The city is in great part laid out in rectangular squares, the streets running nearly with the cardinal points of the compass.
The city is built with its streets running between the cardinal points of the compass and crossing each other at right angles.
Everything was changed when by the conquests of Alexander (334-323) it suddenly rose to material supremacy in all the East as far as India, and when cities of Greek speech and constitution were planted by the might of kings at all the cardinal points of intercourse within those lands.
The whole structure was roughly orientated, with the corners towards the cardinal points of the compass.
These speeches form the cardinal points in the action of the Iliad - the framework into which everything else is set; and they have also the best title to the name of Homer.