Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/120

106 STRABO. BOOK n. is made to run too far north, India itself being also too much drawn in the same direction. One proof which he offers in support of this is, that the most southern extremities of India- are under the same latitude as Mejro"e7^as~attested by many, both from astrono^icaT~observations and the temjp_erature of the climate. From thence to the most northerly point by the mountains of the Caucasus, 1 there are 15,000 stadia, accord- ing to Patrocles, a writer whom we are bound to believe, both on account of his worth, and the vast amount of his geogra- phical attainments. Now since the distance from Meroe to the parallel of Athens is nearly the same, the most northerly points of India next to the Caucasian mountains ought to be under the same degree of latitude. 3. But there is another method (says Eratosthenes) of proving this. The distance from the Gulf of Issus to the Euxine, proceeding in a northerly direction towards Amisus 2 and Sinope, 3 is about 3000 stadia, which is as much as the supposed extent of the mountains [of the Taurus]. 4 The tra- veller who directs his course from Amisus due east, 5 arrives first at Colchis, then at the high lands by the Hyrcanian Sea, 6 afterwards at the road leading to Bactra, 7 and beyond to the Scythians; having the mountains always on the right. The same line drawn through Amisus westward, crosses the Propontis and Hellespont. From Meroe to the Hellespont there are not more than 18,000 stadia. 8 The distance is just the same from the southern extremity of India to the land of Bactria, if we add to the 15,000 stadia of that country the 3000 which its mountains occupy in breadth. 4. Hipparchus tries to invalidate this view of Eratosthenes, by sneering at the proofs on which it rests. Patrocles, he says, merits little credit, being contradicted by the two writers 1 Strabo does not here mean the Caucasus or Balkan, but the moun- tains which stretch from Persia to Cochin China. At a later period the several chains were known to the Greeks by the names of Paropamisus, Emodi Montes, Imaiis, &c. 2 Samsun. 3 Sinub. 4 The great chain of the Taurus was supposed to occupy the whole breadth of Asia Minor, a space of 3000 stadia. Eratosthenes is here at- tempting to prove that these mountains occupy a like space in the north of India. 5 Lit. to the equinoctial rising. 6 Another designation of the Caspian. 7 Balk. 8 Read 18,100 stadia.