10.

At present those are called Cephallenians who inhabit Cephallenia. But Homer calls all those under the command of Ulysses by this name, among whom are the Acarnanians; for when he says,

“Ulysses led the Cephallenians, those who possessed Ithaca, and Neritum, waving with woods,”624

(the remarkable mountain in this island; so also,

“they who came from Dulichium, and the sacred Echinades,”625

for Dulichium itself was one of the Echinades; and again,

“Buprasium and Elis,”626

when Buprasium is situated in Elis; and so,

“they who inhabited Eubœa, Chalcis, and Eretria,”627

when the latter places are in Eubœa; so again,

“Trojans, Lycians, and Dardanians,”628

and these also were Trojans): but after mentioning Neritum, he says,

“and they who inhabited Crocyleia and rocky Ægilips, Zacynthus, Samos, Epirus, and the country opposite to these islands;”629

he means by Epirus the country opposite to the islands, intending to include together with Leucas the rest of Acarnania, of which he says,

“twelve herds, and as many flocks of sheep in Epirus,”630

because the district of Epirus (the Epirotis) extended anciently perhaps as far as this place, and was designated by the common name Epirus.

The present Cephallenia he calls Samos, as when he says,

“in the strait between Ithaca and the hilly Samos,”631

he makes a distinction between places of the same name by an epithet, assigning the name not to the city, but to the island. For the island contains four cities, one of which, called Samos, or Same, for it had either appellation, bore the same name as the island. But when the poet says,

“all the chiefs of the islands, Dulichium, Same, and the woody Zacynthus,”632

he is evidently enumerating the islands, and calls that Same which he had before called Samos.

But Apollodorus at one time says that the ambiguity is removed by the epithet, which the poet uses, when he says,

“and hilly Samos,”

meaning the island; and at another time he pretends that we ought to write

“Dulichium, and Samos,”

and not

“Same,”

and evidently supposes that the city is called by either name, Samos or Samé, but the island by that of Samos only. That the city is called Samé is evident from the enumeration of the suitors from each city, where the poet says,

“there are four and twenty from Samé,”633

and from what is said about Ctimene,

[Pg 164]

[CAS. 454]

“they afterwards gave her in marriage at Samé.”634

There is reason in this. For the poet does not express himself distinctly either about Cephallenia, or Ithaca, or the other neighbouring places, so that both historians and commentators differ from one another.