitations of his geographic knowledge even 

 when he thought he was carrying his listeners far afield. 



The Greek islands and the plains of Troy Homer knows. Here is 

 relative reality. Beyond that, three definite locaUties can be reason- 

 ably assigned as forming the scenes of certain more imaginative pas- 

 sages in Ulysses' travels. Scylla and Charybdis are a dramatized and 

 exaggerated description of the Strait of Messina with its character- 

 istic currents; the Aeolian Islands, with the Lipari Islands are still 

 there; the land of the Lotus Eaters, a portion of the Tripoli coast, for 

 here a form of the lotus was eaten and regarded as a delicacy. It 

 would be nice to know if the lotus has narcotic properties but there 

 seems to be no evidence of this point. 



Beyond, Homer's geography gets vaguer and vaguer. Phoenicia 



