The times were rude. Wars, though petty, were numerous and
cruel. The vanquished suffered death or slavery. Piracy, flourishing upon the
unprotected seas, ranked as an honorable occupation. It was no insult to
inquire of a seafaring stranger whether he was pirate or merchant. Murders were
frequent. The murderer had to dread, not a public trial and punishment, but
rather the personal vengeance of the kinsmen of his victim. The Homeric Greeks,
in fact, exhibited the usual defects and vices of barbarous peoples.
HOMERIC GEOGRAPHY
The Iliad and Odyssey disclose a
considerable acquaintance with peninsular Greece and the coasts of Asia Minor.
Cyprus, Egypt, and Sicily are also known in part. The poet imagines the earth
as a sort of flat shield, with Greece lying in the center. The Mediterranean,
"The Sea," as it is called by Homer, and its continuation, the
Euxine, [10] divided the world into two equal parts. Surrounding the earth was
"the great strength of the Stream of Ocean," [11] a river, broad and
deep, beyond which lay the dark and misty realm of the mythical Cimmerians. The
underworld of Hades, home of the dead, was beneath the surface of the earth.
