There are therefore various modes of arrangement, which either politically or geographically might be termed obvious, but which the Poet has passed by. Why has he passed them by? and why has he begun the Catalogue with the Bœotians? who were neither powerful, nor ancient, nor distinguished in a remarkable degree; nor did they lie at any one of the geographical extremities of the country. Again, it might be asked, why has he not either divided all the islands from Continental Greece, or none? Instead of that, he reckons Eubœa, Cephallenia, Zacynthus, and Ithaca, in the same division with Continental Greece, but begins a new division with Crete. Let us now carefully note what he has done, and see whether it does not suggest the reasons. The three principal divisions of the Catalogue would appear to lie as follows: I. Continental Greece south of mount Œta, including the Middle and the Southern division, with the islands immediately adjacent. This section furnishes sixteen contingents. (Il. ii. 494-644.) II. Insular Greece, from Crete to Calydnæ: these islands furnish four contingents. (645-680.) III. Thessalian Greece, from Œta and Othrys in the south, to Olympus in the north: which furnishes nine contingents. (681-759.) These three divisions completely sever the line of the semicircular curve. It follows that in recitation he would be able to dispose of each part severally, as each forms a compact figure of itself: and this he could not have done, had he followed the seemingly more natural division into continent and islands. At the interval between the first and the second, he makes a spring from Ætolia to Crete: and another between the second and the third, from the Calydnæ to Thessaly. The _desideratum_ obviously was, to assist memory by such a geographical disposition, that the different parts might be made by association each to suggest that which was immediately to follow. So distributed, they would supply a kind of _memoria technica_. We see how he prepares for this operation by his distribution in chief, which gives him the three sections of Greece, as they succeed one another on the line of the (completed) figure. And, though we may not yet have in view a reason for his beginning with the Bœotians, we seem now at least to have a reason before us for his beginning with the middle section instead of one of the extremes; namely, that it was the principal one, as it not only supplied the largest number of ships and men, and nearly all the greater commanders, but also as it contains the seat of sovereignty, and supplied the forces of the Chief of the army. Having the three sections before us, let us now observe the manner in which he manages the sub-distribution, so as to make each district of territory lead him on to the next. And here he seems evidently to proceed upon these two rules: first, never to pass over an intervening territory, though he may cross a strait or gulf.