PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OP THE TTNIVEBSE. 515 



by the way of the Euxine,* established relations of inter- 

 national contact which laid the foundation of an inland 

 trade between the north of Europe and Asia, and subsequently 

 with the Oxus and Indus ; so the Samiansf and PhocaeansJ 

 were the first among the Greeks who endeavoured to pene- 

 trate from the basin of the Mediterranean towards the west. 



Colaeus of Sainos sailed for Egypt, where, at that time, an 

 intercourse had begun, under Psammitichus, with the Greeks, 

 which probably was only the renewal of a former connec- 

 tion. He was driven by easterly storms to the island of 

 Platea, and from thence Herodotus significantly adds "not 

 without divine direction," through the straits into the ocean. 

 The accidental and unexpected commercial gain in Iberian 

 Tartessus conduced less than the discovery of an entrance 

 nto an unknown world, (whose existence was scarcely conjec- 

 tured, as a mythical creation of fancy,) towards giving to this 

 event importance and celebrity wherever the Greek language 

 was understood on the shores of the Mediterranean. Beyond 

 the Pillars of Hercules (earlier known as the Pillars of 

 Briareus, of ^Egsson, and of Cronos), at the western margin 

 of the earth, on the road to Elysium and the Hesperides, 

 the primaeval waters of the circling Oceanus were first seen, 

 in whi ch the source of all rivers was then sought. 



Letronne's investigation (Essaisurlesidees cosmographiques gui se rat- 

 tachent aunom d' Atlas, p. 9), in Olymp. 35, 1, or in the year 640. The 

 epoch depends, however, on the foundation of Gyrene, which is placed by 

 Otfr. Miiiler between Olymp. 35 and 37 (Minyer, s. 344, Prolegomena, 

 s. 63) : for in the time of Colaeus (Herod., iv. 152), the way from Thera to 

 Lybia was not as yet known. Zumpt places the foundation of (krthage 

 in 878, and that of Gades in 1100 B.C. 



* According to the manner of the ancients (Strabo, lib. ii. p. 126), 

 I reckon the whole Euxine, together with the Moeotis (as required by 

 physical and geological views), to be included in the common basin of 

 the great " Inner Sea." 



f Herod., iv. 152. 



J Herod., i. 163, where even the discovery of Tartessus is ascribed t 

 the Phocaeans; but the commercial enterprise of the Phocaeans was 

 seventy years after the time of Colseus of Samos, according to Ukcrt 

 (Geogr. der Griechen und Romer, th. 1. i. s. 40). 



According to a fragment of Phavorinus, uiictavog, (and therefore 

 o>yr/i/ also) are not Greek words, but merely borrowed from the barba- 

 rians (Spohn de Nicephor. Blemm. duobus opusculis, 1818, p. 23). My 

 brother was of opinion tbat they were connected with the Sanscrit root* 

 2 L2 



