Note 25 — Chapter II · ISLANDS OF THE BLEST TRANSLATION

To identify Ὀρτυγίη, ο 404, with Delos, and Συρίη with the island Syros as the older commentators and K. O. Müller, Dorier, i, 381 [? not in E.T.], did, is impossible on account of the addition of the words ὅθι τροπαὶ ἠελίοιο alone. These show that Syrie was far away in the fabulous west, the only possible place for such a wonderland. It is evident that Ortygia is originally a purely mythical spot, sacred to Artemis and no more certainly fixed in one place than the Dionysian Nysa, and for that reason always to be found wherever the cult of Artemis was especially popular, in Aetolia, Syracuse, Ephesos, or Delos. Delos is clearly distinguished from O. in h. Ap. 16, and only later identified with O. (Delos being considered the older name, O. Schneider, Nicandr., p. 22, n.), when Artemis had been brought into closer connexion with Apollo, and even then not invariably. Thus in Homer Ortygia never clearly = Delos.