Page 435 - the-odyssey

the greatest occasions; but surely the marriage of Hermione
and of Megapenthes (bk, iv. ad init.) might have induced
Helen to wear it on the preceding evening, in which case it
could hardly have got back. We find no hint here of Megap-
enthes’ recent marriage.
{132} See note {83}.
{133} cf. ‘Od.’ xi. 196, etc.
{134} The names Syra and Ortygia, on which island a
great part of the Doric Syracuse was originally built, sug-
gest that even in Odyssean times there was a prehistoric
Syracuse, the existence of which was known to the writer
of the poem.
{135} Literally ‘where are the turnings of the sun.’ As-
suming, as we may safely do, that the Syra and Ortygia of
the ‘Odyssey’ refer to Syracuse, it is the fact that not far to
the South of these places the land turns sharply round, so
that mariners following the coast would find the sun upon
the other side of their ship to that on which they’d had it
hitherto.
Mr. A. S. Griffith has kindly called my attention to Herod
iv. 42, where, speaking of the circumnavigation of Africa by
Phoenician mariners under Necos, he writes:
‘On their return they declared—I for my part do not be-
lieve them, but perhaps others may—that in sailing round
Libya [i.e. Africa] they had the sun upon their right hand. In
this way was the extent of Libya first discovered.
I take it that Eumaeus was made to have come from Syr-
acuse because the writer thought she rather ought to have
made something happen at Syracuse during her account

The Odyssey