| #### CHAPTER 116 |

| #### #### Such was the tale told me by the priests concerning the arrival of Helen at the court of Proteus. It seems to me that Homer was acquainted with this story, and while discarding it, because he thought it less adapted for epic poetry than the version which he followed, showed that it was not unknown to him. This is evident from the travels which he assigns to Alexander in the Iliad - and let it be borne in mind that he has nowhere else contradicted himself - making him be carried out of his course on his return with Helen, and after divers wanderings come at last to Sidon in Phoenicia. The passage is in the Bravery of Diomed, and the words are as follows: ####
| #### There were the robes, many-coloured, the work of Sidonian women: They from Sidon had come, what time god-shaped Alexander Over the broad sea brought, that way, the high-born Helen. |
#### #### In the Odyssey also the same fact is alluded to, in these words: ####
| #### Such, so wisely prepared, were the drugs that her stores afforded, Excellent; gift which once Polydamna, partner of Thonis, Gave her in Egypt, where many the simples that grow in the meadows, Potent to cure in part, in part as potent to injure. |
#### #### Menelaus too, in the same poem, thus addresses Telemachus: #### Much did I long to return, but the Gods still kept me in Egypt - Angry because I had failed to pay them their hecatombs duly. #### In these places Homer shows himself acquainted with the voyage of Alexander to Egypt, for Syria borders on Egypt, and the Phoenicians, to whom Sidon belongs, dwell in Syria. ####  |