Geography

​And they also add the changes resulting from migrations, wishing to establish in us still further that freedom from wonder which Democritus and all the other philosophers extol; for it is close to fearlessness, untroubledness, and non-astonishment. As, for example, the western Iberians having migrated to the regions beyond the Pontus and Colchis (which, as Apollodorus says, the Araxes divides from Armenia, or rather the Cyrus and the Moschian mountains), and the Egyptians to the Ethiopians and Colchians, and the Heneti from Paphlagonia to the Adriatic. These very things also happened in the case of the Greek nations—the Ionians, Dorians, Achaeans, and Aeolians; and the Aenianes, who are now neighbors to the Aetolians, used to dwell around Dotium and Ossa together with the Perrhaebians; and the Perrhaebians themselves were certain migrants. And the present treatise is full of such examples. Now some of these are indeed familiar to most people; but the migrations of the Carians, Treres, Teucrians, and Galatians, and at the same time the far-reaching displacements of their leaders—such as Madyes the Scythian, Tearco the Ethiopian, Cobus the Trerian, Sesostris and Psammitichus the Egyptians, and the Persians from Cyrus down to Xerxes—are not equally at hand to all. And the Cimmerians, whom they also call Treres, or some tribe of theirs, often overrun the right-hand parts of the Pontus and the regions adjacent to them, at one time invading the Paphlagonians, and at another even the Phrygians, at which time they say Midas, having drunk bull’s blood, departed to his doom. And Lygdamis, leading his own men, marched as far as Lydia and Ionia and took Sardis, but perished in Cilicia. And often both the Cimmerians and the Treres made such incursions; but they say that the Treres and Cobus were finally driven out by Madyes, the king of the Scythians. Let these things be said, as containing a history appropriate to the whole circuit of the earth in general.

​But let us return to the next points from which we digressed. For, Herodotus having said that there are no Hyperboreans, because there are also no Hypernotians, Eratosthenes says that the proof is ridiculous and similar to this sophism: as if one should say that there are no people who rejoice in others’ misfortunes, because there are also none who rejoice in others’ good fortune. And he says that by chance there are also Hypernotians; at any rate, in Ethiopia the south wind does not blow, but further down. But it is wonderful if, while a wind blows in each climate and the wind from the south is everywhere called the south wind, there is some habitation in which this does not happen. For, on the contrary, not only Ethiopia would have the south wind relative to us, but also all the region above it as far as the equator. And if indeed, Herodotus ought to have been blamed for this, namely that he supposed these people were called Hyperboreans with whom the north wind does not blow. For even if the poets say so in a rather mythical way, those who explain them at least would understand the sound sense, that “Hyperboreans” is used to mean the most northerly people. And the boundary of the northern regions is the pole, and of the southern regions the equator; and the same is the boundary of the winds also.

​Next, he speaks against those who tell stories that are obviously fabricated and impossible, some in the guise of myth, others of history, which are not worth mentioning; nor was it necessary for him, in a treatise of this kind, to examine babblers.