Geography

​In his second treatise, having taken up again the same inquiry concerning the boundaries along the Taurus, about which we have spoken sufficiently, he passes over to the northern parts of the inhabited world. Then he sets forth what was said by Eratosthenes concerning the places beyond the Pontus, namely that he says three peninsulas run down from the north: one on which the Peloponnese lies, a second the Italian one, and a third the Ligurian one, by which are enclosed both the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian gulfs. And having set these forth generally, he attempts to refute the individual statements about them geometrically rather than geographically. But so great is the multitude of errors committed in these matters by Eratosthenes, and by Timosthenes, the author of On Harbours (whom the former praises most of all others, though he is shown to differ from him in very many points), that I do not think it worth while to arbitrate either between them, who miss the truth to such an extent, or Hipparchus. For he too passes over some of the errors and does not correct others, but only refutes them on the grounds that they are falsely or contradictorily stated. For one might perhaps find fault with this too, that he speaks of three peninsulas of Europe, positing as one that on which the Peloponnese lies; for it has a highly divided character; for Sunium juts out like the Laconian promontory, being not much less southward than Maleae and enclosing a noteworthy gulf. And the Thracian Chersonese encloses, in relation to Sunium, both the Melas gulf and those succeeding it belonging to Macedonia. But even if we should overlook this, the fact that most of the distances are manifestly falsely recorded reveals an exceeding ignorance of these places, which does not require geometrical refutations, but obvious ones that can be testified on the spot; for instance, that the crossing from Epidamnus to the Thermaic gulf is more than two thousand stadia, whereas he says it is nine hundred ; and from Alexandria to Carthage more than thirteen thousand, whereas they are not more than nine thousand, if indeed, according to him, Caria and Rhodes are on the same meridian as Alexandria, and the Strait on the same as Carthage. For all agree that the voyage from Caria to the Strait is not more than nine thousand stadia; and the meridian, if taken with some large interval, might be granted to be the same, being more westerly than the more easterly one by as much as Carthage is further to the west than the Strait; but in a difference of four thousand stadia, it has a glaring refutation. And he who also places Rome on the same meridian—which is so much further west even than Carthage—leaves no room for exceeding ignorance of these places, both of these and of those succeeding them towards the west as far as the Pillars.