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116.

This, the priests said, was how Helen came to Proteus. And, in my opinion, Homer knew this story, too; but seeing that it was not so well suited to epic poetry as the tale of which he made use, he rejected it, showing that he knew it. [2] This is apparent from the passage in the Iliad (and nowhere else does he return to the story) where he relates the wanderings of Alexander, and shows how he and Helen were carried off course, and wandered to, among other places, Sidon in Phoenicia. [3] This is in the story of the Prowess of Diomedes, where the verses run as follows:

“There were the robes, all embroidered,
The work of women of Sidon, whom godlike Alexandrus himself
Brought from Sidon, crossing the broad sea,
The same voyage on which he brought back Helen of noble descent.
”

Hom. Il. 6.289-92
[4] [He mentions it in the Odyssey also:

“The daughter of Zeus had such ingenious drugs,
Good ones, which she had from Thon's wife, Polydamna, an Egyptian,
Whose country's fertile plains bear the most drugs,
Many mixed for good, many for harm:
”

Hom. Od. 4.227-30
] [5] and again Menelaus says to Telemachus:

“I was eager to return here, but the gods still held me in Egypt,
Since I had not sacrificed entire hecatombs to them.
”

Hom. Od. 4. 351-2
[6]

In these verses the poet shows that he knew of Alexander's wanderings to Egypt; for Syria borders on Egypt, and the Phoenicians, to whom Sidon belongs, dwell in Syria.

Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.

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