Goodisson, William: A historical and topographical essay upon the islands of Corfu, Leucadia, Cephalonia, Ithaka and Zante: with remarks upon the character manners and customs of the Ionian Greeks : descriptions of the scenery and remains of antiquity discovered therein, and reflections upon the Cyclopian ruins, illustrated by maps and sketches (London: Thomas and George Underwood, 1822)

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and insular position affording it security, as its
naval strength did, considerable weight and influ-
ence amongst the other commonwealths of Greece«
In the time of the Romans it served as a convenient
step between the Italian and Grecian continents,
and greatly facilitated the extension of conquest and
dominion of that mighty people. If we ascend to
the more remote ages, and can afford any credit
to the poetical descriptions of Homer, we shall
find its individual importance to have been still
greater, on account of the riches, the population,
and the maritime skill of its inhabitants. This
period of its history is, like that of all the neigh-
bouring states, much intermixed with, and obscured
by fable.
Itwas first called Drepanum (fyefravov), which some
writers say was derived from its being the scene of
the bloody act committed by Saturn upon the
person of his father Coelum. To this is added, that
Saturn having effected his purpose in maiming
Ccelum by means of a reaping-hook, flung the
instrument from him, and that it fell in Messina
in Sicily, which assumed its curved form, and its
name of Zancle, from this circumstance: moreover,
that the drops of blood which fell from the hook
upon the earth produced the race of giants.
It was afterwards called Scheria, and the people
Pheacians; the etymology of which words is as
fanciful as that of Drepanum. Scheria was imagined