Scheria-Corcyra. II

Abstract

As already stated, Mure was of the opinion that the poet was describing a people whom he knew. In Appendix E to the first volume of his Hist. Gk. Lit. he goes farther and suggests that the Phaeacians were a colony of 4DO'LVLKES, who were settled in Corcyra and who became "the butt of Homer's playful satire." Both 4patlqKES and 4OL'LVKEs are devoted to navigation and characterized by an epithet denoting magnificence or ostentation; both are 'avuofKXVrot and &iyavol. The 4?O'LVLKEs are, " in the true spirit of Homeric humour "-and we know how fond Homer is of paronomasia in a variety of forms-disguised as 4bal?7KES.1 If the lively ways of the Homeric Phaeacians are the opposite of the "gravity, or even gloom" of the Phoenicians it is suggested that, in the case of a Phoenician community that happened to be of a frivolous disposition, the contrast between such habits and the usual characteristics of the race might even add zest to the satire. I venture to think, after prolonged examination of the literature of Scheria, that Mure's view is substantially correct and that in fact it only needs to be brought up to date. As we now know much more I Schliemann, Tiryns, p. 24, note, mentions that Mahaffy thought Scheria might be a colony of Phocaeans who were thus taken off, but I cannot find Mahaffy's reference to the point.