Geography

​Now that we have rendered the first outline of geography, the succeeding discussion concerning individual regions is appropriate. For indeed we promised to do so, and up to now our treatise seems to have been correctly divided. And we must begin again from Europe and from those of its parts from which we also did before, and for the same reasons.

​And its first part is the western one, as we said, namely Iberia. Indeed, the greater part of this is poorly inhabited; for they inhabit the greater part of the mountains, forests, and plains that have thin soil, and even this is not uniformly well-watered. The northern part is completely cold in addition to its ruggedness, and is adjacent to the ocean, having in addition the characteristic of being unmixed and uninvolved with others, so that it surpasses in the wretchedness of its habitation. These parts, then, are of such a character, but the southern part is almost entirely prosperous, and outstandingly so the part outside the Pillars; and this will be clear as we first sketch its shape and size before entering into the details.

​For it resembles a hide stretched out in length from west to east, having its front parts toward the east, and in width from north to south. It has a length of about six thousand stades, and a maximum width of five thousand, but in some places much less than three thousand, and especially near the Pyrenees which form the eastern side; for a continuous mountain range stretched from south to north divides Celtica from Iberia. Since both Celtica and Iberia are of uneven width, the narrowest part of the width of each from our sea to the ocean is that which is closest to the Pyrenees on each side of it, forming gulfs, some on the ocean and others on our sea; and the Celtic gulfs, which they also call Galatic, are larger, making the isthmus narrower than the Iberian one. And indeed the eastern side of Iberia is formed by the Pyrenees, and the southern side by our sea from the Pyrenees to the Pillars, and the outer sea next in order as far as the promontory called Sacred; the third is the western side, running somewhat parallel to the Pyrenees, from the Sacred Promontory to the cape near the Artabri which they call Nerium; and the fourth is the side from there to the northern peaks of the Pyrenees.

​Resuming our narrative, let us speak of the details, beginning from the Sacred Promontory. This is the westernmost point, not only of Europe, but also of the entire inhabited world. For the inhabited world is bounded to the west by the two continents, by the extremities of Europe and the first parts of Libya, of which the Iberians hold the former and the Maurusians the latter. And the Iberian side projects by about one thousand five hundred stades at the aforementioned promontory. And indeed, they call the territory adjacent to this in the Latin tongue “Cuneus”, wishing to signify a wedge. Artemidorus, who says he has been in the place, compares the cape itself, which projects into the sea, to a ship, and says that its shape is completed by three small islands, one having the position of a beak and the others of catheads, providing moderate anchorages. And he says that neither a temple of Heracles is shown here (and that Ephorus lied about this) nor an altar, nor of any other of the gods, but that three or four stones are piled up in many places, which are turned and moved by those who arrive, after they have made libations according to some ancestral custom; and that it is not lawful to sacrifice, nor to set foot on the place at night, since they claim that the gods occupy it at that time, but those who come for the sight spend the night in a neighboring village, and then set foot on it by day, carrying water with them because of the lack of water.