The Mediterranean and the Euxine were illimitable stretches of ocean
waste over which years could be spent in endless wandering. On their
mysterious shores were the improbable homes of impossible peoples.
The Great Sea, the Broad Sea, the Boundless Sea; the Ethiopians,
"dwelling far away, the most distant of men," and the Cimmerians,
"covered with darkness and cloud," where "baleful night is spread
over timid mortals." Phonicia was a sore journey, Egypt simply
unattainable, while the Pillars of Hercules marked the extreme edge
of the universe. Ulysses was nine days in sailing from Ismarus the
city of the Ciconians, to the country of the Lotus-eaters--a period
of time which to-day would breed anxiety in the hearts of the
underwriters should it be occupied by the slowest tramp steamer in
traversing the Mediterranean and Black Seas from Gibraltar to
Sebastopol.
Homer's world, restricted to less than a drummer's circuit, was
nevertheless immense, surrounded by a thin veneer of universe--the
Stream of Ocean.
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