The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Geography of Strabo Vol. I., translated by H. C. Hamilton.

937 This town was sometimes called Ptolemais Epitheras, having been built by Eumedes in the reign of Philadelphus for the chase of elephants and other wild animals.

940 About Cape Comorin.

943 Kramer follows Gosselin in proposing to substitute τρία in place of ἑπτά.

945 Algiers and Fez.

946 The eastern side.

947 Lower Egypt is intended.

949 The modern province of Fars.

952 S. Jean d’Acre.

957 Caria occupied the southern and western parts of Anadoli, near the Island of Rhodes. Lycaonia formed a part of the modern Karaman. Cataonia was comprised in Aladeuli. Media is now Irak-Adjami. The Caspian Gates are the defiles of Firouz-Koh.

959 Emboli or Jamboli.

963 Karasi in Anadoli.

965 Corcan and Daghistan.

968 Or 17° 30´. This would indicate a latitude of 48° 38′ 40″.

969 The astronomical cubit was equal to two degrees.

971 The northern extremity of the Hellespont.

972 Κόσμος, the universe.

973 The pole of the ecliptic.

975 The Pyrenees, on the contrary, range from east to west, with a slight inclination towards the north. This error gives occasion to several of the mistakes made by Strabo respecting the course of certain of the rivers in France.

977 The Gulfs of Lyons and Gascony.

978 Gosselin remarks that the distance between S. Jean de Luz and Tarragona, is rather less than that between Bayonne and Narbonne.

980 Cape St. Vincent.

981 Cape Finisterre.

983 The Mauritanians.

984 Cape St. Vincent.

985 Cape St. Vincent is about 1600 stadia west of Cape Spartel in Africa. Strabo imagined that beyond this cape the African coast inclined to the south-east. In reality it advances eleven degrees and a half farther west to Cape Verd, which is 8° 29′ west of Cape St. Vincent.

986 Herodotus is the first who speaks of a people of Iberia, to whom he gives the name of Κυνήσιοι or Κύνητες: he describes them as inhabiting the most western part of Europe, beyond the Pillars of Hercules.

987 This passage of Strabo relative to the rocking-stones has occasioned much perplexity to the critics. We have attempted to render the Greek words as near as possible. Many curious facts relative to rocking and amber stones have been collected, by Jabez Allies, F. S. A., in his work on the Antiquities of Worcestershire, now in the press.

988 We extract the following notice on this passage from Humboldt (Cosmos, vol. iii. 54, Bohn’s edition). “This passage has recently been pronounced corrupt, (Kramer i. 211,) and δι’ ὑάλων (through glass spheres) substituted for δι’ αὐλῶν (Schneider, Eclog. Phys. ii. 273). The magnifying power of hollow glass spheres, filled with water, (Seneca i. 6,) was, indeed, as familiar to the ancients as the action of burning glasses or crystals, (Aristoph. Nub. v. 765,) and that of Nero’s emerald (Plin. xxxvii. 5); but these spheres most assuredly could not have been employed as astronomical measuring instruments. (Compare Cosmos i. p. 619.) Solar altitudes taken through thin light clouds, or through volcanic vapours, exhibit no trace of the influence of refraction.”

990 Cape St. Vincent.

992 The Tagus, the Guadiana, and the Guadalquiver, pursue a course nearly parallel to each other, and all incline towards the south before discharging themselves into the sea; the inclination of the Tagus is not equal to that of the other rivers.

993 Lusitania occupied the greater part of the present kingdom of Portugal. It was from the countries north of the Tagus that the Romans caused certain of the inhabitants to emigrate to the south side of that river.

994 The Carpetani occupied a portion of New Castile, where the cities of Madrid, Toledo, &c. are now situated.

995 These people inhabited the southern portions of New Castile, now occupied by the cities of Calatrava, Ciudad-real, Alcaraz, &c. They also possessed a part of the Sierra-Morena.

996 The Vettones inhabited that part of Estremadura, where the cities of Alcantara, Truxillo, &c. are now situated.

999 The course of the Guadiana is longer than that of the Guadalquiver.

1000 Viz. Turdetania.

1001 The mountainous country in which the Guadalquiver takes its source.

1002 The rock of Gibraltar.

1003 This Timosthenes was the admiral of Ptolemy II. Strabo mentions him repeatedly.

1004 The place on which this town formerly stood is now designated Val de Vacca.

1007 Called by Pliny and Ptolemy Julia Transducta. It appears to have been situated at the western entrance of the Bay of Gibraltar, at the place now called Al-Gesira.

1009 An Athenian king, who led the Athenians against Troy. The port of Menestheus is now Puerto Sta. Maria.

1010 Hodie Lebrixa.

1012 At or near the port of Menestheus, just mentioned.

1013 Quintus Servilius Cæpio, a famous Roman general. Vide lib. iv. c. i. § 13.

1014 This city is not to be confounded with others of the same name in Spain.

1015 Strabo is the only writer who speaks of this temple of Phosphorus. It was no doubt a temple to Diana, who was named Ἄρτεμις Φωσφόρος. This temple, according to the Spanish authors quoted by Lopez in his translation of Strabo, corresponds to the present San-Lucar de Barrameda.

1016 Strabo here gives the Latin Lucem dubiam in Greek characters, Λοῦκεμ δουβίαν.

1017 The Guadiana at the present day has but one mouth.

1018 Cape St. Vincent.

1022 Cordova, situated on the Guadalquiver in Andalusia. We do not know whether it were founded by the Marcellus who was prætor in Thither Iberia, and created consul in the year of Rome 601, or Marcellus who joined Pompey’s party against Cæsar. This city served for the winter quarters of the Romans, who during summer made war on the inhabitants of the western and northern parts of Spain. It was the native place of the two Senecas and Lucan, and the chief emporium of Iberia. We may form some idea of the amount of its population from the number of those who perished when taken by Cæsar, as narrated by Hirtius, Spanish War, § 34. But the period in which Cordova’s glory was at its zenith was during the empire of the Moors, in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, when it numbered 300,000 inhabitants.

1024 Seville. This city was surnamed Julia Romulensis. It was founded by Cæsar, and regarded as the second city of the province, although, as we see, in the time of Strabo it was only third-rate.

1025 Strabo is the only writer who mentions this city of Bætis. Casaubon and others are inclined to the opinion that the MSS. are corrupted, and that formerly another name stood here.

1026 This city, the native place of the emperors Trajan and Adrian, and the poet Silius Italicus, was founded by Publius Scipio in the second Punic war, who placed here the soldiers incapacitated from the performance of military service. It is supposed to correspond to Sevilla la Vieja, about a league distant from Seville.

1027 The Ilipa Ilia of Pliny and Illipula Magna of Ptolemy. Its exact position is not determined.

1028 Hodie Ecija on the Xenil.

1030 Monda, seven leagues west of Malaga.

1032 Hodie Martos, Pliny gave it the surname of Augusta Gemella.

1033 The Itucci of Pliny, to which he gives the surname Virtus Julia.

1034 We should probably read 430.

1035 Kramer, using the criticism of Lachmann, observes that this is a misreading for Midaium, and that a like mistake occurs in Appian.

1036 Furnius and Titius.

1038 About the spot where this city is supposed to have stood, between Xerez and Tribugena, there is still a place called Mesa de Asta.

1039 Strabo uses ὁλκάσιν ἀξιολόγοις, but the English hulk would not bear the same import in this place as the Greek.

1041 Cotillas, or perhaps Constantina near Almaden.

1043 Experience does not seem to warrant this conclusion.

1044 Cape St. Vincent.

1046 Cape St. Vincent.

1047 The text here is evidently corrupt, but it is not easy to determine to what extent the overflow reached at the time Strabo wrote.

1051 οἱ Εὖροι.

1052 Majorca and Minorca.

1053 In his third book, Strabo, speaking of Campania, regards the oil of Venafrum as superior to any other. In this he agrees with Pliny, who places in the second class the oils of Bætica and Istria. Pausanias considers these two oils, both for beauty of colour and excellence of flavour, inferior to that produced at Tithorea in Phocis, and which was sent to Rome for the service of the emperor’s table.

1054 Coccus tinctorius, used to dye scarlet.

1055 Sinoub, still a Turkish city of importance.

1056 A people inhabiting the western parts of the Caucasus.

1057 This name occurs only in Strabo: of the various conjectures which have been hazarded on the subject, one of the most probable seems to be that we should read Saltigetæ, a people of Bastetania, mentioned by Ptolemy.

1058 These were evidently rabbits.

1060 Majorca and Minorca.

1061 According to Pliny, (lib. viii. c. 55,) this deputation was sent to Augustus to demand of him a military force, apparently for the purpose of assisting the inhabitants in destroying the rabbits. The same writer has brought together a variety of instances in which cities have been abandoned or destroyed through similar causes. Vide lib. viii. c. 29. The inhabitants of Abdera in Thrace were forced to quit their city on account of the rats and frogs, and settled on the frontiers of Macedonia. (Justin. lib. xv. c. 2.)

1064 We have here followed Gosselin’s suggestion of λιμνασίαν instead of γυμνασίαν, the reading of MSS.

1065 A kind of whale, mentioned also by Aristotle, but which does not seem to have been identified.

1066 The Mediterranean.

1067 A kind of shell-fish with a wreathed shell, which might be used as a sort of trumpet. It is mentioned by Aristotle.

1068 The cotyla held about three-fourths of a pint.

1069 This weight equalled 15 oz. 83-3/4 grs.

1070 The Euboic or Attic talent, which is here meant, equalled almost 57 lb.

1071 A kind of cuttle-fish or squid.

1074 The mineral riches of Spain are lauded in equal terms by Herodotus, Aristotle, Pliny, and many other writers. We can only remark, that at the present day the mineral wealth of that country scarcely justifies such descriptions.

1076 Pliny, (lib. xxxiii. c. 4,) writing on the same subject, says, “Inveniuntur ita massæ; necnon in puteis etiam denas excedentes libras. Palacras Hispani, alii palacranas, iidem quod minutum est balucem vocant.”

1077 This passage is evidently corrupt, nor do any of the readings which have been proposed seem to clear up the difficulties which it presents.

1078 Archimedes’ Screw. It was called the Egyptian screw because invented by Archimedes when in Egypt, and also because it was much employed by the Egyptians in raising water from the Nile for the irrigation of their lands.

1079 We read τὸ δὲ λοιπὸν, according to Kramer’s suggestion.

1080 The following is the enigma alluded to. We have extracted it from Mackenzie’s Translation of the Life of Homer, attributed to Herodotus of Halicarnassius. While the sailors and the towns-people of the Isle of Ios (Nio) were speaking with Homer, some fishermen’s children ran their vessel on shore, and descending to the sands, addressed these words to the assembled persons: “Hear us, strangers, explain our riddle if ye can.” Then some of those who were present ordered them to speak. “We leave,” say they, “what we take, and we carry with us that we cannot take.” No one being able to solve the enigma, they thus expounded it. “Having had an unproductive fishery,” say they in explanation, “we sat down on the sand, and being annoyed by the vermin, left the fish we had taken on the shore, taking with us the vermin we could not catch.”

1081 These people inhabited the province of Gallicia in Spain.

1085 The Sierra Cazorla.

1087 These 900 stadia are equal to from 25 to 26 leagues, which is exactly the distance from the sources of the Guadalquiver near to Cazorla to the lagoons named Ojos de Guadiana, adjacent to Villa-Harta.

1089 A Greek poet born at Himera in Sicily, and who flourished about B. C.570: he lived in the time of Phalaris, and was contemporary with Sappho, Alcæus, and Pittacus.