Note 457 — Chapter VI · SOME REMARKS ON THE COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY OF THE WESTERN AND NORTHERN PARTS OF ASIA MINOR.

Strabo, p. 602. A passage in the 12th book of the Ilias (v. 20.) has been adduced in favour of the opinion that the Mendere was the Scamander of Homer; because the description there given of the origin of the Scamander in Mount Ida, will better apply to the Mendere than to the Bunárbashi stream, which rises on the edge of the plain. But the same passage makes the Granicus and Æsepus concur with the Scamander and Simoeis in the destruction of the Grecian rampart, though they flow in an opposite direction and fall into the Propontis,—an absurdity which must destroy the geographical authority of the passage, if indeed it be not spurious.