Note 594 — Chapter XIII · ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION.

This idea is well stated and sustained by Völcker (Mythische Geographie der Griechen und Römer, cap. i. p. 11), and by Nitzsch in his Comments on the Odyssey—Introduct. Remarks to b. ix. p. xii.-xxxiii. The twelfth and thirteenth chapters of the History of Orchomenos, by O. Müller, are also full of good remarks on the geography of the Argonautic voyage (pp. 274-299).

The most striking evidence of this disposition of the Greeks is to be found in the legendary discoveries of Alexander and his companions, when they marched over the untrodden regions in the east of the Persian empire (see Arrian, Hist. Al. v. 3: compare Lucian. Dialog. Mortuor. xiv. vol. i. p. 212. Tauch) because these ideas were first broached at a time when geographical science was sufficiently advanced to canvass and criticize them. The early settlers in Italy, Sicily and the Euxine, indulged their fanciful vision without the fear of any such monitor: there was no such thing as a map before the days of Anaximander, the disciple of Thalês.