i perfectly indicative of the state of society in India, where there is always a great number of Persians who are foreigners to a certain degree as well as the Europeans, who in all ages have been in, the habit of resorting there. So again the epithets γυναιμανες and παρθενοπιπα applied to Paris, in 3 II. 39, and 11 Il. 385, are illustrative of the manners of the Persians and Indians, who are famous for being addicted to women, and particularly for their desire of virgins, and shutting them up in their harams, so that they can scarcely be peeped at by strangersfe

The most obvious way from Europe to India by sea, is by passing down the Arabian Gulf, commonly called the Red Sea; and this leads me to fix the position of two places very frequently noticed in the Iliad, the Scaan Gates. By one of these I understand the Straits of Babelmandeb, (bab being Arabic for a gate,) at the outlet from the Arabian Gulf into the Erythræan Sea; and by the other, the Straits of Moçandon, the door or outlet of the Persian Gulf into the same sea. In opposition to the right hand way round the

Cape of Good Hope, of which I speak in the next chapter, their name anda, sinistræ, implies that they lie in the left hand road from Europe to the East. It is in this sense that I consider Tεdion anapaavdpiov, as referring to the Arabian Gulf; and λειμώνι σκαμανδρίω (from its crescent or -moon-like shape) to the Persian, both being left hand passages to Asia. 2 II. 461,

Ασιω εν λειμωνι

» Ες πεδιον προχέοντο σκαμάνδριον
Εςαν δ' εν λειμώνι σκαμανδρια

and in the same sense is the epithet onaμavopios applicable to Astyanax, whose character I explain presently; shem (I believe, in the Arabic) signifying the left,

There is another position (yo) frequently mentioned at the same time with the Scæan Gates, ...as in 6 II. 237,

Εκτωρ δ' ως Σκαιας τε πύλας και φηγον κάνεν.

In order to explain this name you, I look to

the word itself, (nomen de nomine fingo;) and, derive it from the English word fig, ascribing the position it represents in the Iliad, to the countries of Africa and Arabia, which together have a strong resemblance to a fig in shape, as may be plainly seen in the map.

This fixing of the position of the Scean Gates and of the you, may serve to shew that by the⚫ character of Antenor we are to understand Arabia, as will appear from 3 II. 262,

Παρ δε οι Αντήνωρ περικαλλέα βήσατο διφρον
Τάδε δια Σκαίων πεδίονδ' εχον ωκέας ίππος,

which two lines, expressive of Antenor and Priam's going out together at these Gates, not only prove that one of those Gates is rightly ascribed to the Straits of Babelmandeb, but that, as Priam represents Africa, so the opposite coast of Arabia is represented by Antenor; while the epithet περικαλλέα seems to contain an allusion to that - division of it in particular, which is called Arabia Felix finally, in Meys, who slew the son of Antenor, thus representing Arabia, we may see a

personification of the famous city of Mecca, as in

But it is time now to speak of the great hero of the Trojans, Hector. Here again stat nominis "umbra; by inverting the syllables of Exrwe, it becomes Twe-ex, or Turk, and I assign to him accordinglythe country of Asiatic Turkey. An instance of such an inversion of syllables has before occurred in the formation of the name of Ταλθύβιος, from tall boot, or Talbot: (a very remarkable one may be seen in the Greek word dix, or dina, justice, which is obviously derivable from the Arabic ca-di, a judge ;) and when the reversed modes of reading and writing, from left to right and from right to left (adopted respectively by the Europeans and Asiatics), are recollected, such an inversion of syllables may fairly be allowed to poets for the purpose of disguise, especially when it regards countries where such reversed mode of reading and writing takes place. But as Achilles, though representing the whole of Africa, is often to be

considered as confined to the course of the Nile; so Hector, though standing for the whole of Asiatie Turkey has frequently a confined relation to the Euphrates, the principal river of that country; which country, as it borders upon Persia, is, by a correspondent analogy, represented by the brother to Paris, who represents Persia, as included in or closely connected with India, as above stated. A drawing of Hector, as thus representing the course of the Euphrates, is given in

Fig. 165;

which is exactly copied from the line of that river,