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 nar- 

 ratives 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 repeat- 

 edly disappearing and re-appearing Arimaspian bard, Aristeas of Procon- 

 nesus, see Herod., iv. 13-15. 



$ Strabo, lib. i. .p. 38, Casaub. 



