Previous Page
| Next Page
|
this manner he undertook the narration of the Trojan war,
gilding it with the beauties of fancy and the wanderings of
Ulysses; but we shall never find Homer inventing an empty
fable apart from the inculcation of truth. It is ever the case
that a person lies most successfully, when he intermingles
[into the falsehood] a sprinkling of truth. Such is the remark of Polybius in treating of the wanderings of Ulysses;
such is also the meaning of the verse,
He fabricated many falsehoods, relating them like truths: note
Odyssey xix. 203.
Being acquainted with Colchis, and the voyage of Jason to Aea, and also with the historical and fabulous relations concerning Circe and Medea, their enchantments and their various other points of resemblance, he feigns there was a relationship between them, notwithstanding the vast distance by which they were separated, the one dwelling in an inland creek of the Euxine, and the other in Italy, and both of them beyond the ocean.
It is possible that Jason himself wandered as far as Italy, for traces of the Argonautic expedition are pointed out near the Ceraunian note mountains, by the Adriatic, note at the Possidonian note Gulf, and the isles adjacent to Tyrrhenia. note The
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
Strabo, Geography (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Str.].