Chapter VII (3)

[236] Iliad xi. 20.

[237] Of the Mediterranean.

[238] Philæ was built on a little island formed by the Nile, now called El-Heif.

[239] This is evidently Strabo’s meaning; but the text, as it now stands, is manifestly corrupt.

[240] El-Baretun. A description of this place will be found in the 17th book.

[241] At this port it was that Agesilaus terminated his glorious career.

[242] Iliad xiii. 1. Strabo means that Homer, after having spoken of the Trojans in general, mentions Hector in particular.

[243] Iliad ii. 641. Having mentioned the sons of Œneus collectively, he afterwards distinguishes one of them by name.

[244] Iliad viii. 47. Gargarus was one of the highest peaks of Ida.

[245] Iliad ii. 536. Chalcis and Eretria were two cities of Eubœa.

[246] We have here taken advantage of Casaubon’s suggestion to read ἡ πάνορμος instead of ἢ Πάνορμος, the Greek name for Palermo in Sicily, which was not founded in the time of Sappho.

[247] Odyssey iv. 83.

[248] Paris.

[249] Where were her variously embroidered robes, the works of Sidonian females, which godlike Alexander himself had brought from Sidon, sailing over the broad ocean, in that voyage in which he carried off Helen, sprung from a noble sire. Iliad vi. 289.

[250] I will give thee a wrought bowl: it is all silver, and the lips are bound with gold; it is the work of Vulcan: the hero Phædimus, king of the Sidonians, gave it [to me], when his home sheltered me, as I was returning from thence. I wish to give this to thee. Odyssey xv. 115.

[251] But in beauty it much excelled [all] upon the whole earth, for the ingenious Sidonians had wrought it cunningly, and Phœnician men had carried it. Iliad xxiii. 742.

[252] The Armenians.

[253] The Arabs.

[254] The Syrians.

[255] Dwelling in caverns.

[256] He saw the cities of many men, and learned their manners. Odyssey i. 3.

[257] Having suffered many things, and having wandered much, I was brought. Odyssey iv. 81.

[258] See Hesiod, Fragments, ed. Loesner, p. 434.

[259] This derivation of Arabia is as problematical as the existence of the hero from whom it is said to have received its name; a far more probable etymology is derived from _ereb_, signifying the west, a name supposed to have been conferred upon it at a very early period by a people inhabiting Persia.

[260] That is, that the Phœnicians and Sidonians dwelling around the Persian Gulf are colonies from those inhabiting the shores of the Mediterranean.

[261] As to this fact, upon which almost all geographers are agreed, it is only rejected by Strabo because it stands in the way of his hypothesis.

[262] Half men, half dogs.

[263] Long-headed men.

[264] A celebrated poet who flourished about seven centuries before the Christian era, said to have been a native of Sardis in Lydia. Only three short fragments of his writings are known to be in existence.

[265] Men who covered themselves with their feet.

[266] Dog-headed men.

[267] People having their eyes in their breasts.

[268] One-eyed.

[269] The Strait of Messina.

[270] For thrice in a day she sends it out, and thrice she sucks it in. Odyssey xii. 105.

[271] For thrice in a day she sends it out, and thrice she sucks it in terribly. Mayest thou not come hither when she is gulping it; for not even Neptune could free thee from ill. Odyssey xii. 105.

[272] She gulped up the briny water of the sea; but I, raised on high to the lofty fig-tree, held clinging to it, as a bat. Odyssey xii. 431.

[273] Odyssey v. 306.

[274] Iliad viii. 488.

[275] Iliad iii. 363.

[276] But I held without ceasing, until she vomited out again the mast and keel; and it came late to me wishing for it: as late as a man has risen from the forum to go to supper, adjudging many contests of disputing youths, so late these planks appeared from Charybdis. Odyssey xii. 437.

[277] Gaudus, the little island of Gozo near Malta, supposed by Callimachus to have been the Isle of Calypso.

[278] It seems more probable that Callimachus intended the island of Corsura, now Pantalaria, a small island between Africa and Sicily.

[279] The Atlantic.

[280] A river of Colchis, _hodie_ Fasz or Rion.

[281] Cybele, so named because she had a temple on Mount Ida.

[282] An island in the Ægæan, now Meteline.

[283] _Hodie_ Lemno or Stalimene.

[284] Euneos was the eldest of the children which Hypsipyle, daughter of Thoas, king of Lemnos, had by Jason during his stay in that island.

[285] A town situated at the bottom of the Pelasgic Gulf, _hodie_ Volo.

[286] A country of Thessaly, which received its designation of Achæan, from the same sovereign who left his name to Achaia in Peloponnesus.

[287] Eumelus, whom Alcestis, divine amongst women, most beautiful in form of the daughters of Pelias, brought forth to Admetus. Iliad ii. 714.

[288] Named Ideessa in the time of Strabo. Strabo, book xi. c. ii. § 18.

[289] Sinop.

[290] Candia.

[291] _Hodie_ The Isle of Nanfio.

[292] Now the Island of Callistè, founded by Theras the Lacedæmonian more than ten centuries before the Christian era.

[293] A name of Thessaly.

[294] The Gulf of Venice.

[295] The erroneous opinion that one of the mouths of the Danube emptied itself into the Adriatic is very ancient, being spoken of by Aristotle as a well-known fact, and likewise supported by Theopompus, Hipparchus, and many other writers.

[296] Odyssey x. 137.

[297] Odyssey xii. 70.

[298] Antiphanes of Berga, a city of Thrace. This writer was so noted for his falsehoods, that βεργαίζειν came to be a proverbial term for designating that vice.

[299] Thirty years before the time of this Damastes, Herodotus had demonstrated to the Greeks the real nature of the Arabian Gulf.

[300] This river, called by the Turks Karasu, rises somewhere in Mount Taurus, and before emptying itself into the sea, runs through Tarsus.

[301] The Ab-Zal of oriental writers.

[302] The ancient capital of the kings of Persia, now Schuss.

[303] The very idea that Diotimus could sail from the Cydnus into the Euphrates is most absurd, since, besides the distance between the two rivers, they are separated by lofty mountain-ridges.

[304] Now the Bay of Ajazzo.

[305] Iskouriah.

[306] Gosselin justly remarks that this is a mere disputing about terms, since, though it is true the Mediterranean and Euxine flow into each other, it is fully admissible to describe them as separate. The same authority proves that we ought to read 3600 and not 3000 stadia, which he supposes to be a transcriber’s error.

[307] Castor and Pollux.

[308] Castor and Pollux were amongst the number of the Argonauts. On their return they destroyed the pirates who infested the seas of Greece and the Archipelago, and were in consequence worshipped by sailors as tutelary deities.

[309] The Phœnicians or Carthaginians despatched Hanno to found certain colonies on the western coast of Africa, about a thousand years before the Christian era.

[310] Strabo here follows the general belief that Æneas escaped to Italy after the sack of Troy, a fact clearly disproved by Homer, Iliad xx. 307, who states that the posterity of Æneas were in his time reigning at Troy. To this passage Strabo alludes in his 13th book, and, contrary to his general custom, hesitates whether to follow Homer’s authority or that of certain grammarians who had mutilated the passage in order to flatter the vanity of the Romans, who took pride in looking up to Æneas and the Trojans as their ancestors.

[311] Antenor having betrayed his Trojan countrymen was forced to fly. It is generally stated that, taking with him a party of the Heneti, (a people of Asia Minor close to the Euxine,) who had come to the assistance of Priam, he founded the city of Padua in Italy. From this people the district in which Padua is situated received the name of Henetia, afterwards Venetia or Venice.

[312] The coasts of Italy.

[313] It is generally admitted that the events of the Trojan war gave rise to numerous colonies.

[314] The word λιμνοθάλασσα frequently signifies a salt marsh. The French editors remark that it was a name given by the Greeks to lagoons mostly found in the vicinity of the sea, though entirely separated therefrom. Those which communicated with the sea were termed στομαλίμναι.

[315] See book xvii. c. iii.

[316] A country close upon the Euxine.

[317] The Strait of the Dardanelles.

[318] At the time of Diodorus Siculus, the people of the Isle of Samothracia preserved the tradition of an inundation caused by a sudden rising of the waters of the Mediterranean, which compelled the inhabitants to fly for refuge to the summits of the mountains; and long after, the fishermen’s nets used to be caught by columns, which, prior to the catastrophe, had adorned their edifices. It is said that the inundation originated in a rupture of the chain of mountains which enclosed the valley which has since become the Thracian Bosphorus or Strait of Constantinople, through which the waters of the Black Sea flow into the Mediterranean.

[319] Now Midjeh, in Roumelia, on the borders of the Black Sea. Strabo alludes rather to the banks surrounding Salmydessus than to the town itself.

[320] The part of Bulgaria next the sea, between Varna and the Danube, now Dobrudzie.

[321] Tineh.

[322] El-Kas.

[323] Lake Sebaket-Bardoil.

[324] Probably the present Maseli. Most likely the place was so named from the γέῤῥα, or wattled huts, of the troops stationed there to prevent the ingress of foreign armies into Egypt.

[325] This city of Calpe was near Mount Calpe, one of the Pillars of Hercules.

[326] Sea of Marmora.

[327] The Ægæan.

[328] Danube.

[329] Mingrelia.

[330] The river Fasz.

[331] Now Djanik.

[332] The river Thermeh.

[333] The Jekil-Irmak.

[334] Sidin, or Valisa, is comprised in the territory of Djanik, being part of the ancient kingdom of Pontus.

[335] The river Geihun.

[336] Gosselin remarks that the alluvial deposit of this river is now no nearer to Cyprus than it was at the time of the prediction.

[337] Cilicia and Cataonia are comprised in the modern Aladeuli.

[338] Iliad ix. 7.

[339] Being swollen it rises high around the projecting points, and spits from it the foam of the sea. Iliad iv. 425.

[340] The lofty shores resound, the wave being ejected [upon the beach]. Iliad xvii. 265.

[341] The word ὄργυια, here rendered fathoms, strictly means the length of the outstretched arms. As a measure of length it equals four πήχεις, or six feet one inch. Gosselin seems to doubt with reason whether they ever sounded such a depth as this would give, and proposes to compute it by a smaller stadium in use at the time of Herodotus, which would have the effect of diminishing the depth by almost one half.

[342] A city of Achaia near to the Gulf of Corinth. Pliny tells us it was submerged during an earthquake, about 371 years before the Christian era. According to Pausanias, it was a second time destroyed by the shock of an earthquake, but again rebuilt by the inhabitants who survived.

[343] A city placed by some in Thrace, but by others in Pontus; a more probable opinion seems to be that Bizone was in Lower Mœsia, on the western side of the Euxine. Pomponius Mela asserts that Bizone was entirely destroyed by an earthquake, but according to Strabo, (lib. vii.,) who places it about 40 stadia from the sea, it was only partially demolished.

[344] Ischia.

[345] We have here followed the earlier editions, as preferable to Kramer, who supplies μὴ before μαθηματικὸς.

[346] Demetrius Poliorcetes: the same intention is narrated by Pliny and other historians of Julius Cæsar, Caligula, and Nero.

[347] Kankri.

[348] Strait of Messina.

[349] The sea which washes the shores of Tuscany. Strabo applies the term to the whole sea from the mouth of the Arno to Sicily.

[350] Strait of Messina.

[351] Gosselin observes that Le Père Babin, who had carefully examined the currents of the Euripus of Chalcis, says that they are regular during eighteen or nineteen days of every month, the flux and reflux occurring twice in the twenty-four hours, and following the same laws as in the ocean; but from the ninth to the thirteenth, and from the twenty-first to the twenty-sixth, of each lunar month they become irregular, the flux occurring from twelve to fourteen times in the twenty-four hours, and the reflux as often.

[352] See Plutarch, de Plac. Philos. lib. i. c. 14, and Stobæus, Ecl. Phys. lib. i. c. 18.

[353] El-Kas.

[354] The Arabian Gulf. Mr. Stephenson, while examining the Temsah Lakes, anciently called the Bitter Lakes, discovered recent marine remains similar to those on the shores of the present sea, clearly showing that the basin of the Temsah Lakes was the head of the Arabian Gulf at a period geologically recent.

[355] We have here followed MSS. which all read συνελθούσης δὲ τῆς θαλάττης. The French editors propose συνενδούσης δὲ τῆς θαλάττης, with the sense of “but on the retiring of the Mediterranean,” &c.

[356] This accusation may not seem quite fair to the English reader. _Touch_ is the nearest term in our language by which we can express the Greek συνάπτω, the use of which Strabo objects to in this passage; still the meaning of the English word is much too definite for the Greek.

[357] The Atlantic.

[358] Viz. the Mediterranean.

[359] The western part of the town of Corinth, situated in the sea of Crissa. Its modern name is Pelagio.

[360] Kankri.

[361] Viz. the temple of Jupiter Ammon, mentioned above.

[362] Gosselin remarks, Cyrene was founded 631 years before the Christian era, and at that time the limits of the Mediterranean were the same as they are now. Amongst the Greeks, dolphins were the ordinary symbols of the principal sea-port towns; and if the delegates from Cyrene set up this symbol of their country in the temple of Ammon, I see no reason why Eratosthenes and Strabo should regard the offering as a proof that the temple was on the sea-shore.

[363] We have thought it necessary, with the French translators, to insert these words, since although they are found in no MS. of Strabo, the argument which follows is clearly unintelligible without them.

[364] Hipparchus, believing that the Danube emptied itself by one mouth into the Euxine, and by another into the Adriatic Gulf, imagined that if the waters of the Mediterranean were raised in the manner proposed by Eratosthenes, the valley through which that river flows would have been submerged, and so formed a kind of strait by which the Euxine would have been connected to the Adriatic Gulf.

[365] The Lipari Islands.

[366] There is some mistake here. Strabo himself elsewhere tells us that the islands of Thera and Therasia were situated in the Ægæan Sea, near to the island of Nanfio.

[367] “Defending from danger.” More probably, in this instance, the Securer of Foundations.

[368] Egripo.

[369] This plain was near the city of Chalcis, which at the present day bears the same name as the island itself.

[370] And reached the two fair-flowing springs, where the two springs of the eddying Scamander rise. The one, indeed, flows with tepid water, and a steam arises from it around, as of burning fire; whilst the other flows forth in the summer time, like unto hail, or cold snow, or ice from water. Iliad xxii. 147.

[371] Tantalus lived about 1387, B. C.

[372] Lydia and Ionia form the modern provinces of Aidin and Sarukan in Anadoli. A part of the Troad still preserves the name of Troiaki.

[373] A mountain in Mæonia, close to the city of Magnesia.

[374] Ilus, who ascended the throne about 1400 years before the Christian era, founded the city, to which he gave the name of Ilium. The old city of Troy stood on a hill, and was safe from the inundation.

[375] These two cities were built on little islets adjoining the continent. Alexander connected them with the mainland by means of jetties. Clazomenæ was situated on the Gulf of Smyrna, near to a place now called Vurla or Burla. The present appellation of Tyre, on the coast of Phœnicia, is Sur.

[376] Tineh.

[377] El-Kas.

[378] Of Suez.

[379] That part of the Mediterranean adjoining Egypt.

[380] The Red Sea.

[381] The Red Sea and Mediterranean.

[382] Sta. Maura.

[383] Odyss. xxiv. 376.

[384] The island of Ortygia, now St. Marcian.

[385] Diakopton.

[386] Probably Bulika, according to others Trypia or Niora.

[387] Methone is the same town which Pausanias (l. ii. c. 32) names Methona, it was situated in the Argolis between Trœzene and Epidaurus. The above writer tells us that in the reign of Antigonus, son of Demetrius king of Macedonia, there was a breaking out of subterranean fires close to Methona. This event, which it is probable Strabo alludes to, occurred some where between the years 277 and 244, before the Christian era. The town still exists under its ancient name of Methona.

[388] An error in all the MSS. The Saronic Gulf is intended.

[389] Vide Strabo, b. ix. c. ii. § 34, 35.

[390] In Bœotia.

[391] The Second Iliad, or Catalogue of Ships.

[392] And those who inhabited grape-clustered Arne, and those [who inhabited] Mideia. Iliad ii. 507.

[393] This Thracian lake or lagoon is now called Burum. It is formed by the mouths of several rivers, and lies to the north of the isle of Thaso.

[394] Diaskillo, _al._ Biga.

[395] These are certain little islands at the mouth of the river Achelous, the modern Aspro-potamo, which formed the boundary between Acarnania and Ætolia. Now Curzolari.

[396] It is supposed we should here read Herodotus. Conf. Herod. ii. 10.

[397] Daskalio.

[398] Now there is a certain rocky island in the middle of the sea, between Ithaca and the rugged Samos, Asteris, not large; and in it there are havens fit for ships, with two entrances. Odyssey iv. 844.

[399] That is to say, the territory opposite Issa; probably the ruins near to Kalas Limenaias.

[400] The present island of Metelino.

[401] Ἡ δὲ Ἄντισσα νῆσος ἦν πρότερον, ὡς Μυρσίλος φησί· τῆς [δὲ] Λέσβου καλουμένης πρότερον Ἴσσης, καὶ τὴν νῆσον Ἄντισσαν καλεῖσθαι συνέβη. Our rendering of this passage, though rather free, seemed necessary to the clear explication of the Greek.

[402] Procita.

[403] Ischia.

[404] Miseno, the northern cape of the Gulf of Naples.

[405] Capri.

[406] Reggio.

[407] These two mountains are separated from each other by the river Penæus.

[408] Ῥαγάς, _a rent or chink_. This town was sixty miles from Ecbatana; it was named by the Arabs Raï, and is now in ruins. It is the Rhages in Tobias.

[409] Certain mountain defiles, now called Firouz-Koh.

[410] A western promontory of Eubœa, called by the modern Greeks Kabo Lithari. The Lichadian Islands, which now bear the name of Litada, are close by.

[411] A city of Eubœa; _hod._ Dipso.

[412] In Eubœa, now Orio.

[413] Now Echino; belonged to Thessaly and was near the sea.

[414] Now Stillida; situated on the Bay of Zeitun.

[415] A little town situated in a plain amongst the mountains. It received its name from a tradition that Hercules abode there during the time that the pyre on Mount Œta was being prepared, into which he cast himself.

[416] Lamia in Thessaly.

[417] A city of the Epi-Cnemidian Locrians in Achaia; its present name is Bondoniza.

[418] A town close to Scarpheia; its ruins are said to be still visible at Palaio Kastro.

[419] Now Agriomela or Ellada, a river descending from Mount Œta, and emptying itself into the Bay of Zeitun.

[420] A torrent near Thronium; its present name is Boagrio.

[421] Three cities of the Opuntian Locrians; Cynus, the port of Opus, is now called Kyno.

[422] One of the principal cities of Phocis, near the river Cephissus; a little village called Leuta stands on the ancient site.

[423] Probably the Alpene in Locris mentioned by Herodotus.

[424] The modern Talanta.

[425] Egripo.

[426] The Western Iberians are the people who inhabited Spain, and were said to have removed into Eastern Iberia, a country situated in the centre of the isthmus which separates the Euxine from the Caspian Sea. The district is now called Carduel, and is a region of Georgia.

[427] The river Aras.

[428] The river Kur.

[429] The mountains which border Colchis or Mingrelia on the south.

[430] According to Herodotus, Sesostris was the only Egyptian monarch who ever reigned in Ethiopia. Pliny says he penetrated as far as the promontory of Mosylon.

[431] Veneti.

[432] A small people of Thessaly, who latterly dwelt near Mount Œta, which separated them from Ætolia and Phocis.

[433] A city and plain in Thessaly, near to Mount Ossa.

[434] A people of Macedon, at the time of Strabo dwelling north of the river Peneius.

[435] Few nations have wandered so far and wide as the Galatæ. We meet with them in Europe, Asia, and Africa, under the various names of Galatæ, Galatians, Gauls, and Kelts. Galatia, in Asia Minor, was settled by one of these hordes.

[436] There were many kings of Phrygia of this name.

[437] The text of Kramer follows most MSS. in reading “Kimmerians,” but he points it out as a manifest error; and refers to Herodotus i. 103.

[438] By Hyperboreans are meant people who dwelt beyond the point from whence the north wind proceeded: Hypernotii therefore should be those who lived beyond the point of the procession of the south wind. The remark of Herodotus will be found, lib. iv. § 36. It is simply this: Supposing Hyperboreans, there ought likewise to be Hypernotii.

[439] Those who exult over the misfortunes of their neighbours.

[440] Those who rejoice in others’ prosperity.

[441] Gosselin observes, that what Strabo here says, is in accordance with the geographical system of the ancients, who supposed that Africa did not extend as far as the equator. As they distinguished the continent situated in the northern from a continent which they believed to exist in the southern hemisphere, and which they styled the Antichthones, they called the wind, blowing from the neighbourhood of the equator, in the direction of the two poles, a south wind for either hemisphere. For example, if sailors should be brought to the equator by a north wind, and that same wind should continue to waft them on their course after having passed the line, it would no longer be called a north, but a south wind.

[442] According to Gosselin, this does not allude to the size of the whole earth, but merely that part of it which, according to the theory of the ancients, was alone habitable.

[443] Most probably Gherri in Sennaar.

[444] Eratosthenes supposed that Meroe, Alexandria, the Hellespont, and the mouth of the Borysthenes or Dnieper, were all under the same meridian.

[445] The Dardanelles.

[446] Iceland.

[447] This Island of the Egyptians is the same which Strabo elsewhere calls the Island of the Exiles, because it was inhabited by Egyptians who had revolted from Psammeticus, and established themselves in the island. Its exact situation is unknown.

[448] Ceylon.

[449] Ireland.

[450] France.

[451] Between the Rhine and Elbe.

[452] The latitudes of Marseilles and Constantinople differ by 2° 16’ 21”. Gosselin enters into a lengthened explanation on this subject, i. 158.

[453] Ireland.

[454] The eastern mouth of the Ganges.

[455] Cape St. Vincent.

[456] In the opinion of Strabo and Eratosthenes, the narrowest portion of India was measured by a line running direct from the eastern embouchure of the Ganges to the sources of the Indus, that is, the northern side of India bounded by the great chain of the Taurus.

[457] Cape Comorin is the farthest point on the eastern coast. Strabo probably uses the plural to indicate the capes generally, not confining himself to those which project a few leagues farther than the rest.

[458] The Euphrates at Thapsacus, the most frequented passage; _hod._ El-Der.

[459] The Pelusiac mouth of the Nile, now Thineh or Farameh.

[460] Close by Aboukir.

[461] Cape S. Mahé.

[462] Ushant.

[463] The text has τὸ πλέον, but we have followed the suggestions of the commentators in reading τὸ μὴ πλέον.

[464] It is remarkable that this is the same idea which led Columbus to the discovery of America, and gave to the islands off that continent the name of the West Indies.

[465] We have followed Kramer in reading δι’ Ἄθηνῶν, instead of the διὰ θινῶν of former editions.

[466] The Nile being thought to separate Africa from Asia, and the Tanais, or Don, Europe.

[467] The Red Sea.

[468] The name of the mouth of the lake Sirbonis or Sebaket-Bardoil, which opens into the Mediterranean. A line drawn from this embouchure to the bottom of the Arabian Gulf, would give the boundary between Africa and Asia.

[469] Places in Attica.

[470] Probably Thyros, a place situated close to the sea, just at the boundary of the two countries.

[471] Oropo, on the confines of Attica and Bœotia.

[472] Aristotle was the giver of this sage counsel.

[473] A people of Asia.

[474] The Strait of Messina.

[475] The Gulf of Aïas. The town of Aïas has replaced Issus, at the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean.

[476] The Mediterranean.

[477] That is, the Mediterranean on the coast of Syria.

[478] Strabo does not here mean the Caucasus or Balkan, but the mountains which stretch from Persia to Cochin China. At a later period the several chains were known to the Greeks by the names of Paropamisus, Emodi Montes, Imaus, &c.

[479] Samsoun.

[480] Sinop.

[481] The great chain of the Taurus was supposed to occupy the whole breadth of Asia Minor, a space of 3000 stadia. Eratosthenes is here attempting to prove that these mountains occupy a like space in the north of India.

[482] _Lit._ to the equinoctial rising.

[483] Another designation of the Caspian.

[484] Balk.

[485] Read 18,100 stadia.

[486] i. e. The breadth of India.

[487] Literally, “estimate at so much,” referring to the estimate at the conclusion of § 2.

[488] Caucasus, in the north of India.

[489] By the term ἑῴα θάλαττα, rendered “eastern ocean,” we must understand Strabo to mean the Bay of Bengal.

[490] The Alexandrian.

[491] Seleucus Nicator and Antiochus Soter.

[492] The length of India is its measurement from west to east.

[493] Not Allahabad, as supposed by D’Anville, but Patelputer, or Pataliputra, near Patna.

[494] There would seem to be some omission here, although none of the MSS. have any blank space left to indicate it. Groskurd has been at considerable pains to supply what he thinks requisite to complete the sense, but in a matter so doubtful we deemed it a surer course to follow the Greek text as it stands.

[495] Thrace, now Roumelia.

[496] The situation of Illyria was on the eastern coast of the Gulf of Venice.

[497] Read 18,100 stadia.

[498] The mouth of the Dnieper.

[499] Hipparchus stated 3800 stadia, not 3700.

[500] Gosselin remarks that these 3700, or rather 3800 stadia, on proceeding from Marseilles, would reach the latitude of Paris, and that of the coasts in the neighbourhood of Tréguier. Eratosthenes and Hipparchus were out but 14’ and some seconds in their calculation of the latitude of Marseilles; but Strabo’s error touching the same amounted to 3° 43’ 28”; he consequently fixed the northern coasts of France at 45° 17’ 18”, which is about the latitude of the mouth of the Garonne.

[501] These 8800 stadia, at 700 to a degree, amount to 12° 34’ 17” of latitude. This would be about the middle of Abyssinia.

[502] Ireland.

[503] The island of Ceylon.

[504] Viz. between its southern extremity and that of India.

[505] Strabo and Eratosthenes supposed the extremity of India farther south than Meroe; Hipparchus fixes it a little north of that city, at a distance of 12,600 stadia from the equator.

[506] These 30,000 stadia, added to the 12,600 of the preceding note, would place Bactria under 60° 51’ 26” north latitude, which is more than 24 degrees too far north.

[507] Both Aria and Margiana are in the present Khorasan.

[508] This portion of the Taurus is called by the Indians Hindou Kho.

[509] This was the principal Greek liquid measure, and was 3-4ths of the medimnus, the chief dry measure. The Attic metretes was half as large again as the Roman _Amphora quadrantal_, and contained a little less than 7 gallons. _Smith._

[510] The medimnus contained nearly 12 imperial gallons, or 1½ bushel. This was the Attic medimnus; the Æginetan and Ptolemaic was half as much again, or in the ratio of 3:2 to the Attic. _Smith._

[511] Matiana was a province of Media on the frontiers of the present Kurdistan; Sacasena, a country of Armenia on the confines of Albania or Schirvan; Araxena, a province traversed by the river Araxes.

[512] Mount Argæus still preserves the name of Ardgeh. The part of the Taurus here alluded to is called Ardoxt Dag.

[513] Sinop.

[514] Samsoun.

[515] The Gihon of the oriental writers.

[516] The Caspian.

[517] Gosselin says, the Oxus, or Abi-amu, which now discharges itself into Lake Aral, anciently communicated with the Caspian.—The vessels carrying Indian merchandise used to come down the Oxus into the Caspian; they then steered along the southern coasts till they reached the mouth of the Cyrus; up this river they sailed to the sources of the Phasis, (the Fasch,) and so descended into the Black Sea and Mediterranean. About the middle of the 17th century the Russians endeavoured to re-open this ancient route, but this effort was unsuccessful.

[518] The north of France.

[519] At the time of Strabo France was covered with forests and stagnant water, which rendered its temperature damp and cold. It was not until after considerable drainage about the fourth century that the vine began to attain any perfection.

[520] The Crimea.

[521] The Strait of Zabache.

[522] Kertsch in the Crimea.

[523] Strabo is too fond of this kind of special pleading; before, in order to controvert Hipparchus, he estimated this distance at 3000 stadia; now he adds an additional thousand stadia in order to get a latitude which shall be the southern limit of the habitable earth.

[524] The Greek has Κιναμωμοφόρου Ἰνδικῆς. We have omitted the latter word altogether from the translation, as being a slip of the pen. Strabo certainly never supposed the Cinnamon Country to be any where in India.

[525] Ireland.

[526] Perhaps it may aid the reader in realizing these different reasonings if we give a summary of them in figures.

Strabo supposes that Hipparchus, reckoning from the
equator to the limits of the inhabited earth, 8,800 stadia

should have fixed the southern extremity of India more
to the north by 4,000

and the northern extremity of India, according to the
measures of Deimachus, still more to the north by 30,000
——————
Total 42,800

Now, Strabo adds, following Hipparchus, the northern
shores of Keltica and the mouth of the Dnieper, are
distant from the equator 34,000

Ierne, in a climate almost uninhabitable, was, according
to Strabo’s own impression, situated to the north
of Keltica 5,000
—————
39,000
Then, according to Hipparchus, the habitable latitudes
would extend still farther than Ierne by 3,800
—————
Total 42,800

The great fertility of Bactriana, according to Strabo, appeared to be inconsistent with a position so far towards the north. In this he was correct.

[527] These 4000 stadia do not accord with the distances elsewhere propounded by Strabo. Possibly he had before him various charts constructed on different hypotheses, and made his computations not always from the same.

[528] Viz. 3800.

[529] Ireland.

[530] France.

[531] The astronomical cubit of the ancients equalled 2 degrees. It therefore follows that in the regions alluded to by Hipparchus, the sun at the winter solstice rose no higher than 18 degrees above the horizon. This would give a latitude of a little above 48 degrees. We afterwards find that Hipparchus placed the mouth of the Dnieper, and that part of France here alluded to, under 48° 29’ 19”, and we know that at this latitude, which is only 20’ 56” different from that of Paris, there is no real night during the longest days of the summer.

[532] Read 7700.

[533] Lit., during the winter days, but the winter solstice is evidently intended.

[534] Read about 10,500. This correction is borne out by the astronomical indications added by Hipparchus.

[535] Strabo supposed the latitude of Ireland to be 52° 25’ 42”. Countries north of this he considered to be altogether uninhabitable on account of their inclemency.

[536] Equinoctial hours.

[537] Read 10,500, as above.

[538] Ireland.

[539] The equinoctial line.

[540] There is no doubt that the expressions which Deimachus appears to have used were correct. It seems that he wished to show that beyond the Indus the coasts of India, instead of running in a direction almost due east, as the Greeks imagined they did, sloped in a direction between the south and the north-east, which is correct enough. As Deimachus had resided at Palibothra, he had had an opportunity of obtaining more exact information relative to the form of India than that which was current at Alexandria. This seems the more certain, as Megasthenes, who had also lived at Palibothra, stated that by measuring India from the Caucasus to the southern extremity of the continent, you would obtain, not its length, as the Greeks imagined, but its breadth. These correct accounts were obstinately rejected by the speculative geographers of Alexandria, because they imagined a certain uninhabitable zone, into which India ought not to penetrate.

[541] The truth of these facts depends on the locality where the observations are made. In the time of Alexander the most southern of the seven principal stars which compose the Greater Bear had a declination of about 61 degrees, so that for all latitudes above 29 degrees, the Wain never set. Consequently if Deimachus were speaking of the aspect of the heavens as seen from the northern provinces of India, the Punjaub for instance, there was truth in his assertion, that the two Bears were never seen to set there, nor the shadows to fall in contrary directions. On the other hand, as Megasthenes appears to be speaking of the south of India, that is, of the peninsula situated entirely south of the tropic, it is certain that he was right in saying that the shadows cast by the sun fell sometimes towards the north, at others towards the south, and that accordingly, as we proceeded towards the south, the Bears would be seen to set. The whole of Ursa Major at that time set at 29 degrees, and our present polar star at 13 degrees. β of the Lesser Bear was at that time the most northern of the seven principal stars of that constellation, and set at 8° 45’. So that both Bears entirely disappeared beneath the horizon of Cape Comorin.

[542] This would be at Syene under the tropic.

[543] Small zones parallel to the equator; they were placed at such a distance from each other, that there might be half an hour’s difference between each on the longest day of summer. So by taking an observation on the longest day, you could determine the _clima_ and consequently the position of a place. This was equivalent to observing the elevation of the pole. At the end of this second book Strabo enters into a long description of the _climata_.

[544] This observation, taken at the time of Hipparchus, would indicate a latitude of 16° 48’ 34.”

[545] Nearchus in speaking of the southern extremity of India, near Cape Comorin, was correct in the assertion that in his time the two Bears were there seen to set.

[546] Hipparchus fixed the latitude of Meroe at 16° 51’ 25”, and the extremity of India at 18°. In the time of Alexander, the Lesser Bear was not observed to set for either of these latitudes. Strabo therefore drew the conclusion, that if Hipparchus had adopted the opinion of Nearchus, he would have fixed the extremity of India south of Meroe, instead of north of that city.

[547] Now ruins, near Jerobolos, or Jerabees, the ancient Europus; not Decr or Deir.

[548] Probably the present Barena, a branch of the Taurus.

[549] This is rather free, but the text could not well otherwise be rendered intelligibly.

[550] σφραγίδας is the Greek word; for which _section_ is a poor equivalent, but the best we believe the language affords.

[551] The name of a considerable portion of Asia.

[552] From Eratosthenes’ description of India, preserved by our author in his 15th book, we gather that he conceived the country to be something in the form of an irregular quadrilateral, having one right, two obtuse, and one acute angle, consequently none of its sides parallel to each other. On the whole Eratosthenes’ idea of the country was not near so exact as that of Megasthenes.

[553] The Caspian Gates are now known as the Strait of Firouz Koh.

[554] The ruins of Babylon, still called Babil, are on the Euphrates, near Hilleh. Susa is now Suz or Schuss, and not Schoster or Toster. The ruins of Persepolis remain, and may be seen near Istakar, Tchilminar, and Nakchi-Rustan.

[555] Between Thapsacus and Armenia.

[556] Karmelis.

[557] The Altun-Suyi, or River of Gold.

[558] Erbil.

[559] Hamedan.

[560] Viz. at the Gates of the Caspian.

[561] This ancient embouchure of the Euphrates is now known as Khor-Abdillah.

[562] Read 3300.

[563] Thought by Col. Rawlinson to be the Chal-i-Nimrud, usually supposed to mark the site of the Median wall of Xenophon.

[564] Situated on the Tigris.

[565] A line drawn from the frontiers of Carmania to Babylon would form with the meridian an angle of about 50°. One from the Caspian Gates to Thapsacus would form with the parallel merely an angle of about 30°.

[566] Namely, 1000 stadia, by the hypothesis of Hipparchus, or 800 according to Eratosthenes.

[567] Or second side.

[568] Hipparchus found by this operation that the distance from the parallel of Babylon to that of the mountains of Armenia was 6795 stadia.

[569] See Humboldt, Cosmos ii. p. 556, note, Bohn’s edition.

[570] Eratosthenes estimated 252,000 stadia for the circumference of the earth.

[571] Odyssey ix. 291; Iliad xxiv. 409.

[572] Strabo estimated the length of the continent at 70,000 stadia from Cape St. Vincent to Cape Comorin, and 29,300 stadia as its breadth.

[573] The ancient geographers often speak of these kind of resemblances. They have compared the whole habitable earth to a soldier’s cloak or mantle, as also the town of Alexandria, which they styled χλαμυδοειδές. Italy at one time to a leaf of parsley, at another to an oak-leaf. Sardinia to a human foot-print. The isle of Naxos to a vine-leaf. Cyprus to a sheep-skin; and the Black Sea to a Scythian bow, bent. The earliest coins of Peloponnesus, struck about 750 years before the Christian era, bear the impress of a tortoise, because that animal abounded on the shores, and the divisions and height of its shell were thought to offer some likeness to the territorial divisions of the little states of Peloponnesus and the mountain-ridges which run through the middle of that country. The Sicilians took for their symbol three thighs and legs, arranged in such an order that the bended knees might resemble the three capes of that island and its triangular form.

[574] The chain of the Taurus.

[575] The Indus.

[576] The Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal.

[577] India.

[578] Viz. Indians.

[579] Ariana, or the nation of the Arians.

[580] By 800 stadia.

[581] Viz. of the Euphrates.

[582] Or Nineveh.

[583] Syria, properly so called, extended from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. Between the Euphrates and the Tigris lay Mesopotamia, and beyond the Tigris, Assyria. The whole of these countries formerly bore the name of Syria. The Hebrews denominated Mesopotamia, Syria of the Rivers. The name Assyria seems to be nothing more than Syria with the article prefixed. Nineveh stood on the eastern bank of the Tigris.

[584] Mesene comprehends the low and sandy grounds traversed by the Euphrates, immediately before it discharges itself into the Persian Gulf.

[585] Tineh.

[586] Moadieh, near to Aboukir.

[587] Along the coasts of Egypt, past Palestine and Syria, to the recess of the Gulf of Issus, where Cilicia commences.

[588] Canopus, near to Aboukir.

[589] It was a mistake common to Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, and Strabo, to fancy that Rhodes and Alexandria were under the same meridian. The longitude of the two cities differs by 2° 22’ 45”.

[590] Due east.

[591] The following is a _Resumé_ of the argument of Hipparchus, “The hypotenuse of the supposed triangle, or the line drawn from Babylon to the Caspian Gates being only 6700 stadia, would be necessarily shorter than either of the other sides, since the line from Babylon to the frontiers of Carmania is estimated by Eratosthenes at 9170, and that from the frontiers of Carmania to the Caspian Gates above 9000 stadia. The frontiers of Carmania would thus be east of the Caspian Gates, and Persia would consequently be comprised, not in the third, but in the second section of Eratosthenes, being east of the meridian of the Caspian Gates, which was the boundary of the two sections.” Strabo, in the text, points out the falsity of this argument.

[592] Viz. 6700 stadia.

[593] These two words, _continues Hipparchus_, are not in the text, but the argument is undoubtedly his.

[594] Cape Comorin.

[595] 400 stadia, allowing 700 to a degree, would give 34’ 17” latitude. According to present astronomical calculations, the distance between the parallels of Rhodes and Athens is 1° 36’ 30”.

[596] Viz. 400 stadia, or 34’ 17” of latitude.

[597] The difference of latitude between Thapsacus and Pelusium is about 4° 27’.

[598] The text here is evidently corrupt.

[599] Gosselin makes some sensible remarks on this section; we have endeavoured to render it accurately, but much fear that the true meaning of Strabo is now obscured by corruptions in the text.

[600] Moadieh, the mouth of the river close to Aboukir.

[601] Certain little islets at the mouth of the canal of Constantinople, in the Black Sea. These islands want about a degree and a quarter of being under the same meridian as Moadieh.

[602] Gosselin remarks, that the defile intended by Strabo, was probably the valley of the river Kur, or the ancient Cyrus, in Georgia; and by Mount Caspius we are to understand the high mountains of Georgia, whence the waters, which fall on one side into the Black Sea, and on the other into the Caspian, take their rise.

[603] Gosselin also observes, that on our charts this distance is about 8100 stadia of 700 to a degree. Consequently the difference between the meridian of Thapsacus and that of Mount Caspius is as much as 4° 45’, in place of the 300 stadia, or from 25’ to 26’ supposed by Hipparchus.

[604] On the contrary, Mount Caspius is east of the meridian of Thapsacus by about 2500 stadia, of 700 to a degree.

[605] Now Iskouriah. Dioscurias, however, is 800 stadia from the Phasis, of 700 to a degree.

[606] According to our improved charts, the distance from the meridian of the Cyaneæ to that of the Phasis is 6800 stadia, of 700 to a degree; from the Cyaneæ to Mount Caspius, 8080.

[607] The meridian of Mount Caspius is about 2625 stadia nearer the Caspian Gates than that of Thapsacus.

[608] μετὰ τὸν Πόντον, literally, after the Pontus.

[609] Gosselin observes, that Eratosthenes took a general view of the salient points of land that jutted into the Mediterranean, as some of the learned of our own time have done, when remarking that most of the continents terminated in capes, extending towards the south. The first promontory that Eratosthenes speaks of terminated in Cape Malea of the Peloponnesus, and comprised the whole of Greece; the Italian promontory likewise terminated Italy; the Ligurian promontory was reckoned to include all Spain, it terminated at Cape Tarifa, near to the middle of the Strait of Gibraltar. As the Ligurians had obtained possession of a considerable portion of the coasts of France and Spain, that part of the Mediterranean which washes the shores of those countries was named the Ligurian Sea. It extended from the Arno to the Strait of Gibraltar. It is in accordance with this nomenclature that Eratosthenes called Cape Tarifa, which projects farthest into the Strait, the Ligurian promontory.

[610] Cape Colonna.

[611] Cape Malio, or St. Angelo.

[612] Strabo means the Saronic Gulf, now the Bay of Engia.

[613] The peninsula of Gallipoli by the Dardanelles.

[614] πρὸς τὸ Σούνιον. Strabo’s meaning is, that the entire space of sea, bounded on the north by the Thracian Chersonesus, and on the south by Sunium, or Cape Colonna, forms a kind of large gulf.

[615] Or Black Gulf; the Gulf of Saros.

[616] The Gulfs of Contessa, Monte-Santo, Cassandra, and Salonica.

[617] Durazzo, on the coast of Albania.

[618] The Gulf of Salonica.

[619] Read 13,500 stadia.

[620] It was an error alike shared in by Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, and Strabo, that Alexandria and Rhodes were under the same meridian, notwithstanding the former of these cities is 2° 22’ 45” east of the latter.

[621] This is an error peculiar to Eratosthenes. The meridians of Carthage and the Strait of Messina differ by 5° 45’.

[622] The Strait of Messina.

[623] Spain and France.

[624] The Getæ occupied the east of Moldavia and Bessarabia, between the Danube and the Dniester. The Bastarnæ inhabited the north of Moldavia and a part of the Ukraine.

[625] The Greek has simply, κατὰ τὴν ἠπειρῶτιν, _in the continent_, but Strabo, by this expression, only meant to designate those parts of the continent best known and nearest to the Greeks. The other countries, in regard to which he pleads for some indulgence to be shown to Eratosthenes, are equally in the same continent. Kramer and other editors suspect an error in the text here.

[626] According to Plutarch, both Thales and Pythagoras had divided the earth into five zones. Since Parmenides lived one hundred and fifty years after the first of these philosophers, he cannot be considered the author of this division. As Posidonius and Strabo estimated the breadth of the torrid zone at 8800 stadia, and Parmenides is said to have nearly doubled it, this would give 17,600 stadia, or 25° 8’ 34”, taking this at 25° it would appear that Parmenides extended the torrid zone one degree beyond the tropics.

[627] The Arctic Circles of the ancients were not the same as ours, but varied for every latitude. Aristotle limited the temperate zone to those countries which had the constellation of the crown in their Arctic Circle, the brilliant star of that constellation in his time had a northern declination of about 36° 30’, consequently he did not reckon that the temperate zone reached farther north or south than 53° and a half. We shall see that Strabo adopted much the same opinion, fixing the northern bounds of the habitable earth at 54° 25’ 42”. Gosselin.

[628] For the circumference.

[629] Viz. none for those who dwell under the equator, or at the poles.

[630] Strabo’s argument seems to be this. It matters but little that there may not be Arctic Circles for every latitude, since for the inhabitants of the temperate zone they do certainly exist, and these are the only people of whom we have any knowledge. But at the same time the objection is unanswerable, that as these circles differ in respect to various countries, it is quite impossible that they can fix uniformly the limits of the temperate zone.

[631] The polar circles, where the shadow, in the summer season, travels all round in the twenty-four hours.

[632] Those who live north and south of the tropics, or in the temperate zones, and at noon have a shadow only falling one way.

[633] Having at mid-day in alternate seasons the shadow falling north and south.

[634] Viz. Posidonius allowed for each of these small zones a breadth of about 30’, or 350 stadia, of 700 to a degree.

[635] A plant, the juice of which was used in food and medicine. Bentley supposes it to be the asa-fœtida, still much eaten as a relish in the East.

[636] Posidonius was here mistaken; witness the Niger, the Senegal, the Gambia, &c.

[637] The expression of Strabo is so concise as to leave it extremely doubtful whether or not he meant to include the human race in his statement. Looking at this passage, however, in connexion with another in the 15th Book, we are inclined to answer the question in the affirmative.

[638] Or _living on fish_, a name given by the Greek geographers to various tribes of barbarians; but it seems most frequently to a people of Gedrosia on the coast of the Arabian Gulf. It is probably to these that Strabo refers.

[639] Viz. the Heteroscii, or inhabitants of the temperate zones.

[640] The ancients named the people of southern Africa, Ethiopians; those of the north of Asia and Europe, Scythians; and those of the north-west of Europe, Kelts.

[641] That is, by arctic circles which differed in respect to various latitudes. See Book ii. chap. ii. § 2, p. 144.

[642] Viz. the partition of the earth into two hemispheres, by means of the equator.

[643] Gosselin concludes from this that Eratosthenes and Polybius gave to the earth the form of a spheroid flattened at the poles. Other philosophers supposed it was elongated at the poles, and flattened at the equator.

[644] Gosselin justly observes that this passage, which is so concise as to appear doubtful to some, is properly explained by a quotation from Geminus, which states the arguments adduced by Polybius for believing that there was a temperate region within the torrid zones.

[645] Strabo seems to confound the account (Herodotus iv. 44) of the expedition sent by Darius round southern Persia and Arabia with the circumnavigation of Libya, (Herod. iv. 42,) which Necho II. confided to the Phœnicians about 600 B. C., commanding them distinctly “to return to Egypt through the passage of the Pillars of Hercules.” See Humboldt’s Cosmos, ii. 488, note, Bohn’s edition.

[646] Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, flourished towards the end of the fifth century before Christ.

[647] The ruins of this city still preserve the name of Cyzik. It was situated on the peninsula of Artaki, on the south of the Sea of Marmora.

[648] Games in honour of Proserpine, or Cora.

[649] Ptolemy VII., king of Egypt, also styled Euergetes II.; he is more commonly known by the surname of Physcon. His reign commenced B. C. 170.

[650] The ancients believed that crystals consisted of water which had been frozen by excessive cold, and remained congealed for centuries. Vide Pliny, lib. xxxvii. c. 9.

[651] Cleopatra, besides being the wife, was also the niece of Ptolemy, being the offspring of his former wife, whom he had divorced, by her former marriage with Philometor.

[652] Ptolemy VIII. was nominally king, but his mother Cleopatra still held most of the real authority in her hands.

[653] Cadiz.

[654] Western Mauritania, the modern kingdom of Fez.

[655] This river is now named Lucos, and its mouth, which is about 30 leagues distant from Cadiz, is called Larais or Larache.

[656] Humboldt, Cosmos ii. 489, note, mentions the remains of a ship of the Red Sea having been brought to the coast of Crete by westerly currents.

[657] Pozzuolo, close by Naples.

[658] Gosselin observes, that this steady westerly wind, so far from carrying him towards India, would be entirely adverse to him in coasting along Africa, and doubling Cape Bojador; and infers from hence that Eudoxus never really went that expedition, and that Strabo himself was ignorant of the true position of Africa.

[659] A name common to many sovereigns of the different parts of Mauritania; the king Bogus, or Bocchus, here spoken of, governed the kingdom of Fez.

[660] Round Africa.

[661] A term by which incredible narrations were designated. It owes its origin to Antiphanes, a writer born at Bergè, a city of Thrace, and famous for trumping up false and auld-world stories. Βεργαΐζειν, was a proverbial and polite term for lying.

[662] The wall mentioned in Iliad, vii. 436, _et seq._ Gosselin says that in the time of Aristotle the commentators of the Iliad, having vainly sought for the ruins or other traces of the wall, the Philosopher came to the conclusion that the wall was altogether a fiction of Homer’s. Strabo speaks further on this subject in the 13th Book.

[663] As the above assertion is at variance with the statement of Strabo, in his 7th Book, concerning Posidonius’s views on this subject, it seems probable that the passage as it stands is corrupt. It is more likely Strabo wrote, “It is the opinion of Posidonius that the emigration of the Cimbrians and other kindred races from their native territory was _not_ occasioned by an inundation of the sea, since their departure took place at various times.”

[664] Odyssey i. 23.

[665] Aratus, who lived about B. C. 270, was the author of two Greek astronomical poems, called Φαινόμενα and Διοσημεία. It is from the former of these that the above quotation is taken. Aratus, Phænom. v. 61.