248 HISTORY OF GREECE. had wandered about in the Atlantic Ocean outside of the Strait of Gibraltar, 1 and they recognized a section of Lotophagi on the TOTTOl KOi U/lAoi TlVEf TUV TOIOVTUV G71/J.ia i)irOJpU.^OV<JlV, U/Utt KOi v TT) 'Ipqpia 'Odvaaeia TroAtf de'iKwrat, /cat 'A.$7]vu cepbv, Kai a/lAa //vpta IX. VT > r/'/f SKS'LVOV Tr^uvrjf., nal uTiXuv ruv in Tov TpuiKov iTohefiov xepi,yevo/j.eva>v (I adopt Grosskurd's correction of tlie text from yevofievuv to Trepi-yevo/tevuv, in the note to his German translation of Strabo). Asklepiades (of Myrlca in Bithynia, about 170 B. c.) resided some time in Turditania, the south-western region of Spain along the Guadalquivir, as a teacher of Greek literature (-^au^evaa^ T& jpafi[j.aTLK<j,), and com posed a periegesis of the Iberian tribes, which unfortunately has not been preserved. He made various discoveries in archaeology, and successfully connected his old legends with several portions of the territory before him. His discoveries were, 1. In the temple of Athene, at this Iberian town of Odysseia, there were shields and beaks of ships affixed to the walls, monii ments of the visit of Odysseus himself. 2. Among the Kallaeki, in the northern part of Portugal, several of the companions of Tetikros had set- tled and left descendants : there were in that region two Grecian cities, one called Hellenes, the other called Amphilochi ; for Amphilochus also, the son of Amphiaraus, had died in Iberia, and many of his soldiers had taken up their permanent residence in the interior. 3. Many new inhabitants had come into Iberia with the expedition of Herakles ; some also after the con- quest of Mesene by the Lacedaemonians. 4. In Cantabria, on the north, coast of Spain, there was a town and region of Lacedaemonian colonists. 5. In the same portion of the country there was the town of Opsikella, founded by Opsikellas, one of the companions of Anterior in his emigration from Troy (Strabo, iii. p. 157). This is a specimen of the manner in which the seeds of Grecian mythus came to be distributed over so large a surface. To an ordinary Greek reader, these legendary discoveries of Asklepiades would probably be more interesting than the positive facts which he communicated respecting the Iberian tribes ; and his Turditanian auditors would be delighted to hear while he was reciting and explaining to them the animated passage of the Iliad, in which Agamemnon extols the inestimable value of the bow of Teukros (viii. 281 ) that the heroic archer and his companions had actually set foot in the Iberian peninsula. ' This was the opinion of Krates of Mallus, one of the most distinguished of the critics on Homer : it was the subject of an animated controversy be- tween him and Aristarchus (Aulus Gellins, N. A. xiv. 6 ; Strabo, iii. p. 157). See the instructive treatise of Lehrs, De Aristarchi Studiis, c. v. 4. p. 251. Much controversy also took place among the critics respecting the ground which Menelaus went over in his wanderings (Odyss. iv.). Krates affiimed that he had circumnavigated the southern extremity of Africa and gone to
