Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/121

CHAP. i. 5, 6. INTRODUCTION. 107 Deimachus and Megasthenes, who say that the distance 1 taken from the southern ocean, is in some places 20,000, in others 30,000 stadia ; that in this assertion they are supported by the ancient charts, and he considers it absurd to require us to put implicit faith in Patrocles alone, when there is so much testimony against him ; or that the ancient charts should be corrected ; but rather that they should be left as they are until we have something more certain on the subject. 5. This argument, I think, is in many instances unfounded. Eratosthenes availed himself of the statements of many writers, although Hipparchus alleges he was solely led by Patrocles. Who then are the authors of the statement that the southern extremity of India is under the same parallel as Meroe ; and who are they who estimate 2 the distance from Meroe to the parallel passing through Athens ? Or who, again, were those who asserted that the whole breadth occupied by the mountains 3 was equal to the distance from Cilicia to Amisus ? Or who made known that, travelling from Amisus, the course lay in a straight line due east through Colchis, the [sea of] Hyrcania, so on to Bactria, and beyond this to the eastern ocean, 4 the mountains being always on the right hand ; and that this same line carried west in a straight line, tra- verses the Propontis and the Hellespont ? These things Era- tosthenes advances on the testimony of men who had been on the spot, and from the study of those numerous memoirs which he had for reference in that noble library 5 which Hipparchus himself acknowledges to be gigantic. 6. Besides, the credibility of Patrocles can be proved by a variety of evidence the princes 6 who confided to him so im- portant trusts the authors who follow his statements and those, too, who criticise them, whose names Hipparchus has recorded. Since whenever these are refuted, the credit of Patrocles is by so much advanced. Nor does Patrocles ap- pear to state any thing improbable when he says that the army 1 i. e. The breadth of India. 2 Literally, " estimate at so much," referring to the estimate at the conclusion of 2. 3 Caucasus, in the north of India. 4 By the term t'y'a fldXarra, rendered " eastern ocean," we must understand Strabo to mean the Bay of Bengal. 5 The Alexandrian. 6 Seleucus Nicator and Antiochus Soter.