[ 4 6i ] 
Medes about the year before Chrift yy8. and about 
four years afterwards the Median empire itfelf was 
put an end to by Cyrus and his Perfians (3 yY. Within 
this period of time, therefore, it is now farther pro- 
bable, from this obfervation of Strabo, that both the 
Iliad and Odyffy were compofed. 
And this, again, will receive an additional con- 
firmation, by confidering the following lines of the 
Odyffy (36) itfelf i where Eumasus tells Ulyfles, that 
Nmros Ti5 Xvpin xix. An ax.il cti et-zcrou axaes 
Ogruy ins x.ctS’U'GrepSrei'y o^ri TPOHAI HEAIOIO 
Infula qucedam Syria vocatur, ficubi audis 
Hrans or tygiam ; ubi mutation es Solis. 
But what is to be understood by the words 
neA 10109 or mutationes Solis , as the tranflator renders 
them ? The word tropics, we know, is Sometimes 
ufed for thofe points of the ecliptic through which 
the folflicial colure is drawn ; but this cannot be the 
meaning of it here, as it is impoflible that the tro- 
pics, in this fenfe, Should be at the ifland Syra, or 
Syria. This ifland is one of the Cyclades, and lies, 
according to the belt modern geographers, in latitude 
37 0 2 y' north ; where, confequently, the height of 
the equator is y2° 35', and the Sun’s zenith distance, 
on the day of the lummer folSt ice, i3 g y6'. Homer, 
therefore, could not mean, likewife, that this ifland 
(35) The proof of this being too long for a note, is confidered, 
at large, in a treatife by itfelf. 
(36) Lib. xv. ver. 402. 
lay 
