Kitap 1
2.17
It is most probable that the line Nine days by cruel storms thence was I borne Athwart the fishy deep,And from thence I was carried for nine days over t’ fishy sea by baleful winds. Odyssey ix. 82.Odyssey ix. 82. should be understood of merely a short distance, (for cruel storms do not blow in a right course,) and not of being carried beyond the ocean, as if impelled by favourable winds. And, says Polybius, allowing the distance from MaleaCape Maleo off the Morea. The distance from this point to Gibraltar is now estimated at 28° 34′. The 22,500 stadia of Polybius would equal 32° 8′ 34″. He was therefore out in his calculation by 3° 34′ 34″. to the Pillars to be 22,500 stadia, and supposing the rate of passage was the same throughout the nine days, the voyage must have been accomplished at the speed of 2500 stadia per diem: now who has ever recorded that the passage from Lycia or Rhodes to Alexandria, a distance of 4000 stadia, has been made in two days? To those who demand how it was that Ulysses, though he journeyed thrice to Sicily, never once navigated the Strait, we reply that, long after his time, voyagers always sedulously avoided that route.
