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Ὄασιν πόλιν. H. here uses ‘Oasis’ as a proper name for the so-called ‘Great Oasis’, that of Khargeh, which lay on the parallel of Thebes, ‘seven days’ journey' away (the figure is fairly right). For the oases cf. iv. 181 nn. H., however, is hopelessly confused; the Oasis of Ammon, that of Siwah (cf. ii. 32; iv. 181. 2 nn.), was much further north, in the latitude of the Fayûm, from which it could be reached in fourteen days. It is most unlikely that the Persians attacked it from the ‘Great Oasis’. Perhaps H. had heard of the small oasis, which lies near the ‘Great Oasis’, and confused it with that of Siwah. St. Martin, pp. 40-1. As to the nature of the ‘Aeschrionian tribe’ it is impossible to speak definitely. The Etym. Mag. (s. v. Ἀστυπάλαια) speaks of two tribes, the Astypalaean and the Schesian, which may be parallel to the ‘Aeschrionian’; certainly Αἰσχρίων is found as a proper name at Samos. On the other hand, the four Ionic tribes (v. 66. 2 n.) were almost certainly found there; two of them occur at Perinthus, a colony of Samos (Busolt, i. 279 n.). It is very curious to find Greeks 400 miles from the sea, and Dahlmann thinks H. is misled by some similarity of sound: it is safer, however, to accept so definite a statement about emigrants from a city which H. knew well (cf. Introd. p. 3 and iii. 60 nn.). Strabo (791) compares oases to islands, and the familiar legend of the ‘isles of the blest’ might well occur to a Greek traveller. But Spiegelberg (Z. A. S. 42. 85-6) has shown that H.'s derivation is meant to translate an Egyptian word, though it is inaccurate, and that it was derived from a native. Maspero (M. et A. E. ii. 422) says the idea that the oases were homes of the dead is a very old Egyptian one.
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