PHYSICAL CONTEiMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 143 



and reserved exclusiveness prevailed among the Dorians, and 

 in part, also, among the ./Eolians, we must, on the other hand, 

 ascribe to the gayer Ionic race a mobility of mind, which, un- 

 der the stimulus of an eager spirit of inquiry, and an ever- 

 wakeful activity, was alike manifested in a faculty for mental 

 contemplation and sensuous perception. Directed by the ob- 

 jective bent of their mode of thought, and adorned by a luxu- 

 riance of fancy in poetry and in art, the lonians scattered the 

 beneficent germs of progressive cultivation wherever they estab- 

 lished their colonies in other countries. 



As the landscape of Greece was so strikingly characterized 

 by the peculiar charm of an intimate blending of land and sea, 

 the configuration of the coast-line to which this character \vas 

 owing could not fail early to awaken in the minds of the 

 Greeks a taste for navigation, and to excite them to an active 

 commercial intercourse arid contact with foreign nations.* 

 The maritime dominion of the Cretans and Rhodians was fol- 

 lowed by the expeditions of the Samians, Phocseans, Taphians, 

 and Thesprotians, which were, it must be owned, originally 

 directed to plunder and to the capture of slaves. Hesiod's 

 disinclination to a sea-faring life is probably to be regarded 

 merely as the expression of an individual opinion, or as the re- 

 sult of a timid ignorance of nautical affairs, which may have 

 prevailed on the main land of Greece at the early dawn of 

 civilization. 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 tem- 

 ple at Gadeira) ; the wanderings of lo ;t of the often-resusci- 

 tated Aristeas ; and of the Hyperborean magician Abaris, in 

 whose "guiding arrow'!| some commentators have supposed 

 that they recognized the compass. In these narratives we trace 



* See ante, p. 25. 



t Volker, Mythische Geographic der Grieclien imd Romer, th. i., 1832, 

 s. 1-10 ; Klausen, Ueber die Wanderungen der lo und des Herakles, in 

 Niebuhr anil Brandis Rhemische Museen fur Philologie, Geschichte und 

 Griech. Philosophic, Jahrg., iii., 1829, s. 293-323. 



t 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 Pythag- 

 oras gave him (Jambl., De Vila Pythag., xxix., p. 194, Kiessling), 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 disap- 

 pearing and reappearing Arimaspiau bard, Aristeas of Proconnesus, see 

 Herod., iv., 13-15. 



