Geography

​While rendering the second seal in such a rough outline, he renders the third seal far more roughly than this one, for several reasons. First, the reason already mentioned, that the line from the Caspian Gates to Carmania has not been clearly defined, which is a common side for the third seal in relation to the second. Second, because the Persian Gulf breaks into the southern side, as he himself also says, so that he has been forced to take the line from Babylon, as if a certain straight line, through Susa and Persepolis as far as the boundaries of Carmania and Persis, along which he was able to find a measured road, the whole being a little more than nine thousand stadia; which line he calls the southern side, but he does not say it is parallel to the northern side. And it is clear that not even the Euphrates, by which he defines the western side, is very close to a straight line, but having flowed from the mountains toward the south, it then turns toward the east and again toward the south until its discharge into the sea. And he shows that the river does not run straight when he describes the shape of Mesopotamia, which the Tigris and the Euphrates make by coming together into one, saying that it is similar to a rowing boat. And indeed, he does not have the western side defined by the Euphrates entirely measured, but says that he does not know how long the part near Armenia and the northern mountains is because of its being unmeasured. For all these reasons, then, he says that he renders the third portion in outline; for he also says that he gathered the distances from many who treated the stations, and some he even calls anonymous. Hipparchus, therefore, would seem to be unreasonable in arguing geometrically against such roughness, in which case one ought to be grateful to those who have reported to us the nature of the places in any way whatsoever. But when he does not even take the geometrical assumptions from what that man says, but fabricates them for himself, his love of distinction would be demonstrated even more clearly.

​So while he says that the third portion is rendered in outline as ten thousand stadia from the Caspian Gates to the Euphrates, yet when dividing it in detail, he places the measurement as he found it recorded, making his beginning conversely from the Euphrates and its crossing at Thapsacus. Indeed, as far as the Tigris, where Alexander crossed, he writes one thousand four hundred stadia; and from there to the subsequent regions through Gaugamela, the Lycus, Arbela, and Ecbatana, along which Darius fled from Gaugamela as far as the Caspian Gates, he completes the ten thousand stadia, exceeding it only by three hundred. Indeed, he measures the northern side in this way, without placing it parallel to the mountains, nor to the line drawn through the Pillars, Athens, and Rhodes; for Thapsacus is far distant from the mountains, and both the mountain and the road from Thapsacus meet at the Caspian Gates. And these indeed are the northern parts of the boundary.

​And having rendered the northern side in this way, as for the southern, he says that it is not possible to take it along the sea because the Persian Gulf breaks into it, but from Babylon through Susa and Persepolis as far as the boundaries of Persis and Carmania is nine thousand two hundred stadia, calling it southern, but not saying that this southern side is parallel to the northern. And he says that the discrepancy in length between the northern side and the southern side when laid down occurs because the Euphrates, after flowing toward the south for some distance, inclines greatly toward the east.