Geography of the Odyssey from historical inquiries that Hesiod had made. The 2nd century BC poet-historian Apollodorus of Athens sympathises with Eratosthenes, believing that Homer imagined the wanderings as having taken place in a kind of fairyland in the Atlantic; he actively criticises the standard identifications in and around Sicily, and refuses to offer any identifications of his own. The 2nd century BC historian Polybius discusses the wanderings in book 34 of his history. He refutes Apollodorus' idea that the wanderings were in the Atlantic on the basis of "Odyssey" 9.82, where Odysseus says that he sailed for nine days from Cape Malea in
Paul the Silentiary Paul the Silentiary Paul the Silentiary, also known as Paulus Silentiarius (, d. Constantinople, 575-580 AD), was a Greek poet. His contemporary, the historian and poet Agathias, describes him as a rich man and a 'Silentiary' or palace official of Justinian I at Constantinople. (This title has been taken to indicate that he was responsible for silence in the palace.) Paul is best known and most admired for his short poems in the classical tradition, about 80 of which have been preserved in the Greek Anthology. Forty of these are love poems. Two are replies to poems by Agathias; in