23. Again, they are entirely wrong when they allege as a mark of Homer’s ignorance, that he describes the island of Pharos[177] as entirely surrounded by the sea. On the contrary, it might be taken advantage of as a proof that our poet was not unacquainted with a single one of the points concerning Egypt which we have just been speaking of: and thus we demonstrate it:—Every one is prone to romance a little in narrating his travels, and Menelaus was no exception to the rule. He had been to Ethiopia,[178] and there heard much discussion concerning the sources of the Nile, and the alluvium which it deposited, both along its course and also at its mouths, and the large additions which it had thereby made to the mainland, so as fully to justify the remark of Herodotus[179] that the whole of Egypt was a gift from the river; or if not the whole, at all events that part of it below the Delta, called Lower Egypt. He had heard too that Pharos was entirely surrounded by sea, and therefore misrepresented it as entirely surrounded by the sea, although it had long ago ceased so to be. Now the author of all this was Homer, and we therefore infer that he was not ignorant concerning either the sources or the mouths of the Nile. 24. They are again mistaken when they say that he was not aware of the isthmus between the sea of Egypt and the Arabian Gulf, and that his description is false, “The Ethiopians, utmost of mankind, These eastward situate, those toward the west.”[180] Nevertheless he is correct, and the criticism of the moderns is quite out of place: indeed, there is so little truth in the assertion that Homer was ignorant of this isthmus, that I will venture to affirm he was not only acquainted with it, but has also accurately defined it. But none of the grammarians, not even the chiefs of their number, Aristarchus and Crates, have understood the words of our poet on this subject. For they disagree as to the words which follow this expression of Homer, “The Ethiopians, utmost of mankind, These eastward situate, those towards the west,”[181] Aristarchus writing, “These towards the west, and those towards the east,” and Crates, “As well in the west as also in the east.”