Kitap 1
2.20
If any one were to do no more than merely read through the Triptolemus of Sophocles, or the prologue to the Bacchae of Euripides, and then compare them with the care taken by Homer in his geographical descriptions, he would at once perceive both the difference and superiority of the latter, for wherever there is necessity for arrangement in the localities he has immortalized, he is careful to preserve it as well in regard to Greece, as to foreign countries. They On the Olympian summit thought to fix Huge Ossa, and on Ossa’s towering head Pelion with all his forests.They attempted to place Ossa upon Olympus, and upon Ossa leafy Pelion. Odyssey xi. 314. The mountains Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus, bounded the eastern coasts of Thessaly. And Juno starting from the Olympian height O’erflew Pieria and the lovely plains Of broad Emathia;Pieria and Emathia, two countries of Macedonia. soaring thence she swept The snow-clad summit of the Thracian hillsThe mountains of Macedonia; this latter name was unknown to Homer, who consequently describes as Thracian, the whole of the people north of Thessaly. Steed-famed, nor printed, as she pass’d, the soil, From AthosThe Mount Santo of the moderns. the foaming billows borne.Juno, hastening, quitted the summit of Olympus, and having passed over Pieria, and fertile Emathia, she hastened over the snowy mountains of equestrian Thrace, most lofty summits. * * * * From Athos she descended to the foaming deep. Iliad xiv. 225. In the Catalogue he does not describe his cities in regular order, because here there was no necessity, but both the people and foreign countries he arranges correctly. Having wandered to Cyprus, and Phoenice, and the Egyptians, I came to the Ethiopians, and Sidonians, and Erembi, and Libya.Odyssey iv. 83. Hipparchus has drawn attention to this. But the two tragedians where there was great necessity for proper arrangement, oneEuripides, Bacchae, towards commencement. where he introduces Bacchus visiting the nations, the otherSophocles. Triptolemus sowing the earth, have brought in juxta-position places far remote, and separated those which were near.
