Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8) Aboriginal America
ii. 1, respectively; but the evidence is conflicting (Simplicius,
_Ad Aristot._, p. 506^b. ed. Brandis; Aristot., _De caelo_, ii. 13; Plutarch, _De plac. phil._ iii., xv. 9).
[261] Plato, _Phaedo_, 109. Schaefer is in error when he asserts (_Entwicklung der Ansichten der Alten ueber Gestalt and Grösse der Erde_, 16) that Plato in the _Timaeus_ (55, 56) assigns a cubical form to the earth. The question there is not of the shape of the earth, the planet, but of the form of the constituent atoms of the element earth.
[262]
Terra pilae similis, nullo fulcimine nixa, Aëre subjecto tam grave pendet onus. [Ipsa volubilitas libratum sustinet orbem: Quique premit partes, angulus omnis abest. Cumque sit in media rerum regione locata, Et tangat nullum plusve minusve latus; Ni convexa foret, parti vicinior esset, Nec medium terram mundus haberet onus.] Arte Syracosia suspensus in aëre clauso Stat globus, immensi parva figura poli; Et quantum a summis, tantum secessit ab imis Terra. Quod ut fiat, forma rotunda facit. (Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 269-280.)
The bracketed lines are found in but a few MSS. The last lines refer to a globe said to have been constructed by Archimedes.
[263] Plato makes Socrates say that he took up the works of Anaxagoras, hoping to learn whether the earth was round or flat (_Phaedo_, 46, Stallb. i. 176). In Plutarch’s dialogue “_On the face appearing in the orb of the moon_,” one of the characters is lavish in his ridicule of the sphericity of the earth and of the theory of antipodes. See also Lucretius, _De rerum nat._, i. 1052, etc., v. 650; Virgil, _Georgics_, i. 247; Tacitus, _Germania_, 45.
[264] That extraordinary picture could, however, hardly have been intended for an exposition of the actual physical geography of the globe.
[265] Aristotle, _De caelo_, ii. 15.
[266] Archimedes, _Arenarius_, i. 1, ed. Helbig. Leipsic, 1881, vol. ii. p. 243.
[267] The logical basis of Eratosthenes’s work was sound, but the result was vitiated by errors of fact in his assumptions, which, however, to some extent counterbalanced one another. The majority of ancient writers who treat of the matter give 252,000 stadia as the result, but Cleomedes (_Circ. doctr. de subl._, i. 10) gives 250,000. It is surmised that the former number originated in a desire to assign in round numbers 700 stadia to a degree. Forbiger, _Handbuch der alten Geographie_, i. 180, n. 27.
[268] The stadium comprised six hundred feet, but the length of the Greek foot is uncertain; indeed, there were at least two varieties, the Olympic and the Attic, as in Egypt there was a royal and a common ell, and a much larger number of supposititious feet (and, consequently, stadia) have been discovered or invented by metrologists. Early French scholars, like Ramé de l’Isle, D’Anville, Gosselin, supposed the true length of the earth’s circumference to be known to the Greeks, and held that all the estimates which have come down to us were expressions of the same value in different stadia. It is now generally agreed that these estimates really denote different conceptions of the size of the earth, but opinions still differ widely as to the length of the stadium used by the geographers. The value selected by Peschel (_Geschichte der Erdkunde_, 2d ed., p. 46) is that likewise adopted by Hultsch (_Griechische und Römische Metrologie_, 2d ed., 1882) and Muellenhof (_Deutsche Alterthumskunde_, 2d ed., vol. i.). According to these writers, Eratosthenes is supposed to have devised as a standard geographical measure a stadium composed of feet equal to one half the royal Egyptian ell. According to Pliny (_Hist. Nat._, xii. 14, § 5), Eratosthenes allowed forty stadia to the Egyptian schonus; if we reckon the schonus at 12,000 royal ells, we have stadium = 12,000/40 × .525^m = 157.5^m. This would give a degree equal to 110,250^m, the true value being, according to Peschel, 110,808^m. To this conclusion Lepsius (_Das Stadium und die Gradmessung des Eratosthenes auf Grundlage der Aegyptischen Masse_, in _Zeitschrift für Aegypt. Sprache u. Alterthumskunde_, xv. [1877]. See also _Die Längenmasse der Alten_. Berlin, 1884) objects that the royal ell was never used in composition, and that the schonus was valued in different parts of Egypt at 12,000, 16,000, 24,000, _small_ ells. He believes that the schonus referred to by Pliny contained 16,000 small ells, so that Eratosthenes’s stadium = 16,000/40 × .450^m = 180^m.
It is possible, however, that Eratosthenes did not devise a new stadium, but adopted that in current use among the Greeks, the Athenian stadium. (I have seen no evidence that the long Olympic stadium was in common use.) This stadium is based on the Athenian foot, which, according to the investigations of Stuart, has been reckoned at .3081^m, being to the Roman foot as 25 to 24. This would give a stadium of 184.8^m, and a degree of 129,500^m. Now Strabo, in the passage where he says that people commonly estimated eight stadia to the mile, adds that Polybius allowed 8⅓ stadia to the mile (_Geogr._, vii. 7, § 4), and in the fragment known as the Table of Julian of Ascalon (Hultsch, _Metrolog. script. reliq._, Lips., 1864, i. 201) it is distinctly stated that Eratosthenes and Strabo reckoned 8⅓ stadia to the mile. In the opinion of Hultsch, this table probably belonged to an official compilation made under the emperor Julian. Very recently W. Dörpfeld has revised the work of Stuart, and by a series of measurements of the smaller architectural features in Athenian remains has made it appear that the Athenian foot equalled .2957^m (instead of .3081^m), which is almost precisely the Roman foot, and gives a stadium of 177.4^m, which runs 8⅓ to the Roman mile. If this revision is trustworthy,—and it has been accepted by Lepsius and by Nissel (who contributes the article on metrology to Mueller’s _Handbuch der klassischen Alterthumswissenschaft_, Nordlingen, 1886, etc.),—it seems to me probable that we have here the stadium used by Eratosthenes, and that his degree has a value of 124,180^m (Dörpfeld, _Beiträge zur antiken Metrologie, in Mittheilungen des deutschen Archaeolog. Instituts zu Athen_, vii. (1882), 277).
[269] Strabo, _Geogr._, ii. 5, § 7; the estimate of Posidonius is only quoted hypothetically by Strabo (ii. 2, § 2).
[270] Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ ii. 112, 113. There is apparently some misunderstanding, either on the part of Pliny or his copyists, in the subsequent proposition to increase this estimate by 12,000 stadia. Schaefer’s (_Philologus_, xxviii. 187) readjustment of the text is rather audacious. Pliny’s statement that Hipparchus estimated the circumference at 275,000 stadia does not agree with Strabo (i. 4, § 1).
[271] The discrepancy is variously explained. Riccioli, in his _Geographia et hydrographia reformata_, 1661, first suggested the more commonly received solution. Posidonius, he thought, having calculated the arc between Rhodes and Alexandria at 1-48 of the circumference, at first assumed 5,000 stadia as the distance between these places: 5,000 × 48 = 240,000. Later he adopted a revised estimate of the distance (Strabo, ii, ch. v. § 24), 3,750 stadia: 3,750 × 48 = 180,000. Letronne (_Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscr. et Belles-Lettres_, vi., 1822) prefers to regard both numbers as merely hypothetical illustrations of the processes. Hultsch (_Griechische u. Römische Metrologie_, 1882, p. 63) follows Fréret and Gosselin in regarding both numbers as expressing the same value in stadia of different length (Forbiger, _Handbuch der alten Geographie_, i. 360, n. 29). The last explanation is barred by the positive statement of Strabo, who can hardly be thought not to have known what he was talking about: _κἄν τῶν νεωτέρων δὲ ἀναμετρήσεων εἰσάγηται ἡ ἐλαχίστην ποιόυσα τὴν γῆν, οἵαν ὁ Ποσειδώνιος ἐγκρίνει περὶ ὀκτωκαίδεκα μυριάδας οὖσαν_, (_Geogr._, ii. 2, § 2.)
[272] _Geographia_, vii. 5.
[273] 1° = 500 stadia = 88,700^m, which is about one fifth smaller than the truth.
[274] Xenophanes is to be excepted, if, as M. Martin supposes, his doctrine of the infinite extent of the earth applied to its extent horizontally as well as downward.
[275] The domain of early Greek geography has not escaped the incursions of unbalanced investigators. The Greeks themselves allowed the Argonauts an ocean voyage: Crates and Strabo did valiant battle for the universal wisdom of Homer; nor are scholars lacking to-day who will demonstrate that Odysseus had circumnavigated Africa, floated in the shadow of Teneriffe—Horace to the contrary notwithstanding,—or sought and found the north pole. The evidence is against such vain imaginings. The world of Homer is a narrow world; to him the earth and the Ægean Sea are alike boundless, and in his thought fairy-land could begin west of the Lotos-eaters, and one could there forget the things of this life. There is little doubt that the author of the Odyssey considered Greece an island, and Asia and Africa another, and thought the great ocean eddied around the north of Hellas to a union with the Euxine.
[276]
Quinque tenent caelum zonae: quarum una corusco Semper sole rubens, et torrida semper ab igni; Quam circum extremae dextra laevaque trahuntur Caeruleae glacie concretae atque imbribus atris; Has inter mediam duae mortalibus aegris Munere concessae divom.
(Virgil, _Georg._ i. 233.)
The passage appears to be paraphrased from similar lines which are preserved in Achilles Tatius (_Isag. in Phænom. Arat._; Petavius, _Uranolog._ p. 153), and by him attributed to the _Hermes_ of Eratosthenes. See also Tibullus, _Eleg._ iv., Ovid, and among the men of science, Aristotle, _Meteorol._, ii. 5, §§ 11, 13, 15; Strabo, _Geogr._, i. 2, § 24; ii. 5, § 3; Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, ii. ch. 68; Mela, _De chorographia_, i. 1; Cicero, _Republ._, vi. 16; _Tusc. Disp._, i. 28.
[277] Aristotle, _Meteorol._, ii. 1, § 10; ii. 5, § 15; _De caelo_, ii. 14 _ad fin_. Letronne, finding the latter passage inconvenient, reversed the meaning by the arbitrary insertion of a negative (_Discussion de l’opinion d’Hipparque sur le prolongement de l’Afrique au sud de l’Equator_ in _Journal des Savans_, 1831, pp. 476, 545). The theory which he built upon this reconstructed foundation so impressed Humboldt that he changed his opinion as to the views of Aristotle on this point (_Examen critique_, ii. 373). Such an emendation is only justifiable by the sternest necessity, and it has been shown by Ruge (_Der Chaldäer Seleukos_, Dresden, 1865), and Prantl (_Werke des Aristoteles uebersetzt und erläutert_, Bd. ii.; _Die Himmelsgebäude_, note 61), that neither sense nor consistency requires the change.
[278] Herodotus, ii. 23; iii. 115; iv. 36, 40, 45.
[279] Geminus, _Isagoge_. Polybius’s work on this question is lost, and his own expressions as we have them in his history are more conservative. It is, he says, unknown, whether Africa is a continent extending toward the south, or is surrounded by the sea. Polib. _Hist._ iii. 38; Hampton’s translation (London, 1757), i. 334.
[280] Ptolemy, _Geogr._, vii. 3, 5.
[281] The circumnavigation of Africa by Phœnicians at the command of Necho, though described and accepted by Herodotus, can hardly be called an established fact, in spite of all that has been written in its favor. The story, whether true or false, had, like others of its kind, little influence upon the belief in the impassable tropic zone, because most of those who accepted it supposed that the continent terminated north of the equator.
[282] Ptolemy, _Geogr._, i. 11-14. Eratosthenes and Strabo located their first meridian at Cape St. Vincent; Marinus and Ptolemy placed it in the Canary group. See Vol. II. p. 95.
[283] Geminus, _Isagoge_, ch. 13; Achilles Tatius, _Isagoge in Phænom. Arati;_ Cleomedes, _De circulis sublimis_, i. 2. The first two are given in the _Uranologion_ of Petavius, Lond., Paris, 1630, pp. 56, 155.
The classes were always divided on the same principle, and each contained two groups so related that they could apply to one another reciprocally the name by which the whole class was designed. These names, however, are not always applied to the same classes by different writers. 1. The first class embraced the people who lived in the same half of the same temperate zone; to them all it was day or night, summer or winter, at the same time. They were called _σύνοικοι_ by Cleomedes, but _περίοκοι_ by Achilles Tatius. 2. The second class included such peoples as lived in the same temperate zone, but were divided by half the circumference of that zone; so that while they all had summer or winter at the same time, the one group had day when the other had night, and _vice versa_. These groups could call one another _περίοικοι_ according to Cleomedes, but _ἀντίχθονες_ according to Tatius. 3. The third class included those who were divided by the torrid zone, so that part lived in the northern temperate zone and part in the southern, but yet so that all were in the same half of their respective zones; _i. e._, all were in either the eastern or western, upper or lower, hemisphere. Day and night were shared by the whole class at once, but not the seasons, the northern group having summer when the southern had winter, and _vice versa_. These groups could call one another _ἄντοικοι_. 4. The fourth class comprised the groups which we know as antipodes, dwelling with regard to one another in different halves of the two temperate zones, so that they had neither seasons nor day or night in common, but stood upon the globe diametrically opposed to one another. All writers agree in calling these groups _ἀντίποδες_. The introduction of the word _antichthones_ in place of _perioeci_ was due, apparently, to a misunderstanding of the Pythagorean _antichthon_. This name was properly applied to the imaginary planet invented by the early Pythagoreans to bring the number of the spheres up to ten; it was located between the earth and the central fire, and had the same period of revolution as the earth, from the outer, Grecian, side of which it was never visible. This “opposite earth,” _Gegenerde_, was later confused with the other, western, or lower hemisphere of the earth itself. It was also sometimes applied to the inhabitants of the southern hemisphere, as by Cicero in the _Tusculan Disputations_ (i. 28), “duabus oris distantibus habitabilem et cultum; quarum altera quam nos incolimus,
Sub axe posita ad stellas septem unde horrifer Aquiloni stridor gelidas molitur nives,
altera australis, ignota nobis, _quam vocant Græci_ _ἀντίχθονα_.” Mela has the same usage (i. 4, 5), as quoted below. Macrobius, _Comm. in Somn. Scip._ lib. ii. 5, uses the nomenclature of Cleomedes. Reinhardt, quoted in Engelmann’s _Bibliotheca classica Græca_, under Geminus, I have not been able to see.
[284] Strabo, i. 4, § 6, 7; i. 2, § 24. Geminus, _Isagoge_, 13. Muellenhof, _Deutsche Alterthumskunde_, i. 247-254. Berger, _Geogr. Fragmente d. Eratosthenes_, 8, 84.
[285] Cicero, _Respubl._, vi. 15... sed partim obliquos, partim transversos, partim etiam adversos stare vobis. Some MSS. read aversos. See also _Tusc. Disp._, i. 28; _Acad._, ii. 39.
[286] Antichthones alteram [zonam], nos alteram incolimus. Illius situs ob ardorem intercedentis plagae incognitus, huius dicendus est. Haec ergo ab ortu porrecta ad occasum, et quia sic iacet aliquanto quam ubi latissima est longior, ambitur omnis oceano. Mela, _Chor._, i. 4, 5. Because Mela says that the known world is _but little_ longer than its width, it has been supposed that he was better informed than his contemporaries, and attributed something like its real extent to Africa. Thomassy (_Les papes géographiques_, Paris, 1852, p. 17) finds in his work a rival system to that of Ptolemy. The discovery of America, he thinks, was due to Ptolemy; that of the Cape of Good Hope to Mela. It was the good fortune of Mela that his work was widely read in the Middle Ages, and had great influence; but we owe him no new system of geography, since he simply adopted the oceanic theory as represented by Strabo and Crates. That he slightly changed the traditional proportion between the length and breadth of the known world is of small importance. The known world, he states, was surrounded by the ocean, and there is nothing to show that he supposed Africa to extend below the equator. In his description of Africa he applies the terms length and breadth not as we should, but with contrary usage: “Africa ab orientis parte Nilo terminata, pelago a ceteris, brevior est quidem quam Europa, quia nec usquam Asiae et non totis huius litoribus obtenditur, longior tamen ipsa quam latior, et qua ad fluvium adtingit latissima,” etc., i. 20. (Ed. Parthey, 1867.)
[287] Mela, i. 54, “Alter orbis.” Cicero, _Tusc. Disp._, i. 28, “Ora Australis.”
[288] Hyde Clarke, _Atlantis_, in the _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_, London, New Series, vol. iii.; Reinaud, _Relations politiques_, etc., _de l’empire Romaine avec l’Asie orientale_, etc., in the _Journal Asiatique_, 1863, p. 140.
[289] The exposition of Macrobius is so interesting as illustrating the mathematical and physical geography of the ancients, and as showing how thoroughly the practical consequences of the sphericity of the earth were appreciated; it is so important in the present connection as demonstrating that the whole idea of inhabited lands in other parts of the earth was based on logic only, not on knowledge, that I have ventured to quote from it somewhat freely.
Macrobius, _Comm. in Somn. Scipionis_, ii. 5.—“Cernis autem eamdem terram quasi quibusdam redimitam et circumdatam cingulis, e quibus duos maxime inter se diversos, et caeli verticibus ipsis ex utraque parte subnixos, obriguisse pruina vides; medium autem illum, et maximum, solis ardore torreri. Duo sunt habitabiles: quorum australis ille, in quo qui insistunt, adversa vobis urgent vestigia, nihil ad vestrum genus; hic autem alter subjectus aquiloni, quem incolitis, cerne quam tenui vos parte contingat. Omnis enim terra, quae colitur a vobis, angusta verticibus, lateribus latior, parva quaedam insula est....” (Cicero.) ... Nam et septentrionalis et australis extremitas perpetua obriguerunt pruina.... Horum uterque habitationis impatiens est.... Medius cingulus et ideo maximus, aeterno afflatu continui caloris ustus, spatium quod et lato ambitu et prolixius occupavit, nimietate fervoris facit inhabitabile victuris. Inter extremos vero et medium duo majores ultimis, medio minores ex utriusque vicinitatis intemperie temperantur.... Licet igitur sint hae duae ... quas diximus temperatas, non tamen ambae zonae hominibus nostri generis indultae sunt: sed sola superior, ... incolitur ab omni, quale scire possumus, hominum genere, Romani Graecive sint, vel barbari cujusque nationis. Illa vero ... sola ratione intelligitur, quod propter similem temperiem similiter incolatur, sed a quibus, neque licuit unquam nobis nec licebit cognoscere: interjecta enim torrida utrique hominum generi commercium ad se denegat commeandi.... Nec dubium est, nostrum quoque septentrionem [ventum] ad illos qui australi adjacent, propter eamdem rationem calidum pervenire, et austrum corporibus eorum gemino aurae suae rigore blandiri. Eadem ratio nos non permittit ambigere quin per illam quoque superficiem terrae quae ad nos habetur inferior, integer zonarum ambitus quae hic temperatae sunt, eodem ductu temperatus habeatur; atque ideo illic quoque eaedem duae zonae a se distantes similiter incolantur.... Nam si nobis vivendi facultas est in hac terrarum parte quam colimus, quia, calcantes humum, caelum suspicimus super verticem, quia sol nobis et oritur et occidit, quia circumfuso fruimur aere cujus spiramus haustu, cur non et illic aliquos vivere credamus ubi eadem semper inpromptu sunt? Nam, qui ibi dicuntur morari, eamdem credendi sunt spirare auram, quia eadem est in ejusdem zonalis ambitus continuatione temperies. Idem sol illis et obire dicitur nostro ortu, et orietur quum nobis occidet: calcabunt aeque ut nos humum, et supra verticem semper caelum videbunt. Nec metus erit ne de terra in caelum decidant, quum nihil unquam possit ruere sursum. Si enim nobis, quod asserere genus joci est, deorsum habitur ubi est terra, et sursum ubi est caelum, illis quoque sursum erit quod de inferiore suspicient, nec aliquando in superna casuri sunt.
Hi quos separat a nobis perusta, quos Graeci _ἀντοικοὑς_ vocant, similiter ab illis qui inferiorem zonae suae incolunt partem interjecta australi gelida separantur. Rursus illos ab _ἀντοικοῖς_ suis, id est per nostri cinguli inferiora viventibus, interjectio ardentis sequestrat: et illi a nobis septentrionalis extremitatis rigore removentur. Et quia non est una omnium affinis continuatio, sed interjectae sunt solitudines ex calore vel frigore mutuum negantibus commeatum, has terrae partes quae a quattuor hominum generibus incoluntur, maculas habitationum vocavit....
9. Is enim quem solum oceanum plures opinantur, de finibus ab illo originali refusis, secundum ex necessitate ambitum fecit. Ceterum prior ejus corona per zonam terrae calidam meat, superiora terrarum et inferiora cingens, flexum circi equinoctialis imitata. Ab oriente vero duos sinus refundit, unum ad extremitatem septentrionis, ad australis alterum: rursusque ab occidente duo pariter enascuntur sinus, qui usque ad ambas, quas supra diximus, extremitates refusi occurrent ab oriente demissis; et, dum vi summa et impetu immaniore miscentur, invicemque se feriunt, ex ipsa aquarum collisione nascitur illa famosa oceani accessio pariter et recessio.... Ceterum verior, ut ita dicam, ejus alveus tenet zonam perustam; et tam ipse qui equinoctialem, quam sinus ex eo nati qui horizontem circulum ambitu suae flexionis imitantur, omnem terram quadrifidam dividunt, et singulas, ut supra diximus, habitationes insulas faciunt ... binas in superiore atque inferiore terrae superficie insulas....
[290] Mr. Gladstone (_Homer and the Homeric age_, vol. iii.) transposes these Homeric localities to the east, and a few German writers agree with him. President Warren (_True key to ancient cosmologies_, etc., Boston, 1882) will have it that Ogygia is neither more nor less than the north pole. Neither of these views is likely to displace the one now orthodox. Mr. Gladstone is so much troubled by Odysseus’s course on leaving Ogygia that he cannot hide a suspicion of corruption in the text. President Warren should remember that Ogygia apparently enjoyed the common succession of day and night. In Homeric thought the western sea extended northward and eastward until it joined the Euxine. Ogygia, located northwest of Greece, would be the centre, _omphalos_, of the sea, as Delphi was later called the centre of the land-masses of the world.
[291] _Odyssey_, iv. 561, etc.
[292] It is well known that whereas Odysseus meets the spirits of the dead across Oceanus, upon the surface of the earth, there is in the _Iliad_ mention of a subterranean Hades. The Assyrio-Babylonians had also the idea of an earth-encircling ocean stream,—the word _Ὠκεανὸς_ the Greeks said was of foreign origin,—and on the south of it they placed the sea of the dead, which held the island homes of the departed. As in the _Odyssey_, it was a place given over to dust and darkness, and the doors of it were strongly barred; no living being save a god or a chosen hero might come there. Schrader, _Namen d. Meere in d. Assyrischen Inschriften (Abhandl. d. k. Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin_, 1877, p. 169). Jeremias, _Die Babylonisch-Assyrischen Vorstellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode_ (Leipzig, 1887). The Israelites, on the other hand, imagined the home of the dead as underground. _Numbers_, xvi. 30, 32, 33.
Buchholtz, _Die Homerische Realien_, i. 55, places Hades on the European shores of Ocean, but the text of the Odyssey seems plainly in favor of the site across the stream, as Völcker and others have understood.
[293] Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 166-173; Elton’s translation, London, 1815, p. 22. Paley marks the line _Τηλοῦ ἀπ̓ ἀθανάτων τόισιν Κρόνος ἐμβασιλζύει_ as probably spurious. Cronos appears to have been originally a Phœnician deity, and his westward wandering played an important part in their mythology. We shall find further traces of this divinity in the west.
[294] Pindar, _Olymp._, ii. 66-85, Paley’s translation, London, 1868, p. 12. See also Euripides, _Helena_, 1677.
[295] Æschylus, in the _Prometheus bound_, introduced the Gorgon islands in his epitome of the wanderings of Io, and certainly seems to speak of them as in the east; the passage is, however, imperfect, and its interpretation has overtasked the ablest commentators.
[296] Euripides, _Hippolytus_, 742-751; Potter’s translation, i. p. 356. See also Hesiod, _Theog._, 215, 517-519.
[297] Mela, iii. 100, 102, etc. The chief passage is Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, vi. 36, 37, who took his information from King Juba and a writer named Statius Sebosus. Pliny, who, beside the groups named in the text, mentions the Gorgades, which he identifies with the place where Hanno met the gorillas, has probably misunderstood and garbled his authorities; his account is contradictory and illusive.
[298] Tzetzes (_Scholia in Lycophron_, 1204, ed. Mueller, ii. 954), a grammarian of the twelfth century, says that the Isles of the Blessed were located in the ocean by Homer, Hesiod, Euripides, Plutarch, Dion, Procopius, Philostratus and others, but that to many it seems that Britain must be the true Isle of the Blessed; and in support of this view he relates a most curious tale of the ferriage of the dead to Britain by Breton fishermen.
[299] _L’Atlantide_, by Paul Gaffarel, in the _Revue de Géographie_, April, May, June, July, 1880 (vi. 241, 331, 421; vii. 21). See also, in his _Étude sur les rapports de l’Amérique et de l’ancien continent avant Christophe Colomb_ (Paris, 1869).
[300] _Atlantis: the antediluvian world_, New York, 1882.
[301] Theopomp., _Fragmenta_, ed. Wieters, 1829, no. 76, p. 72. _Geographi Graec. minores_, ed. Mueller, i. 289. Aeliani, _Var. Hist._, iii. 18. The extracts in the text are taken from “_A Registre of Hystories, etc., written in Greeke by Aelianus, a Roman, and delivered in English by_ Abraham Fleming.” London, 1576, fol. 36.
[302] We owe this quip to Tertullian (he at least is the earliest writer to whom I can trace it): “Ut Silenus penes aures Midae blattit, _aptas sane grandioribus fabulis_” (_De pallio_, cap. 2).
[303] “Furthermore he tolde one thing among all others, meriting admiration, that certain men called Meropes dwelt in many cittyes there about, and that in the borders adiacent to their countrey, was a perilous place named Anostus, that is to say, wythout retourne, being a gaping gulfe or bottomles pit, for the ground is as it were cleft and rent in sonder, in so much that it openeth like to the mouth of insatiable hell, y^t it is neither perfectly lightsome, nor absolutely darksome, but that the ayer hangeth ouer it, being tempered with a certaine kinde of clowdy rednes, that a couple of floodes set their recourse that way, the one of pleasure the other of sorow, and that about each of them growe plantes answearable in quantity and bignes to a great plaine tree. The trees which spring by y^e flood of sorow yeldeth fruite of one nature, qualitie, and operation. For if any man taste thereof, a streame of teares floweth from his eyes, as out of a conduite pipe, or sluse in a running riuer, yea, such effect followeth immediately after the eating of the same, that the whole race of their life is turned into a tragical lamentation, in so much that weeping and wayling knitteth their carkeses depriued of vitall mouing, in a winding sheete, and maketh them gobbettes for the greedy graue to swallow and deuoure. The other trees which prosper vpon the bankes of the floode of pleasure, beare fruite cleane contrary to the former, for whosoeuer tasteth thereof, he is presently weined from the pappes of his auncient appetites and inueterate desires, & if he were linked in loue to any in time past, he is fettered in the forgetfulnes of them, so that al remembrance is quite abolished, by litle and litle he recouereth the yeres of his youth, reasuming vnto him by degrees, the times & seasons, long since, spent and gone. For, the frowardnes and crookednes of old age being first shaken of, the amiablenes and louelynesse of youth beginneth to budde, in so much as they put on y^e estate of stripplings, then become boyes, then change to children, then reenter into infancie, & at length death maketh a finall end of all.”
Compare the story told by Mela (iii. 10) about the Fortunate Isles: “Una singulari duorum fontium ingenio maxime insignis: alterum qui gustavere risu solvuntur, ita adfectis remedium est ex altero bibere.”
It should be noted that the country described by Theopompus is called by him simply “The Great Continent.”
[304] Strabo, vii. 3, § 6. Perizonius makes this passage in Aelian the peg for a long note on ancient knowledge of America, in which he brings together the most important passages bearing on the subject. He remarks: “Nullus tamen dubito, quin Veteres aliquid crediderint vel sciverent, sed quasi per nebulam et caliginem, de America, partim ex antiqua traditione ab Aegyptiis vel Carthaginiensibus accepta, partim ex ratiocinatione de forma et situ orbis terrarum, unde colligebant, superesse in hoc orbe etiam alias terras praeter Asiam, Africam, & Europam.” In my opinion their assumed knowledge was based entirely on ratiocination, and was not real knowledge at all; but Perizonius well expresses the other view.
[305] _Mare Cronium_ was the name given to a portion of the northern ocean. Forbiger, _Handbuch_, ii. 3, note 9.
[306] The average of all known rates of speed with ancient ships is about five knots an hour; some of the fastest runs were at the rate of seven knots, or a little more. Breusing, _Nautik der Alten_, Bremen, 1886, pp. 11, 12. Movers, _Die Phœnizier_, ii. 3, 190. Movers estimates the rate of a Phœnician vessel with 180 oarsmen at double that of a Greek merchantman. He compares the sailing qualities of Phœnician vessels with those of Venice in the Middle Ages to the disadvantage of the latter. As the ancients had nothing answering to our log, and their contrivances for time-keeping were neither trustworthy nor adapted for use on shipboard, these estimates are necessarily based on a few reports of the number of days spent on voyages of known length,—a rather uncertain method.
[307] Tin exists in some of the islands of the Indian Ocean, and they were worked at a later period, but there is no direct evidence, as far as I am aware, that they were known at the date when Tyre was most flourishing.
[308] Diodorus Siculus, v. 18, 19; _De Mirab. Auscult._, 84. Müllenhof, _Deutsche Alterthumskunde_, i., Berlin, 1870, p. 467, traces the report through the historian Timaeus to Punic sources.
[309] The narration of Hanno’s voyage has been preserved, apparently in the words of the commander’s report. _Geographi Graeci minores_, ed. Mueller (Paris, 1855), i. pp. 1-14. Cf. also _Prolegom._, pp. xviii, xxiii. Our only notion of the date of the expedition is derived from Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, v. i. § 7, who says: “Fuere et Hannonis Carthaginiensium ducis commentarii, _Punicis rebus florentissimis_ explorare ambitum Africae jussi.” All that is known of Himilko is derived from the statement of Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, ii. 67, that he was sent at about the same time as Hanno to explore the distant regions of Europe; and from the poems of Avienus, who wrote in the fourth century, and professed to give, in the _Ora Maritima_, many extracts from the writings of Himilko. The description of the difficulties of navigation in the Atlantic is best known. In his _Deutsche Alterthumskunde_ (Berlin, 1870), i. pp. 73-210, Muellenhof has devoted especial attention to an analysis of this record.
[310] Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, vi. 36, 37; Mela, iii. 100, etc.; Solinus, 23, 56 [ed. Mommsen, p. 117, 230]; Ptolemy, _Geogr._, iv. 6; _Rapport sur une mission scientifique dans l’archipel Canarienne,_ par M. le docteur Verneau; 1877. In _Archives des Missions Scientifique et Litteraires_, 3^e série, tom. xiii. pp. 569, etc. The presence of Semites is indicated in Gran Canaria, Ferro, Palma, and the inscriptions agree in character with those found in Numidia by Gen. Faidherbe. In Gomera and Teneriffe, where the Guanche stock is purest, there have been no inscriptions found. Dr. Verneau believes that the Guanches are not descended from Atlantes or Americans, but from the Quaternary men of Cro-magnon on the Vézère; he found, however, traces of an unknown brachycephalic race in Gomera.
[311] In the second century, a.d., Pausanias (_Desc. Graec._, i. 23) was told by Euphemus, a Carian, that once, on a voyage to Italy, he had been driven to the sea outside [_ἐς τὲν ἔξω θάλασσαν_], where people no longer sailed, and where he fell in with many desert islands, some inhabited by wild men, red-haired, and with tails, whom the sailors called Satyrs. Nothing more is known of these islands. _Ἔξο_ has here been rendered simply “distant”; but even in this sense it could hardly apply in the time of Pausanias to any region but the Atlantic. It is more probable that the phrase means “outside the columns.”
In the first century B.C., some men of an unknown race were cast by the sea on the German coast. There is nothing to show that these men were American Indians; but since that has been sometimes assumed, the matter should not be passed over here. The event is mentioned by Mela (_De Chorogr._, iii. 5, § 8), and by Pliny (_Hist. Nat._, ii. 67); the castaways were forwarded to the proconsul, Q. Caecilius Metellus Celer (B.C. 62), by the king of the tribe within whose territory they were found. Pliny calls the tribe the Suevi; the reading in Mela is very uncertain. Parthey has _Botorum_, the older editors _Baetorum_, or _Boiorum_. The Romans took them for inhabitants of India, who had been carried around the north of Europe; modern writers have seen in them Africans, Celts, Lapps, or Caribs. A careful study of the whole subject, with references to the literature, will be found in an article by F. Schiern: _Un énigme ethnographique de l’antiquité_, contributed to the Memoirs of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries; New Series, 1878-83, pp. 245-288.
In the Louvre is an antique bronze which has been thought to represent one of the Indians of Mela, and also to be a good reproduction of the features of the North American Indian (Longpérier, _Notice des bronzes antiques_, etc., _du Musée du Louvre_, Paris, 1868, p. 143), but the supposition is purely arbitrary.
Such an event as an involuntary voyage from the West Indies to the shores of Europe is not an impossibility, nor is the case cited by Mela and Pliny the only one of the kind which we find recorded. Gomara (_Hist. gen. de las Indias_, 7) says some savages were thrown upon the German coast in the reign of Frederic Barbarossa (1152-1190), and Aeneas Silvius (Pius II.) probably refers to the same event when he quotes a certain Otho as relating the capture on the coast of Germany, in the time of the German emperors, of an Indian ship and Indian traders (mercatores). The identity of Otho is uncertain. Otto of Freisingen ([Dagger] 1158) is probably meant, but the passage does not appear in his works that have been preserved (Aeneas Silvius, _Historia rerum_, ii. 8, first edition, Venice, 1477). The most curious story, however, is that related by Cardinal Bembo in his history of Venice (first published 1551), and quoted by Horn (_De orig. Amer._, 14), Garcia (iv. 29), and others. It deserves, however, record here. “A French ship while cruising in the ocean not far from Britain picked up a little boat made of split oziers and covered with bark taken whole from the tree; in it were seven men of moderate height, rather dark complexion, broad and open faces, marked with a violet scar. They had a garment of fishskin with spots of divers shades, and wore a headgear of painted straw, interwoven with seven things like ears, as it were (coronam e culmo pictam septem quasi auriculis intextam). They ate raw flesh, and drank blood as we wine. Their speech could not be understood. Six of them died; one, a youth, was brought alive to Roano (so the Italian; the Latin has Aulercos), where the king was” (Louis XII.). Bembo, _Rerum Venetarum Hist._ vii. year, 1508. [_Opere_, Venice, 1729, i. 188.]
[312]
Nos manet Oceanus circumvagus; arva, beata Petamus arva, divites et insulas, Reddit ubi Cererem tellus inarata quotannis Et inputata floret usque vinea.
* * * * *
Non huc Argoo contendit remige pinus, Neque inpudica Colchis intulit pedem; _Non huc Sidonii torserunt cornua nautae_, Laboriosa nec cohors Ulixei. Juppiter illa piae secrevit litora genti, Ut inquinavit aere tempus aureum; Aere, dehinc ferro duravit saecula, quorum Piis secunda, vate me, datur fuga.
(Horace, _Epode_, xvi.)
Virgil, in the well-known lines in the prophecy of Anchises—
Super et Garamantes et Indos Proferet inperium; iacet extra sidera tellus, Extra anni solisque vias, ubi caelifer Atlas Axem humero torquet stellis ardentibus aptum—
(_Æneid_, vi. 795.)
had Africa rather than the west in mind, according to the commentators.
It is possible that the islands described to Sertorius were Madeira and Porto Santo, but the distance was much overestimated in this case.
[313] “He [Eratosthenes] says that if the extent of the Atlantic Ocean were not an obstacle, we might easily pass by sea from Iberia to India, still keeping in the same parallel, the remaining portion of which parallel ... occupies more than a third of the whole circle.... But it is quite possible that in the temperate zone there may be two or even more habitable earths _οἰκουμένας_, especially near the circle of latitude which is drawn through Athens and the Atlantic ocean.” (Strabo, _Geogr._, i. 4, § 6.)
[314] Seneca, _Naturalium Quaest. Praefatio._ The passage is certainly striking, but those who, like Baron Zach, base upon it the conclusion that American voyagers were common in the days of Seneca overestimate its force. It is certainly evident that Seneca, relying on his knowledge of theoretical geography, underestimated the distance to India. Had the length of the voyage to America been known, he would not have used the illustration.
[315] Smaller vessels even than were then afloat have crossed the Atlantic, and the passage from the Canaries is hardly more difficult than the Indian navigation. The Pacific islanders make voyages of days’ duration by the stars alone to goals infinitely smaller than the broadside of Asia, to which the ancients would have supposed themselves addressed.
[316] Aristotle, _Meteorolog._, ii. 1, § 14; Plato, _Timaeus_; Scylax Caryandensis, _Periplus_, 112. _τῆς Κέρνης δὲ νέσου τὰ ἐπέκεινα οὐκέτι ἐστὶ πλωτὰ διὰ βραχύτητα θαλάττης καὶ πελὸν καὶ φῦκος_(_Geogr. Graec. min._, ed. Mueller, i. 93; other references in the notes). Pytheas in Strabo, ii. 4, § 1; Tacitus, _Germania_, 45, 1; _Agricola_, x. A gloss to Suidas applies the name Atlantic to all innavigable seas. Pausanias, i. ch. 3, § 6, says it contained strange sea-beasts, and was not navigable in its more distant parts. A long list of references to similar passages is given by Ukert, _Geogr. der Griechen u. Römer_, ii. 1, p. 59. See also Berger, _Wissenschaftliche Geographie_, i. p. 27, note 3, and Grote, _Hist. of Greece_, iii. ch. 18, notes.
[317] _De Mirab. Auscult._, 136. The Phœnicians are said to have discovered beyond Gades extensive shoals abounding in fish.
Quae Himilco Poenus mensibus vix quatuor, Ut ipse semet re probasse retulit Enavigantem, posse transmitti adserit: Sic nulla late flabra propellunt ratem, Sic segnis humor aequoris pigri stupet. Adjecit et illud, plurimum inter gurgites Extare fucum, et saepe virgulti vice Retinere puppim: dicit hic nihilominus, Non in profundum terga dimitti maris, Parvoque aquarum vix supertexi solum: Obire semper huc et huc ponti feras, Navigia lenta et languide repentia Internatare belluas. (Avienus, _Ora Maritima_, 115-130.)
Hunc usus olim dixit Oceanum vetus, Alterque dixit mos Atlanticum mare. Longo explicatur gurges hujus ambitu, Produciturque latere prolixe vago. Plerumque porro tenue tenditur salum, Ut vix arenas subjacentes occulat. Exsuperat autem gurgitem fucus frequens, Atque impeditur aestus hic uligine: Vis belluarum pelagus omne internatat, Multusque terror ex feris habitat freta. Haec olim Himilcos Poenus Oceano super Spectasse semet et probasse retulit: Haec nos, ab imis Punicorum annalibus Prolata longo tempore, edidimus tibi. (_Ibid._ 402-415.)
Whether Avienus had immediate knowledge of these Punic sources is quite unknown.
[318] Seneca, _Medea_, 376-380.
[319] In the first book of his _Suasoriæ_, M. Annaeus Seneca collected a number of examples illustrative of the manner in which several of the famous orators and rhetoricians of his time had handled the subject, _Deliberat Alexander, an Oceanum naviget_, which appears to have been one of a number of stock subjects for use in rhetorical training. This collection thus gives a good view of the prevalent views about the ocean, and certainly tells strongly against the idea that the western passage was then known or practised. “Fertiles in Oceano jacere terras, ultraque Oceanum rursus alia littora, alium nasci orbem, ... _facile ista finguntur; quia Oceanus navigari non potest_ ... confusa lux alta caligine, et interceptus tenebris dies, ipsum veros grave et devium mare, et aut nulla, aut ignota sidera. Ita est, Alexander, rerum natura; _post omnia Oceanus, post Oceanum nihil_.... Immensum, et humanae intentatum experientiae pelagus, totius orbis vinculum, terrarumque custodia, inagitata remigio vastitas.... Fabianus ... divisit enim illam [quaestionem] sic, ut primum negaret ullas in Oceano, aut trans Oceanum, esse terras habitabiles: deinde si essent, perveniri tamen ad illas non posse. Hic difficultatem ignoti maris, naturam non patientem navigationis.”
[320] Virgil, bishop of Salzburg, was accused before Pope Zacharias by St. Boniface of teaching the doctrine of antipodes; for this, and not for his belief in the sphericity of the earth (as I read), he was threatened by the Pope with expulsion from the church. The authority for this story is a letter from the Pope to Boniface. See Marinelli, _Die Erdkunde bei den Kirchenvätern_, p. 42.
[321] Cosmas, as will be seen in the cut, adhered to the continental theory, placing Paradise on the continent in the east. Paradise was more commonly placed in an island east of Asia.
[322] It has been suggested by M. Beauvois that Labrador may in the same way derive its name from _Inis Labrada_, or the Island of Labraid, which figures in an ancient Celtic romance. The conjecture has only the phonetic resemblance to recommend it. Beauvois, _L’Elysée transatlantique (Revue de l’Histoire des Religions_, vii. (1883), p. 291, n. 3).
[323] Gaffarel, P., _Les isles fantastiques de l’Atlantique au moyen âge_, 3.
[324] Coryat’s _Crudities_, London, 1611. Sig. h(4), verso.
[325] The result of the Arabian measurements gave 56⅔3 miles to a degree. Arabian miles were meant, and as these contain, according to Peschel (_Geschichte der Geographie_, p. 134) 4,000 ells of 540.7^{mm}., the degree equalled 122,558.6^m. The Europeans, however, thought that Roman miles were meant, and so got but 83,866.6^m. to a degree.
[326] Edrisi, _Geography_, Climate, iv., § 1, Jaubert’s translation, Paris, 1836, ii. 26.
[327] Found in various Celtic MSS. See Beauvois, _L’Eden occidentale (Rev. de l’Hist. des Relig._), viii. (1884), 706, etc.; Joyce, _Old Celtic Romances_, 112-176.
[328] These alleged voyages are considered in the next chapter.
[329] Polybius, _Hist._, iii. 38.
[330] The tract _On the World_ (_περὶ κόσμου_, de mundo), and the _Strange Stories_ (_περὶθαυμασίων ἀκουσμάτν_, _de mirabilibus auscultationibus_), printed with the works of Aristotle, are held to be spurious by critics: the former, which gives a good summary of the oceanic theory of the distribution of land and water (ch. 3), is considerably later in date; the latter is a compilation made from Aristotle and other writers. Muellenhof has sought partially to analyze it in his _Deutsche Alterthumskunde_, i. 426, etc.
[331] First in _Geographica Marciani, Scylacis, Artemidoris, Dicæarchi, Isidori. Ed. a Hoeschelio_ (Aug. Vind., 1600). The great collection made by Hudson, _Geographiae veteris scriptores Graeci minores_ (4 vols., Oxon., 1698-1712; re-edited by Gail, Paris, 1826, 6 vols.), is still useful, notwithstanding the handy edition by C. Mueller in the Didot classics, _Geographiae Graeci minores_ (Paris, 1855-61. 2 vols. and atlas).
[332] _Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum. Ed. C. et T. Mueller_ (Paris, Didot, 1841-68. 5 vols.).
[333] _Die geographischen Fragmente des Hipparchus: H. Berger_ (Leipzig, 1869); _Posidonii Rhodii reliquiae doctrinae: coll. J. Bake_ (Lugd. Bat., 1810); _Eratosthenica composuit G. Bernhardy_ (Berlin, 1822); _Die geographischen Fragmente des Eratosthenes: H. Berger_ (Leipzig, 1880).
[334] _Strabonis Geographia_ (Romae, Suweynheym et Pannartz, s. a.), in 1469 or 1470, folio. First edition of the Latin translation which was made by Guarini of Verona, and Lilius Gregorius of Tiferno; only 275 copies were printed. It was reprinted in 1472 (Venice), 1473 (Rome), 1480 (Tarvisii), 1494 (Venice), 1502 (Venice), 1510 (Venice), and 1512 (Paris). _Strabo de situ orbis_ (Venice. Aldus et Andr. Soc., 1516), fol., was the first Greek edition; a better edition appeared in 1549 (Basil., fol.), with Guarini’s and Gregorius’s translation revised by Glareanus and others. Critical ed. by J. Kramer (Berlin, 1844), 3 vols. Ed. with Latin trans. by C. Müller and F. Dübner (Paris, Didot, 1853, 1857). It has since been edited by August Meineke (Leipsic, Teubner, 1866. 3 vols. 8vo).
There was an Italian translation by Buonacciuoli, in Venice and Ferrara, 1562, 1585. 2 vols. The _Γεωγραφικὰ_ has been several times translated into German, by Penzel (Lemgo, 1775-1777, 4 Bde. 8vo), Groskund (Berlin, Stettin, 1831-1834. 4 Thle.), and Forbiger (Stuttgart, 1856-1862. 2 Bde.), and very recently into English by H. C. Hamilton and W. Falconer (London, Bell [Bohn], 1887). 3 vols. This has a useful index.
The great French translation of Strabo, made by order of Napoleon, with very full notes by Gosselin and others, is still the most useful translation: _Géographie du Strabon trad. du grec en française_ (Paris, 1805-1819). 5 vols. 4to.
[335] The Geography was first printed, in a Latin translation, at Vincentia, in 1475; the date 1462 in the Bononia edition being recognized as a misprint, probably for 1482. The history of the book has been described by Lelewel in the appendix to his _Histoire de la Géographie_, and more fully in Winsor’s _Bibliography of Ptolemy’s Geography_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1884), and in the section on Ptolemy by Wilberforce Eames in Sabin’s _Dictionary_, also printed separately.
[336] The _Phaenomena_ of Aratus was a poem which had great vogue both in Greece and Rome. It was commented upon by Hipparchus and Achilles Tatius (both of which commentaries are preserved, and are found in the _Uranologion_ of Petavius), and translated by Cicero.
[337] _Gemini elementa astronomiae_, also quoted by the first word of the Greek title, _Isagoge_. First edition, Altorph, 1590. The best edition is still that in the _Uranologion_ of Dionysius Petavius (Paris, 1630). It is also found in the rare translation of Ptolemy by Halma (Paris, 1828).
[338] _Κύκλικη θεώρια_ quoted as _Cleom. de sublimibus circulis_. The first edition was at Paris, 1539. 4to. It has been edited by Bake (Lugd. Bat., 1826), and Schmidt (Leips. 1832). Nothing is known of the life of Cleomedes. He wrote after the 1st cent. A.D., probably.
[339] It was first printed in the Plato of Basle, 1534. There is an English translation by Thomas Taylor, _The Commentaries of Proclus on the Timaeus of Plato_, in 2 vols. (London, 1820). Proclus was also the author of astronomical works which helped to keep Grecian learning alive in the early Middle Ages.
[340] The works of L. Annaeus Seneca were first printed in Naples, 1475, fol., but the _Questionum naturalium lib. vii._ were not included until the Venice ed. of 1490, which also contained the first edition of the _Suasoriae and Controversariae_ of M. Ann. Seneca. The _Tragoediae_ of L. Ann. Seneca were first printed about 1484 by A. Gallicus, probably at Ferrara.
[341] _Historiae naturalis libri xxxvii._ The first edition was the famous and rare folio of Joannes de Spira, Venice, 1469. I find record of ten other editions and three issues of Landino’s Italian translation before 1492.
[342] _C. Julii Solini Collectanea rerum memorabilium sive polyhistor._ Solinus lived probably in the third century A.D. His book was a great favorite in the Middle Ages, both in manuscript and in print, and was known by various titles, as _Polyhistor, De situ orbis_, etc. The first edition appeared without place or date, at Rome, about 1473, and in the same year at Venice, and it was often reprinted with the annotations of the most famous geographers. The best edition is that by Mommsen (Berlin, 1864). See Vol. II. p. 180.
[343] First edition, Milan, 1471. 4to. The best is that by Parthey, Berlin, 1867. A history and bibliography of this work is given in Vol. II. p. 180.
[344] _Commentariorum in somnium Scipionis libri duo._ The first edition was at Venice, 1472. There has been an edition by Jahn (2 vols. Quedlinburg, 1848, 1852), and by Eyssenhardt (Leipzig, 1868), and a French translation by various hands, printed in 3 vols. at Paris, 1845-47.
[345] _Descriptio orbis terrae; ora maritima._ The first edition appeared at Venice in 1488, with the _Phaenomena_ of Aratus. It is included in the _Geogr. Graec. min._ of Mueller. Muellenhof has treated of the latter poem at length in his _Deutsche Alterthumskunde_, i. 73-210.
[346] _Astronomicon libri v._ Manilius is an unknown personality, but wrote in the first half of the first century A. D. (First ed., Nuremberg, 1472 or 1473); Hyginus, _Poeticon Astronomicon_, 1st or 2d cent. A. D. (Ferrara, 1475).
[347] _De nuptiis philologiae et Mercurii_, first ed. Vicent., 1499.
[348] E. H. Bunbury, _Hist. of Anc. Geog. among the Greeks and Romans_ (London, 1879), in two volumes,—a valuable, well-digested work, but scant in citations. Ukert, _Geog. der Griechen and Römer_ (Weimar, 1816), very rich in citations, giving authorities for every statement, and useful as a summary.
Forbiger, _Handbuch der alten Geographie_ (Hamburg, 1877), compiled on a peculiar method, which is often very sensible. He first analyzes and condenses the works of each writer, and then sums up the opinions on each country and phase of the subject.
Vivien de St. Martin, _Histoire de la Géographie_ (Paris, 1873).
Peschel, _Geschichte der Erdkunde_ (2d ed., by S. Ruge, München, 1877). Perhaps reference is not out of place also to P. F. J. Gosselin’s _Géographie des Grecs analysée, ou les Systèmes d’Eratosthenes, de Strabon et de Ptolémée, comparés entre eux et avec nos connaissances modernes_ (Paris, 1790); and his later _Recherches sur la Geographie systématique et positive des anciens_ (1797-1813).
Cf. Hugo Berger, _Geschichte der wiss. Erdkunde der Griechen_ (Leipzig, 1887).
[349] _Geschichte der Griechischen Philosophie_ (Tübingen, 1856-62).
[350] Sir George Cornwall Lewis, _Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients_ (London, 1862).
Theodore Henri Martin, whose numerous papers are condensed in the article on “Astronomie” in Daremberg and Saglio’s _Dictionnaire de l’Antiquité_. Some of the more important distinct papers of Martin appeared in the _Mém. Acad. Inscrip. et Belles Lettres._
[351] See Cellarius, _Notit. orb. antiq._ i. ch. 2, _de rotunditate terrae_. See also Günther, _Aeltere und neuere Hypothese ueber die chronische Versetzung des Erdschwerpunktes durch Wassermassen_ (Halle, 1878).
[352] _De Natura Rerum._
[353] See _ante_, p. 31. In the second century St. Clement spoke of the “Ocean impassible to man, and the worlds beyond it.” _1st Epist. to Corinth._ ch. 20. (_Apostolic Fathers_, Edinb. 1870, p. 22.)
[354] Legrand d’Aussy, _Image du Monde_. _Notices et extraits de la Bibliothèque du Roi_, etc., v. (1798), p. 260. It is also said that the earth is round, so that a man could go all round it as an insect can walk all round the circumference of a pear. This notable poem has been lately studied by Fant, but is still unprinted. It was known to Abulfeda, that if two persons made the journey described, they would on meeting differ by two days in their calendar (Peschel, _Gesch. d. Erdkunde_, p. 132).
[355] A. Jourdain, _Recherches critique sur l’âge et l’origin des traductions latines d’Aristote, et sur des commentaires Grecs et Arabes employés par les docteurs scolastiques_ (Paris, 1843). See also _De l’influence d’Aristote et de ses interprètes sur la découverte du nouveau-monde, par Ch. Jourdain_ (Paris, 1861).
[356] See Vol. II., ch. i., Critical Essay.
[357] Cf. a bibliographical note in St. Martin’s _Histoire de la Géographie_ (1873), p. 296. The well-known _Examen Critique_ of Humboldt, the _Recherches sur la géographie_ of Walckenaer, the _Géographie du moyen-âge_ of Lelewel, with a few lesser monographic papers like Fréville’s “Mémoire sur la Cosmographie du moyen-âge,” in the _Revue des Soc. Savantes_, 1859, vol. ii., and Gaffarel’s “Les relations entre l’ancient monde et l’Amérique, étaient-elles possible au moyen-âge,” in the _Bull. de la Soc. Normande de Géog._, 1881, vol.