Hoplopœia,[1] he places the ocean in a circle round the border of Achilles' shield. Another proof of the extent of his knowledge, is his acquaintance with the ebb and flow of the sea, calling it "the ebbing ocean."[2] Again,
"Each day she thrice disgorges, and again
Thrice drinks, insatiate, the deluge down."[3]
The assertion of thrice, instead of twice, is either an error of the author, or a blunder of the scribe, but the phenomenon is the same, and the expression soft-flowing,[4] has reference to the flood-tide, which has a gentle swell, and does not flow with a full rush. Posidonius believes that where Homer describes the rocks as at one time covered with the waves, and at another left bare, and when he compares the ocean to a river, he alludes to the flow of the ocean. The first supposition is correct, but for the second there is no ground; inasmuch as there can be no comparison between the flow, much less the ebb of the sea, and the current of a river. There is more probability in the explanation of Crates, that Homer describes the whole ocean as deep-flowing, ebbing, and also calls it a river, and that he also describes a part of the ocean as a river, and the flow of a river; and that he is speaking of a part, and not the whole, when he thus writes:—
"When down the smooth Oceanus impell'd
By prosperous gales, my galley, once again,
Cleaving the billows of the spacious deep,
Had reach'd the Ææan isle."[5]
He does not, however, mean the whole, but the flow of the river in the ocean, which forms but a part of the ocean. Crates
- ↑ The eighteenth book of the Iliad.
- ↑ Iliad xviii. 399; Odyss. xx. 65.
- ↑ Thrice indeed each day it lets loose its waves, and thrice it ebbs them back. Odyss. xii. 105.
Gosselin remarks, "I do not find any thing in these different passages of Homer to warrant the conclusion that he was aware of the ebb and flow of the tide; every one knows that the movement is hardly perceptible in the Mediterranean. In the Euripus, which divides the Isle of Negropont from Bœotia, the waters are observed to flow in opposite directions several times a day. It was from this that Homer probably drew his ideas; and the regular current of the Hellespont, which carries the waters of the Black Sea into the Mediterranean, led him to think that the whole ocean, or Mediterranean, had one continued flow like the current of a river." - ↑ Iliad vii. 422.
- ↑ But when the ship left the stream of the river-ocean, and entered on the wave of the wide-wayed sea. Odyssey xii. 1.
