Chapter I: Part 1

LECTURES ON ANCIENT ETHNOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHY.

LECTURES
ON
ANCIENT ETHNOGRAPHY
AND GEOGRAPHY,

COMPRISING
GREECE AND HER COLONIES, EPIRUS, MACEDONIA,
ILLYRICUM, ITALY, GAUL, SPAIN, BRITAIN,
THE NORTH OF AFRICA, ETC.

BY
B. G. NIEBUHR.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN EDITION OF DR. ISLER, BY
DR. LEONHARD SCHMITZ, F.R.S.E.
RECTOR OF THE HIGH SCHOOL OF EDINBURGH;
WITH ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS FROM HIS OWN MS. NOTES.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:
WALTON AND MABERLY,
UPPER GOWER STREET, AND IVY LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW.
M.DCCC.LIII.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY J. WERTHEIMER AND CO.,
CIRCUS PLACE, FINSBURY CIRCUS.

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND

CONNOP THIRLWALL, D.D.,

LORD BISHOP OF ST. DAVIDS,

ETC., ETC.

MY DEAR LORD,

Independently of your merits as a profound historian and an inquirer into the institutions and languages of the Ancient World, whereby you have given a fresh impulse and a new life to the scholarship of this country, I cannot, as a pupil of the illustrious Niebuhr, call to mind what you have done to make British scholars familiar with his labours without a sense of deep gratitude. This feeling is heightened by the unvarying friendship with which you have honoured me during the last sixteen years, and which I have always found ready and willing to assist, in whatever circumstances it was appealed to. The very idea of publishing any of the Lectures of Niebuhr would, perhaps, never have occurred to me, had it not been suggested by your Lordship. Some fifteen years ago, when you inspected my MS. notes of the Lectures on Ancient, and especially on Greek, History, you at once perceived their value, and urged on me the desirableness of their publication. With a natural timidity I at first shrank from so arduous and responsible an undertaking; and it was not till I found that no one else would venture upon it, that I resolved to do my best to carry out your suggestion and to rescue those precious remains from oblivion. It is now pretty generally admitted that these Lectures are doing some service to the study of classical antiquity, and it affords me the greatest satisfaction to have this opportunity of publicly acknowledging that, in the first instance, the public is indebted to your Lordship for whatever benefit their publication has conferred upon the students of ancient history. My own humble but conscientious labour, in bringing them before the British public, will be amply rewarded, if the manner in which I have executed my task should meet with your approbation. With this hope I beg your Lordship’s acceptance of the present volumes as a small tribute to your genius and learning, and as a token of the veneration and gratitude with which

I shall ever remain,
My dear Lord,
Your’s faithfully and sincerely,

L. SCHMITZ.

PREFACE.

The Lectures here offered to the English public were delivered by Niebuhr in the university of Bonn during the winter of 1827-28, and were published by Dr. Isler at Berlin in 1851. The German editor, in a short preface, remarks, that for a time he hesitated as to the propriety of publishing the present course of Lectures unabridged, because from its very nature the historian had been obliged here to treat of many topics which are discussed in the Lectures already published. But a regard for those readers who may not be possessed of the volumes containing the other courses of Lectures, and at the same time a desire to keep each course complete in itself, induced him to give the lectures uncurtailed and as complete as he found them in the MS. notes. It must also be borne in mind that Niebuhr, delivering his discourses extempore, cannot be said exactly to have repeated what he had said on previous occasions; but that, generally, the statements made in one course of Lectures rather supplement and complete those put forth at another time.

The relation in which the present English version stands to the German original is precisely the same as that described in my Preface to the “Lectures on Ancient History”; but the present volumes differ from the previous ones in so far as they do not appear in the _form_ of Lectures. This is owing to the fact that the division into Lectures is not marked either in the German edition or in any of the sets of notes which I had opportunities of collating. The want of such a division, in this instance, is perhaps scarcely to be regretted, because the subject itself renders division and subdivision absolutely necessary; and if the merely accidental division into Lectures had been added, it would frequently disturb rather than assist the reader.

Many of the localities and countries here described have been more fully explored since the delivery of these Lectures, and much information might accordingly have been added in notes; but I have thought it right to adhere to the principle which I have followed in the publication of the Lectures on Ancient and on Roman History, as it is not my object to furnish complete treatises on these subjects, but to preserve and bring before the public the views and opinions of a man who still stands unrivalled as an historical inquirer.

L. S.

_Edinburgh, October, 1853._

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

PAGE

Preliminary observations 1

History of ancient Ethnography and Geography 4

Ancient authorities and introductory remarks 11

GREECE.

Greece in general 24

Peloponnesus 26

The Homeric Catalogue 31

Divisions of Peloponnesus 33

Argolis, Argos 37

Aegina 54

Laconia 56

Cythera 63

Messene 64

Arcadia 70

Elis 77

Achaia 79

GREECE BEYOND PELOPONNESUS.

Attica and Megaris 84

Megaris 87

Attica 90

Athens 93

Acropolis, Κιμώνειον τεῖχος, Πελασγικόν, Propylaea 97

The Theatre, Agora, Buleuterium, Prytaneum 98

The Pnyx, Museum, the New Town, Olympieum 99

Academia, Lyceum, Cynosarges 99

Piraeeus, Munychia 100

The Long Walls 102

Population of Athens 107

Salamis 111

Boeotia 113

The Locrian Tribes 123

Phocis 126

Doris 134

Aetolia 136

Acarnania 147

The Cephallenian Islands 153

Thessaly 155

Peraebia (Magnesia) 168

Achaia (Phthiotis) 170

Melians and Malians 171

The Dolopians 172

Euboea 175

Northern islands, Sciathos, Scopelos, Scyros 180

Peparethos, Halonnesos, Lemnos and Imbros 181

Samothrace, Thasos 182

The Cyclades 183

Delos 184

Paros, Siphnos, Seriphos 186

Ceos, Andros, Tenos, Syros, Rhenea, Myconos, Naxos 187

Melos, Thera 189

Ios, Amorgos, Crete 190

Carpathos, Astypalaea, Nisyros 195

Rhodes 196

Dorian Tripolis in Asia Minor 203

Ionia 204

Samos 209

Chios 213

Panionium 215

Aeolis 215

Lesbos 218

Magnesia on the Maeander 220

The Kingdom of Pergamus 221

Greek Settlements in Macedonia and Thrace 224

Chersonesus Thracica 234

Chersonesus Taurica 244

The north coast of Asia Minor 248

Epirus 251

Thesprotia 256

The Suliots 258

The Chaonians 260

The Molottians 261

The Atintanians 269

The Pelagonians 269

The Orestians 269

The Parauaeans 269

The Amphilochians 269

The Agraeans 270

Corcyra 272

Macedonia 275

Athamania 280, _n._

Macedonia prima 281

Emathia 286

Pieria 288

The Bottiaeans 288

The Paeonians 288, 296

Mygdonia 288

The Edonians 288

The Agrianians 296

Illyricum 297

The Amantians 306

The Bulliones 306

The Dessaretans 309

The Autariatae 309

Migrations of Nations 310

Ardyaeans and Parthinians 311

Dalmatia 312

Pharos 314

Corcyra Melaena 314

Melite 314

LECTURES

ON

ANCIENT ETHNOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHY.

All history resolves itself into a knowledge of the circumstances in the midst of which events occur, and of the events themselves; in an abstract point of view, the two are conveniently kept apart, although concretely they can never appear separated. A history which does not enter into the development of circumstances at all, and altogether pre-supposes them to be known, is scarcely conceivable, unless indeed it were written for contemporaries alone. Nevertheless, however, the one side or the other predominates, according to the predilection of the individual historian. Livy gives scarcely anything but the narration of events; earlier historians were fond of occupying themselves with the description of circumstances, and the more ancient the historian the more striking is this peculiarity. Thucydides, the greatest of all historians, whenever he has an opportunity, as in his description of nations, dwells upon the representation of circumstances. In the earliest times, therefore, ethnography and chorography were always the principal objects of attention, while subsequently this tendency decreased more and more, and the narration of events alone was attended to. The two, however, ought not to be separated, for without a knowledge of the circumstances in the midst of which events take place, the study of history is altogether useless. The mere knowledge of a country, however, is not sufficient; the peculiarities of its inhabitants, its products and the like, must be well known to the student; and without this history has no life. On the other hand, we are often unable to picture to ourselves even modern European nations from a mere narrative of events, unless we have at the same time some insight into their manners and customs. But the history of ancient nations more particularly cannot be understood without a knowledge of the circumstances arising from the peculiarities of their countries. Philological knowledge is the _conditio sine qua non_; but were a man ever so great a philologer, unless he be at the same time acquainted with the ancient constitutions, the political divisions, and the soil and climate of the countries, his ability to interpret the ancient authors would be nothing but “a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal”; he would be in the same condition in which we find the wretched grammarians of old.

A knowledge of the ancients may exist in an endless variety of degrees; a perfect knowledge is altogether unattainable. The time which separates us from them cannot be removed; but the difference of space presents no such insurmountable difficulty. The soil and the atmosphere of the classic countries have something so peculiar, and so utterly foreign to us, that to obtain a perfect familiarity with the ancient classics, it is necessary to know those countries and live in them, for unless we have seen them with our own eyes, we easily form erroneous notions; and this is required more particularly of him who wishes to understand the Latin poets. But still, even if a person cannot actually visit the countries, he may supply the defect, in a great measure, by a loving and diligent study. To initiate you into this, and at the same time to indicate to you those facts which are absolutely certain as points to start from, is the object of these Lectures. I shall give positive results which you may receive with confidence, and which I have arrived at by diligent and laborious research: they chiefly refer to changes of nations and countries, but at the same time topography shall not be excluded.

It is easy to perceive that this department of knowledge may be treated in various ways, for there are histories in which every thing that happened at the same period, is related synchronistically, while we may also look at events from the point of view of one particular nation. The same difference exists in ethnography and chorography. In the present Lectures it is my intention to give information about the classical nations of antiquity, and about the whole range of nations which are connected with them either by literature or by history, but I do not mean to treat of all the nations of antiquity in the widest sense of the term. I shall speak of the East and of Africa only so far as they come within the reach of the Greeks and Romans; I shall not touch upon the non-classical nations, though they are now better known from native accounts. I shall notice the migrations in Africa and those of the Scythians, as well as the Bactrian empire and other eastern countries. Of India I shall not speak according to Indian authorities, which were unknown to the ancients, but I shall follow the accounts furnished by the Greeks. Scandinavia will, for the most part, be dealt with in the same manner; the Finnian nations will be passed over altogether, as well as those parts of Africa which do not come in contact with the classical nations.

The time, which for us forms the boundary between antiquity and the middle ages, cannot be determined with absolute precision; ancient and middle-age history cannot, in their whole extent, be separated by a straight line; the line undulates without any definite law. With some nations it falls at an earlier, and with others at a later time, according as their countries were taken possession of by barbarous tribes at an earlier or later period. For most European nations, the migration of nations forms the line of demarcation, and the immigration of the Franks, Suevi, Vandals, Burgundians and others forms the close of antiquity, while in the eastern empire it lasted till the Arab conquest. It is but seldom that in this respect we shall be apparently inconsistent, when, for example, we describe the condition of Rome and Ravenna during the period of the exarchate; for in point of fact, these two cities down to the restoration of the western empire, belong to ancient, and not to mediaeval history. Such lines of demarcation cannot be slavishly adhered to without pedantry.

We may further raise the question, as to whether the geographical knowledge of the ancients, that is, an examination of their notions about the earth, its parts and its inhabitants should come within our sphere. In so far as their notions were erroneous, such discussions would be tedious and disagreeable; and they form no part of our objective consideration of ethnography and chorography. This science, however, the creation of Voss, is a very essential part of the propaedeutics to a right understanding of the ancient authors: it belongs, in a subjective point of view, to the history of geography, and the gradual extension of geographical knowledge. We shall take into our consideration only those parts of that science which have a direct bearing upon our object, by shewing us the condition of the countries at the time, and the connections and relations among peoples distant from one another. Whoever treats of geography as a science, that is, whoever intends to give a history of geography, must dwell upon these points; but then he cannot confine himself to the Greeks and Romans, he must at the same time discuss the geographical knowledge of the Arabs, Scandinavians, and other nations.

The history of ancient geography and ethnography after the revival of letters, is the same as that of all other studies connected with the investigation of antiquity. After the restoration of learning, all information about ancient geography was sought exclusively in the ancient authors; the whole of the middle ages had added nothing to it; whatever advances were made, proceeded from practical men, and not from the learned. The consequence of this state of things was the unfortunate separation of dead learning from practical life: the knowledge of the learned had its root in their books, and was thereby spoiled in its very beginning; it is true, all erudition is based on books, but it must be amalgamated with practical knowledge. To transfer that which was handed down in books to the actual, visible world was a very difficult task, and the acquisition of practical experience was no part of a scholar’s business. This state of things remained the prevailing evil until the 17th century; and during that period, the ἰδιῶται were much more learned than the λόγιοι. The first attempts of geographers consisted of lifeless compilations from ancient books; and only that which was not found in them was sparingly derived from the actual and living knowledge. The most striking example of this kind is Raphael Volaterranus, in that part of his Encyclopaedia, in which he treats of geography; for in describing the countries of Europe, which had become entirely changed, he copies Pliny and Mela, and it is not till they cease to furnish him with information, that he borrows a few things from the actual knowledge of his time. Although he lived at Rome, he describes it as it had been a thousand years before him. In the East, and especially at Constantinople, the maps of Ptolemy were used throughout the middle ages—whether the same was the case in Italy, I cannot decide; the earliest Italian maps are not older than the fifteenth century. The maps of Ptolemy were then brought over to the western countries; and from them the learned formed some sort of notion of the geographical and ethnographical knowledge of the ancients. But as early as the thirteenth century—the Arabs had done so even before—the Venetians, Genoese, and Catalanians had become acquainted with the Greek and Arabic maps, and it was these unlearned men that, in extending geographical knowledge, took these maps as their basis, and remodelled them into new and practical maps, especially sea-charts, which they had so much improved. But this was unknown to the scholars of the fifteenth century; and even in the sixteenth, their ignorance is almost inconceivable. It was not till the seventeenth century that the nations of western Europe arrived at the age of maturity; that century checked this irrational philological tendency, and for a time, philology itself; it gave a different direction to scholarship, and thus laid the foundation of our modern philology. The time had now come, when a living account of ancient geography based on autopsy could be undertaken.

The first work of eminence was the production of a German, Philip Cluver, on Italy, Sicily, and Germany; it ranks very high, though all its parts are not equal in value, the _Germania_ being very considerably inferior to the two others. The _Italia_ and _Sicilia_ must be regarded as one work; what he has done for these countries is excellent, and nearly all the passages of the ancients referring to them have been fully collected by him. When we are told, that he collected the materials for his work in the space of eighteen months, we must probably understand this to mean, that, after having previously read through all the ancient authors, he collected in his mature age his reminiscences within the short period alluded to. He was professor in the university of Leyden; and the states general of Holland, which were usually very active in their support of learned men, granted him permission for a journey to Italy, and at the same time allowed him the enjoyment of his salary.[1] He had great tact in discovering and remembering localities; he knew how to see things with his own eyes, and at the same time had a clear intellect in examining things impartially. His reputation is firmly established, his work is immortal among scholars, it will always be great and classical, and there is but very little that can be added to it. But he did not rightly understand the ethnography and history of the Italian nations, nor did he sufficiently attend to the stages through which ancient history passes, and by which the nations ascend as by the steps of a ladder. Ancient history becomes confused by the supposition that no event is historical, which is not recorded in the extant ancient authors. Such a view can be entertained only by timid minds. There are often manifest gaps in history, which are not noticed by the ancients, because they themselves did not perceive them, or because they did not find them pointed out in earlier writers. Even the great Perizonius combats such narrow views; and it is for this reason that Cluver’s accounts of nations are often full of mistakes. This is the defect in his excellent work, but its details are not the less valuable on that account. He did not live long enough to revise his work, for he did not attain an advanced age.

His example was followed by a no less distinguished man, who attempted to compose a chorography of Greece, which was even far more difficult than that of Italy. This undertaking was the more laborious, because there were scarcely any preparatory works that could be made use of; for Italy had been visited before, and the travels of Baptista Alberti furnished Cluver with a very good foundation. The maps of Greece, which were then in use, were very wretched; those of Ptolemy are badly projected, and only a few countries are treated with any degree of minuteness. In the middle ages, Greece was very little visited by Europeans, so that during that period it was almost as unknown as Ethiopia is now; and a geography of Greece was therefore a want that was seriously felt. Paulmier de Grentemesnil (Palmerius), a French nobleman of Normandy, undertook a journey to Greece. He, together with the two brothers Valois, closes the glorious array of the great French philologers, who combined the knowledge of language with that of things. Unfortunately he did not complete his work, because he had planned it on too grand a scale: his scheme also embraced Illyricum and Macedonia, and he completed only his account of these two countries, together with that of Epirus and Acarnania. He, too, has left much that requires to be rectified, but this does not detract from his greatness. The idea of continuing the work has occurred to no one, though at present there are men who possess all the qualifications for such a task. However, the completion of the work in the form given to it by its author is now no longer a desideratum.

In the reign of Louis XIV, when a friendly intercourse with the Ottoman Porte commenced, and when the relations with it became more intimate, Greece was first visited by French travellers; maps were then drawn, which were not indeed quite accurate, but still tolerably good. Thus De la Guilletiere described Peloponnesus, but his work, which contains many a valuable observation, has no maps. The first real journey of discovery to Greece was that undertaken by Spon and Wheler; light was afterwards thrown upon the geography of Peloponnesus, about the end of the 17th century, by the campaigns of the Venetian admiral Morosini, who, for the purpose of his military operations against the Porte, caused charts and plans to be made of several places by Coronelli; the struggle for the possession of Candia also was beneficial. Then followed the excellent travels of Tournefort; some natives of Greece likewise collected important materials for a description of their country: thus the archbishop of Janina, known under the name of Meletias, gave a description of Greece. Yet the materials brought together were never wrought out in the manner in which Palmerius would have done it.

Italy and Greece therefore are the only countries which were at all made the subjects of any learned inquiries. In the meantime books of travels, which combined ancient and modern geography, also furnished many materials to increase the knowledge of other countries. Much was gained by the voyages of the English to India: Egypt was thus brought to light; and Syria and some of the countries of Asia Minor were laid open, by Richard Pococke; and many a discovery was made accidentally during the active intercourse with those countries. The travels of Shaw are an excellent work for the ethnography of northern Africa, especially Numidia and the Roman province of Africa: he did for those countries what Cluver and Paulmier before him had done for others. During the eighteenth century, the great D’Anville, one of the most brilliant geniuses I know, without writing many books, contributed, by his maps, more than any other man to advance geographical knowledge at a gigantic rate. I cannot allow any opportunity to pass without avowing my admiration of that man’s greatness: by the light he has thrown upon ancient geography, he has acquired as much merit in historical philology as in ancient history. Major Rennell, who is still alive, has undeservedly been placed by the side of D’Anville; he has done much that is invaluable, he is diligent and indefatigable in collecting materials; but there is one point in which he differs from D’Anville, and in which he is far inferior to him. D’Anville possessed a peculiar power of divination and of estimating the value of his materials; he was not only extremely industrious in collecting them, but knew how to value each point most correctly, and how to use and combine his matter in the most sagacious manner, always clearly distinguishing between what he knew and what he did not know; while Major Rennell, on the other hand, has spoiled his best materials by his scrupulous attempts to reconcile what is incorrect with what is correct. D’Anville’s _Mémoire sur la Mer Rouge_, for example, is the most excellent chart of the Arabian Gulf. All the earlier ones were copied from the ancient Venetian ones; but all at once D’Anville furnished an accurate, detailed, and astronomically correct description of the coasts, islands, and countries, which he had compiled from the most different and wretched materials, furnished by Portuguese, Turkish, and other maps. He discerned with the most marvellous tact which statements were entitled to belief and which not. Any one knowing what geography was before the time of D’Anville, cannot sufficiently admire him. Two of his works, that on ancient and modern Egypt and that on Gaul, are particularly excellent; his little manual is of less value. But the whole series of maps in his Atlas of the ancient world will be unsurpassed, until another D’Anville arises who shall draw his maps according to the improved geographical knowledge we now possess. Southern Italy is not yet perfect in his map; but whenever his representations are incomplete, he himself points it out; as, for example, in his map of Epirus, which country has now become much better known in consequence of several military officers of learning having resided in it. After D’Anville’s death, Barbié du Bocage unjustly made several alterations in his maps, but in subsequent editions he has withdrawn them.

Chorography thus made constant progress, but ethnography did not keep pace with it. The German work of Mannert, which is extensively used and has acquired great celebrity, arose out of the materials then accumulated; the author has worked at it for a period of more than thirty years, and new and improved editions of the first volumes were published before the whole was completed. It contains many valuable materials, but they are by no means wrought out as they should be. The author commenced his work with very slender scholarship, such as it was at the time, and without extensive reading. These disadvantages became the more dangerous, because he was not sufficiently conscious of them, and because he wrote with animation and interest: he has no survey of his subject, he wants the real historical tact, and has not read the ancients thoroughly. He has made many hasty combinations, without sufficient foundation. If any one wished to review the work, mistakes might be discovered in great numbers. Thus, _e.g._, he sets up the hypothesis, that the Herodotus who during the insurrection against Persia was sent as ambassador from Ionia to Greece, was the same as the historian, without considering that, in this case, he must have been at least ninety years old when he began to write his history, and accordingly must have lived at least to the age of one hundred and twenty years. The maps of Reichardt are thoroughly bad[2].

A work on ancient topography is still a desideratum, and one of the many tasks which a good scholar might undertake; every year in our time furnishes means to make it more complete.

ANCIENT AUTHORITIES AND INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

Ancient chorography is not, like Roman antiquities, a department of knowledge created by modern philology; the ancient authorities for it are not inconsiderable, for they not only furnish the materials, but the work of Strabo, for example, is an ample digest of them. The Greeks in general took an intense interest in geography, and were in this respect quite different from the Romans; there is no nation that could have done more and that actually did less for geography than the Romans; they shewed a perfect indifference in regard to the knowledge of their immense empire. If we except the Germania of Tacitus, and a few passages in Caesar about Britain and Germany, which are indeed excellent, Latin literature furnishes nothing. Pomponius Mela and Pliny give only abridged summaries of the knowledge possessed by their contemporaries. We know the extent of Latin literature so perfectly as to be able to assert, that nothing of importance is lost; the Romans never had a great chorographical work like that which Strabo wrote for the Greeks.

But even before Strabo, the Greeks had great works of this kind; nay, their earliest work in prose, of which we have any knowledge (if we except the genealogies of Pherecydes, Acusilaus and others, the simplicity of which is almost beyond our conception), the γῆς περίοδος of Hecataeus the Milesian, was devoted to chorography. Its character is not accurately described by any of the ancient authors, but we know that the titles of his works were “Asia” and “Europe;” and we know from Stephanus of Byzantium, that he mentioned an immense number of towns and nations, though probably not in a systematic manner. He seems to have connected separate narratives with one another, but his real objects were chorography and ethnography, and not history, whence he is scarcely ever quoted as an authority on historical matters. It is true, however, that he did not entirely exclude historical events; it is very possible also that he may have spoken of the revolt of the Ionians under Aristagoras, in which he himself had acted so unfortunate a part; and there can be little doubt that incidentally he also mentioned the history of the countries of which he was treating.

Descriptions or γῆς περίοδοι of this kind probably existed in Greece in great numbers; they were written in a lively manner to afford entertainment, and for such persons as wished to gain information about the earth and its inhabitants. But there also existed another kind of descriptions intended for the practical guidance of merchants and sailors; these men who had no ambition to investigate the interior of countries, could not but feel an interest in the descriptions of the coasts. As navigation was chiefly coasting, the want of such descriptions was felt, men being anxious to know in what manner town followed after town, harbour after harbour, and promontory after promontory. These are the περίπλοι: the most ancient is that by Scylax of Caryanda, a contemporary of Philip of Macedonia, as I have shewn by incontrovertible arguments[3]. Besides this description of the Mediterranean, there were others of the Euxine and the Erythraean Sea, which were composed at a much later period. Throughout the middle ages, these and similar περίπλοι were used, and the modern Greeks still have guides similar to those of their ancestors of old. Even till very recent times, sailors who confined themselves to the navigation of the Mediterranean, made use of what are called _Portolani del Mare_, which, previously to the invention of printing, were circulated in manuscript. The ancients accordingly had two kinds of materials, descriptions of coasts and descriptions of countries.

After the time of Hecataeus, 150 years passed away before a real geography was written by Eratosthenes, whose object was to furnish a scientific chorography. In Herodotus chorography and history are combined, both are equally his object. He rarely combats Hecataeus, and not by name, but he often attacks his system, being conscious that he can give more accurate information. His work shows us the limits of the science in his time.

It is a very interesting inquiry—first undertaken and carried out in an admirable manner by J. H. Voss—to trace the different notions entertained by the ancients about the form of the earth, and to examine their geographical knowledge at the different periods. His merits in this respect will never be forgotten; but the more I, for my own part, look with reverence and gratitude upon his inquiries as real models, the more do I consider myself entitled to make a few observations regarding the mistakes into which he has fallen. The first is his supposition, that a thing which is not mentioned by an author, although it is not opposed to his other statements, must be regarded as if it had been unknown to him; but the fact is, that authors often knew things without mentioning them. If Aristotle, during his walks in Piraeeus, a place frequented by men from all parts of the world, questioned the ναύκληροι, he might have written a geography, which would excite our astonishment, as it is excited by his history of animals: the fact that he chanced not to write a geography does not entitle us to draw a conclusion as to his knowledge of countries and nations. It is this manner of viewing things that gave rise to the opinion, that the Greeks knew nothing about Rome; but there can be no doubt that even Hecataeus spoke of Rome; he was however not much read,[4] and hence we cannot infer that Rome was unknown to the Greeks. This inference, however, that a man is ignorant of a thing, because he does not mention it, is common even in earlier times. The second mistake of Voss is that he considers the opinions of a great writer as the standard of the knowledge of his age. This may indeed be said of Eratosthenes, whose works were in the hands of all who wished to gain information; and Eratosthenes, moreover, stands already within the sphere of what may be called a learned or literary period; but before his time circumstances were very different. We can form a clear notion of this, if we contemplate nations which have not yet arrived at definite notions about geography. Eastern people, for example, never have any scruples about geography; I am acquainted with Asiatics and others, with whom I have conversed much about ethnography, and who had never had a geographical book in their hands; they scarcely ever possess any broad geographical views, but are deeply interested in it; the one has a knowledge of one thing, and another of another. There is indeed a certain average amount of knowledge, which every individual may be supposed to possess, but apart from this, the knowledge of persons who in other respects are equally well educated, is very different according to the circumstances in which they are placed. Every inhabitant of Tripoli and Morocco knows of Bournou, but many are ignorant of everything beyond its name, and few are acquainted with the interior. In like manner the knowledge possessed by the learned in ancient Greece was of a very different kind from that diffused among the people, and every one might for himself acquire a certain range of knowledge. Some persons who had travelled in distant lands possessed an extensive knowledge of countries, and those anxious to learn derived their information from them. It is therefore generally impossible to say how much geographical knowledge an otherwise well educated man may have possessed. That which in later times was to be found in books which were generally read, was known also to every well-read Greek. But the living knowledge among the people was far more extensive Herodotus became acquainted in Scythia with people who had made distant journeys, or had heard accounts from others extending as far as the Ural mountains; and in like manner, others who visited Massilia might have obtained equally accurate information from people that visited Britain; such knowledge, however, was not generally diffused, but was possessed only by navigators and some others. All knowledge was purely practical, until some curious inquirer in some much frequented port collected the scattered information, put together all the περίοδοι and περίπλοι, and thus formed a geography. Eratosthenes lived in a large port town, and possessing an extensive library, he was the first to draw up a general ethnography; before he wrote his work, the geographical knowledge of one man was immensely different from that of another.

The early Greeks and Asiatics entertained the notion that the earth was a circular plain, floating in the middle between heaven above and the nether world below. And this was the most natural conception: where there is no cause for assuming any other form, the circular is the most probable. The notion of Homer evidently is, that the plain is somewhat depressed in the centre, forming a basin in which the waters of the Mediterranean are collected, and that the world-river Oceanus flows round the upper edge of the plain. This opinion prevailed for a long time; it was entertained by Hecataeus as well as by Homer.

Another notion was, that warmth and cold were not to be explained by the relation of the sun to the earth alone. To this the ancients were led by the observations, so natural in the south, on the nature of the winds, which are altogether of a different character from our winds; their character cannot be traced to topographical causes. We in the north consider winds as currents of air which bring warmth or cold, according to the different quarters from which they blow; but a person who has lived in the south, or has conversed with southern people about the matter, knows that the winds there have something quite unaccountable. In order to explain the different peculiarities of the north winds at Rome (due north, north-west, and north-east), one must assume essentially different characters in them in regard to the dispersing of clouds, to brightness of the sky, to the moisture, the effect on the thermometer, &c. In like manner the three south winds have their peculiarities. It cannot be explained why the east wind, which blows across the land, produces rain at Rome, while the west wind, which comes from the sea, is mild and for the most part dry. Such differences also exist in Greece, and this led the ancients into speculations. They conceived the winds to be distinct powers, with original properties which belonged to them alone. The peculiarities of the winds as described by Pliny may be recognised even now; I have, however, observed at Rome, that they have shifted a few points of the compass further west. I am personally firmly convinced of this; in the present state of physical science one need not fear to be laughed at, as about 40 years ago: I have mentioned the subject to several natural philosophers, and requested them to investigate it.

Before the rise of mathematical and physical geography, which Aristotle understood perfectly, though he did not work it out for others, and down to the time of Eratosthenes, the notion of the ancients was, that the north wind, which was so disagreeable to them, came from mount Haemus; to this belief they were probably led by the fact, that they heard of terrific winds blowing on the coast of Thrace—the Greeks told one another things about those winds, which made their hair stand on ends;—they were further told, that in the more northern countries, in Bulgaria, Wallachia, and in general on the northern slopes of mount Haemus, the violence of the winds was not to be compared with what it was in Macedonia and Thrace. Those mountains, therefore, were regarded by them as the abode of Boreas, and the countries beyond them were believed to be mild and lovely; in this belief they were confirmed by the stories about the paradise-like climate in Wallachia. They did not take into consideration the height of the mountains, and conceived that countries were milder, the further they were removed from Boreas: the countries beyond Haemus were, in their opinion, protected against the Scirocco, which was the most troublesome to them. This is the simple and childlike story about the Hyperboreans. Herodotus thinks that, if they really did exist, there must also be Hypernotians, and this would be quite correct, if Notus had been believed, like Boreas, to dwell in a mountain; but the fact is, that Notus was conceived to roam over the endless sandy deserts of Africa which extend to the ends of the earth.

The maps which existed among the Greeks at a very early period, were made in accordance with these notions. Herodotus’ account of Aristagoras, who laid a map before Cleomenes, king of Sparta, is certainly authentic. We may regard Hecataeus as the author of a map, on which the measures which Herodotus made use of, were already indicated. As the Hebrews regarded Jerusalem, so the Greeks considered Greece, and more especially Delphi and mount Olympus, which lie about the same degree of longitude, as the centre of the earth. When Herodotus went to Scythia, and there learned how many days the merchants who traded with the savage nations, had to travel to the Ural mountain, and when, on the other hand, he heard at Massilia how near it was from that city to the Garonne and the ocean, he naturally extended the form of the inhabited earth in different directions and to different points so far, that his conception did not at all harmonize with that of the circular plain. On the one hand, he found at Massilia, that the world-surrounding ocean was not very far from the Mediterranean, while on the other side it was at an immeasurable distance, so that in the south and west it was nearer to Delphi than in the north and east; hence he says, “I smile at those who conceive the earth to be circular, as if it were made by a turner, and to be surrounded by the ocean.” His tendency was quite different from that of his predecessors: it was the peculiarity of his nature minutely to examine the details, and not to be uneasy, if he did not find in the whole of his conception a place for every particular point. Some men feel the necessity of conceiving all things together as one whole, they cannot understand the parts otherwise than as portions of the whole, and in the part they even see the whole foreshadowed; but others, who are of an empirical nature, are the most fit persons to prosecute inquiries; they form distinct notions of details, distinguish that which they cannot yet comprehend, and discern the places where they must add something for the purpose of filling up a gap; they place one detail by the side of another, and put them in relation with each other, but are unconcerned about the place which every particular point occupies in the whole system. If they do reach the height from which they can command a general view, they survey accurately, but if not, they are aoristic. The latter might be called atomists, and the former dynamists. Herodotus belongs to the atomists, and in this respect my father bears a great resemblance to him; the highest perfection is implied in a complete combination of the idea of the whole with the most sober investigation of details, and this perfection we find in d’Anville. While, however, Herodotus wants to get rid of arbitrary outlines and fancies, he himself unconsciously invents some definite form in his own mind, though he does not set it forth externally. Hence, as I have shewn in the transactions of the Berlin Academy[5], he conceives the Ister and the Nile to flow parallel but in opposite directions, and according to him, the Ister flows from north to south into the Euxine, just as the Nile flows from the south into the Mediterranean; in like manner the Indus and Araxes, according to him, flow from west to east, and the latter river, as conceived by him, is almost entirely fictitious. Geography, therefore, at that time was not universally known; its changeableness and accidental character is no where more obvious than in Herodotus himself. His notion of the course of the Nile is, that above the first cataract it flows from west to east, and that near Elephantine it turns round; and yet he might without difficulty have informed himself of the true state of the case. From an inscription found near the cataract among the ruins of the temple at Ipsambul, and which belongs to some Ionians and Carians, who had gone into those parts either as soldiers or as ostrich-hunters[6], it is clear that those Greeks went far beyond the cataracts, and were very well aware that the Nile flowed from the south. Another proof is furnished by the Attic orators: when Alexander had crossed the frontier mountains of India, Aeschines[7] conceived that he had advanced as far as the polar circle. Such expressions about the polar circles do not occur in Herodotus, for he does not know that the earth is a globe; this notion was probably first formed in the East, whence Eudoxus, the astronomer, received it in forming his sphaera, even before the time of Aristotle; and many of the expressions referring to it may have found their way into the language of ordinary life. At Athens all this was very confused, and many men, according to their own experience, formed individually very different notions of the geography of the earth. But as Scylax was accurate in regard to the East, so others were well informed about other parts; and at Massilia, _e.g._, much was known about the north from the voyages of Pytheas and others. For a long time people did not know what conception to form of the sea beyond Massilia; at Athens many, in the time of Plato, still believed that the ocean commenced on the west of Italy: but Polybius is already well acquainted with the road from Narbonne to the Ligeris, and thence to Britain. We must, therefore, not believe that this country was unknown to the Romans until the conquests of Caesar, and that it had no place in the maps of Eratosthenes.

Such was the reputation which Strabo enjoyed among the later Greeks, that he was always simply called _the_ geographer (Eustathius never quotes him by any other name), just as Aristotle was simply styled _the_ philosopher. It is well known that he was a native of Amasia or Amasea, in a distant part of Pontus, and although his birth-place was not a Greek town, he seems to have belonged to a Greek family. He was born in the reign of Augustus, and wrote under Tiberius. We see, from his work, that he was one of those men who have not chosen their pursuit with a due regard to their real natural talents: for by profession he was a speculative philosopher, a Stoic, while in reality he had a genuine historical mind, and a true historical tact. He composed two great works, one of which has perished in such an inconceivable manner, that I very much doubt whether it was ever published. It was a continuation of Polybius which he wrote, because he was dissatisfied with that of Posidonius, and the task was one for which he was most eminently qualified. His geography is an excellent work, and considering the loss of that of Eratosthenes, it is invaluable, for he was a man of great judgment; but unfortunately it has not come down to us quite entire. Until a late period of the middle ages, it existed only in a single manuscript, which is probably now at Paris; its outward damages seem to indicate that it is the source from which all the later MSS. were taken. It is a remarkable fact, that several such MSS. of Greek authors, from which all others are derived, are still in existence, so that it is superfluous to collate the others. I may mention, for example, Athenaeus and the orator Aristides; the MS. of the latter is at Florence, the library of which city appears to have been particularly rich in such original MSS., and it is possible, that they were obtained directly from Constantinople. Eustathius and Stephanus of Byzantium still had complete copies of Strabo. This geographer has done all that his materials enabled him to do: the whole of geography, so far as it was known in his time, is laid down in his book, and that not only the contemporary geography, but also that of earlier ages with especial reference to the illustration of the poets, particularly Homer, whence from the very beginning we often meet with digressions, which do not seem to us to be in exact proportion to the whole work. We may assert that until the fourth and fifth century, the geography of the Romans did not extend beyond what had been known to Strabo; he did not indeed possess the information about Germany and Britain, which we find in Tacitus; but, generally speaking, we may say that, with few exceptions, geography during several centuries made no progress. In Ptolemy we see that the knowledge of the East, especially of India, had been advanced and extended by merchants, while in Strabo the knowledge about those countries is rather limited, commerce not having extended to them till a later period. The knowledge of the Romans about Egypt, though they had ruled over it for upwards of fifty years, was still very scanty. Strabo is altogether unmathematical, and Eratosthenes was farther advanced in this respect, so far indeed as it was possible for him, though he too, in regard to longitudes, was often satisfied with mere guesses, which sometimes entirely displaced the right point of view. All that Strabo knows on these points is derived from Eratosthenes, whose measurements were still highly imperfect. The division of the heavens into 360 degrees is very ancient, while that of the earth is of a very late date, Marinus of Tyre, who lived shortly before Ptolemy, being the first to introduce it into his maps. One great drawback in Strabo is an ungenerous hostility towards the great Eratosthenes; the cause of this desire to quarrel is unknown, and his censure is often very foolish.

Since the time that Bochart derived the name of Europe from the Phoenician ערב, it has been generally assumed by all intelligent inquirers, that the name of our part of the world actually owes its origin to some Phoenician division of the countries of the earth; it is also well known that Europa is called a daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor. Owing to the ill-use which Bochart often makes of Phoenician etymologies, this one too has been disputed, but it is only those who throw away the wheat with the chaff that reject his derivation of the name Europe. Homer seems to have divided the earth into two parts, viz., πρὸς ἠῶ τ’ ἠέλιόν τε, and πρὸς ζόφον, but his not mentioning other parts may be merely accidental, and I should therefore not like to adopt Voss’ opinion, that Homer knew of no other division. The division, according to the quarters of the world, into Europe, Asia, Libya and Hesperia, seems to have been very ancient and general among the Greeks. Eratosthenes made the division according to the four great nations, which is less convenient, as these nations become mixed and amalgamated with one other. The opinion that Asia derived its name from the Asian marshes in Lydia appears to me unsatisfactory; for it was not customary with the Greeks first to use a name in a limited sense and afterwards to extend it in the manner in which the Latins[8] gave the name Italia to the smallest portion of the country, and afterwards extended it instead of applying it to the whole country at once. Libya is evidently a Phoenician name, as is clear from Lilybaeum, which signifies “opposite to Libya,”—a name which the Carthaginians would not have given to a place unless they had called Africa Libya. The opinion which regards Hesperia as a fourth part of the world is only a hypothesis, but it is a fact that the name was applied to the whole of western Europe. Afterwards it was united with Europe, just as Libya was for a time treated as a part of Asia, though afterwards it was again regarded as a separate part of the world, while Hesperia has ever since been considered as only a portion of Europe.

The boundaries of Europe accordingly likewise differed at different times. The most ancient mention of the name of Europe in Greek literature occurs in the hymn on Apollo (v. 251), where it is used in a very peculiar way: in the north, Europe is quite indefinitely separated from the barbarous countries, and seems to comprise only Greece exclusive of Peloponnesus, the islands, Macedonia, Illyricum and Italy. The poet accordingly applies the name to all the countries north of Peloponnesus. In Aristotle’s Politics the name is again used in quite a singular way: after having previously spoken of Asia, he mentions Europe as opposed to Greece. There may have been many more such designations, but they never acquired any great importance.