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[227] Much speculation as to the place of origin of the Homeric poems has been based upon this line and 24.13, which seem always to be taken to mean that to the poet the sun rises out of the sea; so that he must have lived on an eastward coast. But there is nothing of the sort in the words; the dawn spreads over the sea to any observer on the shore, whether he looks N., E., S., or W. The addition of “ἠϊόνας” in 24.13 is enough to prove this; evidently the dawn cannot rise out of sea and land at once. To a dweller by the sea the glinting of the early light on the waves is naturally the most prominent phenomenon of dawn. 8.1 = 24.695 “Ἠὼς μὲν κροκόπεπλος ἐκίδνατο πᾶσαν ἐπ᾽ αἶαν” would of course on the same system prove that the poet did not live on the sea at all. Compare 19.1, where Dawn ‘arises from the streams of Ocean,’ a very different matter from rising from the sea.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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