B. xii. c. in. 27. PONTUS. ,103 27. With respect then to places not so remarkable, or not famous at that time, or not illustrating the subject of his poem, who can blame the poet for omitting them ? As, for example, omitting to mention the Don, famed only as it is for being the boundary of Asia and Europe. The persons however of that time were not accustomed to use the name either of Asia or Europe, nor was the habitable earth divided into three conti- nents ; otherwise he would have mentioned them by name on account of their strong characteristic marks, as he mentioned by name Libya (Africa), and the Libs (the south-west wind), blowing from the western parts of Africa. But as the conti- nents were not yet distinguished, it was not necessary that he should mention the Don. There were many things worthy of record, which did not occur to him. For both in actions and in discourse much is done and said without any cause or motive, by merely spontaneously presenting itself to the mind. It is evident from all these circumstances that every person who concludes that because a certain thing is not mentioned by the poet he was therefore ignorant of it, uses a bad argu- ment ; and we must prove by several examples that it is bad, for many persons employ this kind of evidence to a great extent. We must refute them therefore by producing such instances as these which follow, although we shall repeat what has been already said. If any one should maintain that the poet was not acquainted with a river which he has not mentioned, we should say that his argument is absurd, for he has not mentioned by name even the river Meles, which runs by Smyrna, his birth-place ac- cording to many writers, while he has mentioned the rivers Hermusand Hyllus byname, but yet not the Pactolus, 1 which discharges itself into the same channel as these rivers, and rises in the mountain Tmolus. 2 He does not mention either Smyrna itself, or the other cities of the lonians, or most of those of the ^Eolians, although he specifies Miletus, Samos, Lesbos, and Tenedos. He does not mention the Lethaeus, which flows beside Magnesia, 3 nor the Marsyas, which rivers empty them- selves into the Maaander, 4 which he mentions by name, as well as 1 B. xiii. c. iv. 5, it joins the Hyllus, called Phrygius in the time of Strabo. The Phrygius takes its rise in the mountains north of Thyatira, (Ak Hissar,) and falls into the Hermus (Gedis Tschai). 2 Bos Dagh. 3 Manisa. 4 Bojuk Meinder.
