[514] Μαλειάων. What brought Agamemnon near Malea at all? Can we accept the explanation of the Schol. Od.3. 272 that Thyestes lived in Cythera? Curtius E. (Pelop. 300) suggests that Greek navigators on the regular Phoenician fairway of traffic always took care to make land at Malea. No doubt it was an important bearing to take, but it could hardly come into a voyage from the north coast of Asia Minor; especially when we compare the description of such a voyage in Hom. Od.3. 170 foll. However it is just possible that Agamemnon had taken the long course by the islands, which might bring him far enough south to sight Malea, from whence he would coast up the Argolic bay. Nitzsch maintains that vv. 514-516 are the interpolation of a rhapsodist, or that the whole passage is spurious; for how could a storm, that caught a ship off Malea and drove it into the open sea, bring it to the borders of the territory where Thyestes dwelt? Bothe would lighten the difficulty by inserting w. 519Hom. Od., 520 immediately after 516, so that the order would run, “ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ καὶ κεῖθεν”
“ἂψ δὲ θεοὶ”“ἀγροῦ ἐπ᾽ ἐσχατιήν”
—which suggestion Bekker follows. It may be best to take a general view of Agamemnon's voyage without pressing points of geographical detail. The storm ( Hom. Od.5. 109) drives him far out of his course to the south, and as he works up again and makes the cape of Malea, preparatory to sailing along the coast of Argolis on his way home, another hurricane (515) catches him and drifts him north-east to the extremity of the Argolic promontory which runs far out to sea. At this point (520) the wind shifts, and he makes his own port on the coast near Mycene. According to this interpretation, κεῖθεν takes up ἐσχατιήν, viz. the extremity of the territory (“ἀγροῦ”) where Thyestes used to live. But the difficulty will be altogether removed if we can accept the view of the geographer Andron , who states that the regular home (“ἔναιε”) of Thyestes, and of Aegisthus after him, was in the Island of Cythera: though at the present moment Aegisthus was at Mycenae, awaiting the return of Agamemnon.
