Brills Companion to Ancient Geography The Inhabited World in the Greek and Roman Traditions.pdf

Brill's Companion to Ancient Geography

Brill Fellows in Classical Studies

Titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bccs

Brill's Companion to Ancient Geography The Inhabited World in the Greek and Roman Tradition Herausgegeben von

Serena Bianchetti, Michele R. Cataudella and Hans-Joachim Gehrke

LEIDEN | BOSTÓN

Cover illustration: Henricus Martellus: Map of the World (add_ms_15760, ff.68v–69r), Florence 1489. By permission of the British Library, London, UK. Cataloging Data in Library of Congress Publication Bianchetti, Serena. Brill's Companion to Ancient Geography: The Inhabited World in the Greek and Roman Tradition / Edited by Serena Bianchetti, Michele R. Cataudella, and Hans-Joachim Gehrke. sides cm. — (Brill's Companion in the Classical Studies) Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-28511-8 (bound: alc. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-28471-5 (electronic book) 1. Geography, Antiquity. 2. Historical Geography. I. Cataudella, Michele R. II. Greek, Alexander. third Gehrke, Hans-Joachim. IV Title. G86.B53 2015 913 – dc23 2015029111

This post was written in the multilingual "Brill" font. With over 5,100 characters in Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this font is especially well-suited for use in the humanities. Visit www.brill.com/brill-typeface for more information. issn 1872-3357 isbn 978-90-04-28511-8 (hardcover) isbn 978-90-04-28471-5 (ebook) Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV comprises the publishers Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Permission to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided applicable fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Contents Foreword ix List of Figures xi Abbreviations xii List of Contributors xiii

Part 1 Geography before geography 1 Persian geography and the Ionians: Herodotus 3 Reinhold Bichler 2 The sea of the Greeks and Romans 21 Pietro Janni 3 The concept of “Magna Graecia” and the Pythagoreans 43 Gianfranco Maddoli 4 Boundary systems in ancient Greece 58 Giovanna Daverio Rocchi 5 The "revolution" of Alexander the Great: the old and the new in the vision of the world 78 Hans-Joachim Gehrke 6 Geographical description and historical narrative in the tradition of Alexander's expedition 98 Veronica Bucciantini

Part 2 Geography between science and politics A. Geographical sciences 7 Some scientific approaches: Eudoxus of Cnido and Dicearco of Messene 115 Michele R. Cataudella

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The "invention" of geography: Eratosthenes of Cyrene 132 Serena Bianchetti

Advances in Science: Astronomy and Hipparchus 150 Klaus Geus

B. The thought of the farthest horizon in the Greek and Roman traditions 10

The Indian Ocean from Cnidus Agatharchides to Periplus Maris Erythraei 163 Didier Marcotte

The so-called confusion between India and Ethiopia: the eastern and southern margins of the inhabited world from a Greco-Roman perspective 184 Pierre Schneider

C. Geography and Politics in the Roman Empire 12

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and his geographical work 205 Pascal Arnaud

The Romans and the Cosmometer 223 Anne Kolb

14 Strabo's Geography 239 Francesco Prontera 15

News from the East? Geographers of the Roman period and Pontus Euxinus 259 Eckart Olshausen

sixteen

Rome and Iberia: the construction of a cultural geography 274 Gonzalo Cruz Andreotti

The geographies of Pliny and his "monkey" Solinus 298 Kai Brodersen

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D. Cartographic Science in Alexandria 18

Ptolemy's 'Revolution' 313 Germaine Aujac

Part 3 Geographical upturns 19 The Peutingerian tabula and ancient cartography 337 Michael Rathmann 20 Geography and religion: the lists of the Thearodokoi 363 Emilio Galvagno

Eusebius and the Representation of the Holy Land 381 Jan R. Stenger Bibliography 399 Index of Geographical Names 458 Index of Locorum 466 Index of Personal Names and Selected Specialized Terms 485

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Foreword There is no shortage of recent profiles on the history of ancient geography, sometimes good, sometimes less, but definitely useful as initial information on the subject. However, the older, widely diversified treatises, comprehensive in terms of richness of subject matter and depth of analysis, have certainly not been superseded (think of the stories of Ernst Hugo Berger1 and James Oliver Thomson2 in particular, if you will). Looking back at the story written by Albert Forbiger3 which in many ways is still valid). The editors certainly did not want to follow such patterns when planning this volume; an objective that they never pursued, in some respects too ambitious, but above all far from the vision that inspired their project, since it is linked to an assessment of the current needs of studies in this field. From there arose the idea of a volume that seeks to privilege some aspects that are not usually treated in the usual treatments, at the expense of a systematic and complete presentation, and that together give guaranteed visibility to the methodological profiles of the approach used. towards discipline. It is in this light that the "angle" and choices that characterize the Companion, i. h the presence of certain themes –such as the onomastics of some regions, state borders, Pythagoreanism, sacred itineraries, the sea, the Holy Land, measurement systems– together with themes and topics that are crucial moments and phases of the history of ancient geography (Eudoxus of Cnidos, Dicearca, Eratosthenes, Agatarchids, Hipparchus, Agrippa, Strabo, Pliny and Solinus, Ptolemy, the Peutingerian Tabula). The need for a historical vision is evident throughout the volume, and is most fully expressed where we see the fertile roots of ancient man's conquests, from Herodotus's Ionian work behind the Persians to the "reversal" of exploration of the individual regions by Alexander the Great (Iberia, Pontus). As publishers, we want the reader to find clear and concise information on a wide range of topics, as well as satisfying answers to many questions and new food for thought.

1 Berger 19032. 2 Thomson 1948. 3 Forbiger 1842–1877.

preface

In addition, we are pleased to express our thanks to Anne Kolb, who organized a conference in Zurich in September 2013, which was extremely helpful to our work on this Companion. Also, thanks to Ivan Matijašić for his help with the indexes and for checking many references. Serena Bianchetti Michele R. Cataudella Hans-Joachim Gehrke

List of figures 3.1 A. Ortelius, Magna Graecia (courtesy Istituto per la Storia e l'Archeologia della Magna Graecia) 47 6.1 Map illustrating Alexander's campaigns in India (Bunbury 1879) 100 8.1 Eratosthenes' world map: a reconstruction , after Aujac 2001 (courtesy of C.T.H.S.) 138 11.1 India and Ethiopia (courtesy of P. Schneider) 202 14.1 Eratosthenes' world map: a reconstruction, after Aujac 2001 (courtesy of C.T.H.S.) 257 14.2 The four parts of cis -Tauran Asia (Strab 11.1.1–7) (Courtesy CUF, Les Belles Lettres Édit., Paris) 258 14.3 Western Europe in Strabo's geography: a reconstruction, after Lasserre 1966b (Courtesy CUF, Les Belles Lettres Édit., Paris) 258 15.1 Pontus Euxinus (map by R. Szydlak) 273 16.1 Detail of Herodotus Iberia (Bunbury 1879) 275 16.2 The Iberia of Polybius (courtesy of Gene permission of P. Moret) 283 16.3 The Iberia of Artemidorus (courtesy of P. Moret) 288 16.4 Strabo's Iberia (courtesy of P. Moret) 291 18.1 Ptolemy, Greek 1401, fol.2 (Courtesy Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) 331 18.2 Ptolemy, Latin 4801. Fol.74 (Courtesy Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) 332 18.3 Ptolemy, Latin 4801. Fol.75 (Courtesy from the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) 333 18.4 Ptolemy, Latin 4801. Fol.76 ( courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) 334 19.1 TP sec. II (Scheib 1753). X-XI (Miller 1887) 360

ANRW abbreviations

The Rise and Fall of the Roman World, ed. by H. Temporini, W. Hase, Berlin-New York 1972–. D.-K. H. Diels - W. Kranz, The Fragments of the Presocratics, I-III, Berlin 19547. DNP The New Pauly. Ancient Encyclopedia, ed. by H. Cancik, H. Schneider et al., Stuttgart-Weimar 1996–2003. EK Posidonium. I. The Fragments edited by L. Juwel, G. Kidd, Cambridge 1972. FGrHist F. Jacoby, The Fragments of the Greek Historians, Berlin-Leiden 1923-1958. FHG C. and Th. Müller, Fragments Historicorum Graecorum, I-V, Paris 1841-1870. RCD C. Müller, Geographi Graeci minors, I–II, Paris 1855–1861. L. Eudoxos of Cnidus, ed. of F. Lasserre, Berlin 1966. LP Poetarum Lesbiorum fragmenta, edited by E. Lobel, D. Page, Oxford 1955. PG Patrologia greeca, edited by J.P. Migne, 162 vols., Paris 1857-1886. PP Ptolemaic Prosopography, Leuven 1950-1968. RE A. Pauly - G. Wissowa, Royal-Encyclopedia of classical antiquity, Stuttgart 1894-1980. W. The School of Aristotle, ed. by F. Wehrli, I–V, Basel 1967–19692. References to the classical literature are credited to the list of OCD3. References to periodical and serial publications are credited to the AJA list.

List of collaborators Pascal Arnaud is an ancient historian, philologist, geographer and archaeologist. He was a student at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and a member of the Ecole Française de Rome. He received his doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1984 and his habilitation in 1991. Both dealt with Roman maps and map making. In 1992 he became full professor of Roman history and archeology in Nice and since 2010 he has been full professor of Roman history in Lyon2. He was a Junior Fellow (1996-2001) and Senior Fellow (2008-2013 and 2013-2018) at the Institut Universitaire de France and a Tytus Fellow in Cincinnati (2007; 2011). Since the early 1990s, he has become a specialist in ancient navigation, travel, and trade. Arnaud's most recent book is Les Routes de la Navigation Antique: Itinéraires en Méditerranée. He is currently completing an annotated and translated edition of the anonymous Stadiasmus Maris Magni. Germaine Aujac specializes in the geography of ancient Greece. Her dissertation was entitled Strabo and Science in his Time (Strabon et la science de son temps, Paris 1966). She edited and translated into French Strabo's Prolegomena (Paris CUF 1969), Introduction to the Geminos phenomena (Paris CUF 1975) and La sphère en mouvement, levers et couchers héliaques de Autolycos (Paris CUF 1979). She also translated into French the first book of Ptolemy's Geography (Paris 1993) and wrote about Eratosthenes, the first to measure the circumference of the earth (Eratosthène de Cyrène, le pioneer de la géographie, Paris 2001). Finally, in an Introduction to ancient knowledge (2010), she tried to compile the scientific knowledge of the ancient Greeks. Serena Bianchetti is a tenured professor of Greek history at the University of Florence. She has special aspects of the relationship between politics and comedy in Athens, Attic law, Hellenistic history, historiography of the 4th century BC. (especially Oxyrhynchia Hellenika), studying the corpus of Phalaris letters (Falaride e Pseudofalaride. Storia e leggenda, 1987). He has dealt with topics of historical-political geography (Plota kai poreuta. Sulle tracce di una Periegesi anonima, 1990; Geografia storica del mondo antico, 2008) and scientific geography (Pitea of Massalia, L'oceano, Introduzione, testo, traducción y comment, 1998).

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list of contributors

Reinhold Bichler is Emeritus Professor of Ancient and Comparative History at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. His research activities, books and articles focus on the political history of ideas, especially ancient utopias, Greek historiography and ethnography, especially Herodotus and Ctesias of Cnidus, and the reception of ancient history, especially Alexander and the concept of Hellenism. . A particular concern of his recent work is the description of the Persian Empire in classical sources. Kai Brodersen studied ancient history, classical philology, and theology at Erlangen, Oxford, and Munich; dr. phil. 1986 and Dr. phil. room 1995 in Munich. Since 1996/97 president of ancient history at the University of Mannheim, six years vice-president; Since 2008 Professor of Classical Philology ("Ancient Culture") at the University of Erfurt, 2008-2014 President. Visiting Fellowships at the universities of Newcastle upon Tyne 2000/01, St. Andrews 2001/02 and Royal Holloway, University of London 2006/07, Oxford 2007/08, Sibiu 2014 and UWA Perth 2015; since 2010 member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences. His research includes Greek and Roman historiography and geography, inscriptions, oracles and miracle texts, "applied sciences" and the reception of classics (including Asterix) and a children's book. Veronica Bucciantini is (since 2013) Associate Professor of Greek History at the University of Florence. She received her doctorate in Florence in 2006 and has been coordinator of Prof. H.-J. Gehrke. For two years, from 2011 to 2013, she was a Gerda Henkel Research Fellow in Freiburg i. Breisgau University. Her topics include: ancient historical geography, periplography, and historians' representations of space of Alexander the Great. Michele R. Cataudella has been a professor of Greek history since 1968, teaching Greek history and then ancient Near Eastern history at the University of Catania; Full Professor of Greek History at the University of Florence from 1981 to 2010. His research focuses on: the economy and public finances in antiquity, Mycenaean society and relations between Greece and the East, ancient historiography and geography, the 4th century AD Sileno Publisher. Rivista di Studi classici e cristiani since 1984; since 2001 member of the Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France.

list of contributors

Gonzalo Cruz Andreotti received his doctorate in 1990 at the University of Malaga, where he now teaches. He continued his studies at the Universities of Rome Tor Vergata-Roma II and Perugia in Italy and at the University of the Basque Country in Spain. Previous research interests include early modern approaches to ancient Hispania and the ancient geography of the Oikoumene boundaries. Recent lines of research are related to the projects he led: ancient approaches to geography, Iberian geography and ancient Iberian ethnic identities, and specific studies on Polybius and Strabo. Giovanna Daverio Rocchi was Full Professor of Ancient Greek History until 2012 and is now Temporary Professor at the University of Milan. Her books include: Frontiera e confini nella Grecia antica (1988), Città-stato e stati Federali della Grecia antica (1993), Il mondo dei Greci (2008), Frontiere del Parnasso. Ethnic identity and local dynamics in Focide Antica (2011). She is also the author of translated and annotated editions of Greek classics (Thucydides and Xenophon) and editor of collective studies: see in particular Il Peloponneso di Senofonte (2004); Dalla concordia degli antichi al bellum iustum dei moderni (2013). She worked on Der Neue Pauly. Emilio Galvagno was a researcher at the University of Catania and later Associate Professor of Greek History and Greek Epigraphy at the University of Sassari. Since 2005 he has been a tenured professor of ancient Greek history at the University of Catania. In his work he focuses on Sicilian history from archaism to the Hellenistic period, on Sicilian historiography, on "Magna Graecia" and on Southeast Asia in antiquity. More recently, thanks to the analysis of Lysia's works, he has focused his attention on the socioeconomic problems of Athens in the 4th century BC. Hans-Joachim Gehrke studied history, classical philology, philosophy and educational sciences at the University of Göttingen, where he received his doctorate and habilitation in ancient history. Ancient history was his specialty in research and teaching at various universities in Germany, Italy, Switzerland and especially in Freiburg. He participated in the planning and organization of several international and interdisciplinary study programs. Member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Academia Europaea and the American Institute

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list of contributors

of archeology. In recent years he has been president of the worldwide active German Archaeological Institute. Among his books are mentioned: Phokion, studies for the record of his historical figure, Munich 1976; Stasis, Munich 1985; Beyond Athens and Sparta, Munich 1986; History of Hellenism, Munich 1990; Alexander the Great, Munich 1996; Democracy in Athens, Berlin 2002. Klaus Geus is an ancient historian, philologist and geographer. He received his doctorate in Bamberg in 1991 and later worked in Mannheim, Jena, Bayreuth and Tübingen. In 2009 he was appointed Full Professor of Ancient Historical Geography at the Free University of Berlin. He works in the fields of ancient geography and astronomy. To date he has published nineteen books and more than two hundred essays and articles. Geus's most recent books are Common Sense Geography, Ancient Mapping, and Traveling Along the Silk Road: Interpreting Ptolemy's Coordinates (in press). Pietro Janni studied classical philology at the University of La Sapienza, Rome, spending several years in Germany on a DAAD scholarship in Mainz and as an Alexander v. Humboldt Scholar in Munich and Tübingen. As a teacher he worked at the Universities of Lecce, Urbino and Macerata. He has written on ancient geography and ancient nautical. His best-known works on these subjects are La mappa e il periplo, 1984 and Il mare degli Antichi, 1996. His book on Greek words in modern Italian (Il nostro greco quotidiano, 1986, 19942) was enthusiastically received by readers and thus successively also his other book on "popular errors" on classical antiquity, Miti e falsi miti, 2004. He retired in 1998 and lives mainly in Pesaro. Anne Kolb is Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Zurich. She studied ancient history, archeology, and classical philology at Heidelberg and Oxford. Her research focuses on the political structures of ancient states and the history of the Roman Empire, as well as Roman epigraphy. As curator and editor of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL), she is editor of the volumes of Roman Milestones (CIL XVII 2005 and 2012) and Germania superior (CIL XIII in preparation). Her studies include the topics of infrastructure, traffic, roads and space with her monographs The Imperial Building Administration in the City of Rome, 1993 and Transport and Message Transfer in Roman

list of contributors

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Reich, 2000, further developed by some of his published omnibus studies Rule Structures and Practice, 2006 and Infrastructure as Rule Organization, 2014. Gianfranco Maddoli was Senior Lecturer in Ancient Greek History at the University of Perugia, formerly at the Universities from Lecce, Siena and Bielefeld; initially CNR researchers. Retired since 2011. Main lines of research: Mycenaean civilization, Greek religion, archaic and classical Greece, 'Magna Graecia', Strabo, History and epigraphy of Iasos. He is a member of the "Società Magna Graecia", of the scientific committee of many magazines and of the Institute of History and Archeology of Magna Graecia (Taranto). He also held positions in politics and administration (mayor of the city of Perugia). Didier Marcotte is Professor of Classical and Greek Literature at the University of Reims and Senior Fellow of the Institut Universitaire de France. His research focuses on ancient geography and textual tradition. He edited and translated Peudo Scymnos (Les géographes grecs, Paris CUF 2000) into French. From 2010 to 2013 he directed an international research project on the Indian Ocean (“The Mediterranean Societies and the Indian Ocean”, MeDIan). He currently coordinates the edition of the Greek Geographers in the Budé series. Eckart Olshausen received his Dr. phil. (1963) in Ancient History, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and is Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at the University of Stuttgart. His research focuses in particular on the historical geography of antiquity and on Greek and Roman history in general. He published An Introduction to the Historical Geography of the Ancient World and was co-editor of The New Pauly. He currently he is preparing with Dr. Vera Sauer presented the Corpus of Inscriptions of Neoklaudiopolis in Pontus. He is co-editor of the Serie Geographica Historica with her. Francesco Prontera is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Perugia. His main areas are geographical representations in Greek literature (Herodotus, Polybius, Strabo) and ancient cartography (Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, Tabula Peutingeriana). In 1992 he founded the magazine Geographia Antiqua and is still its editor-in-chief today. His most recent book is a collection of essays titled Geografia e storia nella Grecia Antica (2011).

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Michael Rathmann studied ancient and medieval history as well as classical archeology at the University of Bonn, where he received his doctorate and habilitation in ancient history. He also worked at the universities of Siegen, Hamburg, Zurich and Berlin. In 2012 he was appointed full professor of ancient history at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (Bavaria). His research focuses on Hellenistic historiography (especially Diodorus Siculus), the political structures of the Roman Empire, infrastructures, Roman Germania, and ancient geography. Since 2014 he is president of the Ernst Kirsten Society (International Society for Ancient Geography) and editor of the Orbis Terrarum. His books include: Investigations into the Imperial Roads in the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire, Mainz 2003, (ed.) Perception and Recording of Geographical Spaces in Antiquity, Mainz 2007 and (ed.) The Measurement of the Oikumene, TOPOI Studies of Berlin on Antiquity Vol. 14, Berlin 2013. Pierre Schneider graduated from the Ecole Normale Supérieure. He received his doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris and completed his studies with a “Habilitation à diriger des recherches” at the University of Lyon. He is Associate Professor of Ancient History at the Université d'Artois and is part of a research team based at the Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée (Lyon). His research interests focus on the multiple connections between the ancient Mediterranean world and the Indian Ocean. His publications (see L'Ethiopie et l'Inde. Interférences et confusion aux extrémités du monde antique, Rome, 2004) cover a wide range of topics: geography, representation of space and peoples, long-distance trade, natural sciences, economy etc He is currently developing a database of ancient sources about the ancient Indian Ocean. Jan R. Stenger is MacDowell Professor of Greek at the University of Glasgow. After studying classical philology and history, he received his doctorate in 2003 from the University of Kiel. From 2008 to 2012 he was junior professor of classical philology in the TOPOI group of excellence at the Freie Universität Berlin. He has been editor-in-chief of Philologus magazine since 2015. His research focuses on Greek poetry and Greek oratorio and late antique literature. He focuses in particular on the relationship between education and religion in the 4th to 6th centuries. Among his publications are the monographs Poetic Argumentation: The Function of Gnomics in the Epiniciens of Bacchylides (2004) and Hellenic Identity in Late Antiquity (2009), as well as articles on late antique literature.

Part 1 Geography before geography

∵

CHAPTER 1

Persian Geography and the Ionians: Herodot* Reinhold Bichler 1

Herodotus and the Ionians: the shape of the earth, the continents and the seas

Strabo begins his complete Geographica with a brief history of this discipline, which counts among the philosopher's concerns. Herodotus is not mentioned in this sketch, although Strabo refers to him repeatedly in his commentaries on the various regions. It is Homer whom he recognizes as the father of geography. After him he draws attention to two Ionian scholars: Anaximander of Miletus and his compatriot Hekataios. He follows in the footsteps of his ideal Eratosthenes (1.1.1). In his judgment, these two are distinguished by two special achievements: "Eratosthenes explains." . . that Anaximander was the first to publish a geographical map (γεωγραφικὸν πίνακα), and that Hecataeus left a work (γράμμα) on geography” (1.1.11). actually quite fragmentary. So the criticism that Herodotus directed at his predecessors is a valuable testimony. This is another reason why he plays an important role in the study of ancient geography. Above all, however, Herodotus' stories offer for the first time the opportunity to grasp a concrete vision of the world in the sense of a geographical mental map in its entirety and in its many details. Herodotus was acutely aware of the boundaries that, in a geographical sense, allow reasonably certain conclusions to be drawn about the world. He refrained from speculating on the shape of the earth as a whole and its position in the cosmos. However, these questions had played an important role in the early days of geography. According to the testimonies left behind, this applies in particular to Anaximander. Anaximander imagined the earth as a body floating in space: "The earth is in the air and is not supported by anything" (D.-K. 12A11).2 In his model, the earth's axis was at an oblique angle to the celestial axis and orbits of celestial bodies. Whether he also positioned the solstices or not by Franz Pramhaas. 1 Jones Translation 1917. 2 D.-K. 12A11 = MacKirahan 20102 no. 5.13.

Bichler

and the equinoxes of the sun on the surface of the earth is no longer so true.3 Anaximander compared its shape to a cylinder: "He says that the earth has a cylindrical shape, and its depth is one third of its width" (D). .-K 12A10).4 Seen from above, a river, Okeanos, encircled the earth like a ring. This idea goes back to the Greek tradition of Homer. The description of the world as depicted on the Shield of Achilles is powerful testimony to this. (Ill. 18.607f.) The idea that a cosmological concept from the ancient Eastern tradition was adopted and transformed here has been raised again and again since the discovery of the so-called Babylonian world map. the appearance of the map attributed to Anaximander is preserved. In any case, a circular shape of the earth and the contours of the continents and seas can be expected. Herodotus's polemic states: “I cannot help laughing at the absurdity of all cartographers—there are many—who show the ocean flowing like a river around a perfectly circular earth. . . .” (4.36.2) .6 However, Herodotus does not name the recipients of his criticism. Therefore, it can be assumed that criticism of him is directed primarily at Hecataeus. Hecataeus had written two works that have survived only in fragmentary form: a systematic treatment of the mythographic and genealogical tradition, and a description (περιήγεσις) of the land. However, the widespread assumption that a map accompanied his work is not clearly documented.7 Reconstructions of a "Map of Hecataeus" are based on a combination of Herodotus' references to older maps on the one hand, and on the other hand, on the analysis and evaluation of the appointments and references to Hekataios in the works of later authors. This includes, first of all, the Byzantine lexicographer Stephen of Byzantium. In any case, regardless of their individual authorship, the reconstruction of these early maps remains a matter of conjecture.8 Herodotus has represented his views as to what can be said about the shape of the earth and its division into continents and seas. through disputes or competition. ideas From the beginning, the focus of Greek geography was on 3 See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield 19832, 133–137; MacKirahan 20102. Gehrke 1998 highlights innovations in the Anaximander concept. 4 D.-K. 12A10 = MacKirahan 20102 no. 5.11. 5 See Horowitz 1988. 6 Transl. Marincola 2003. 7 Dorati 1999/2000; Prompt 2001a. 8 Cf. Thomson 1948, 99 with Fig. 11, on the map of Hekataios: “Much of the drawing is highly conjectural”.

Persian Geography and the Ionians: Herodotus

to the Aegean region. The rise of navigation in the Mediterranean (which had no fixed name) and the Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea) led to the rise of a fixed mental orientation along the waterways. It roughly corresponded to an imaginary line from sunrise to sunset. Seen from west to east, it ran from the Pillars of Heracles (Strait of Gibraltar) along the Mediterranean Sea to the Hellespont, from there over the Propontis (Sea of Marmara) and the Bosphorus to the Black Sea to the River Phase ( Rioni). This conception was already decisive for Hecataeus9. Herodotus developed them further, thus distancing himself from tradition. According to his understanding, the imaginary border line between the northern and southern halves of the earth continues beyond Phasis in an easterly direction. It runs along the southern edge of the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea, following the Araxes River, which eventually splits into 39 branches and empties into a swampy area. Another tributary of the Araxes flows into the Caspian Sea. The latter is understood, quite correctly, as an inland lake (1.202.4; 203.1; 204.1). The Maeotis (Sea of Azov) mentioned here and elsewhere appears excessively large in Herodotus's imagination (cf. esp. 4.86.4).10 Information about the Phasis River is also vague. It is not clear which of the rivers we know of receives the name "Araxes". Herodotus summarizes the entire northern half of the landmass divided by this stretch of water under the geographical term "Europe". In doing so, he differs from concepts that saw the Phasis or the Tanaïs (Don) as the border between Europe and Asia (4.45). In his opinion, it cannot be said to what extent Europe is surrounded by water (3.115; 4.45.1). Not least because of heavy snowfall, Herodotus considers the northern tip of Europe inaccessible (4.16; 4.31; 5.9.1; 10) and rejects the traditional notion that the land is surrounded by ocean as unfounded (2.21; 23; 4.8 2; 36.2). Because of this, he does not believe that the Caspian Sea is a rift in the ocean. The question of how far north the Atlantic reaches remains completely open. Herodotus estimates the continent of Europe to be larger, both in length and breadth, than the entire southern hemisphere of the earth, which he summarizes under the geographical term "Asia" (4.42.1; 45.1). He justifies the expansion of the name "Asia" with his knowledge of Egypt. Herodotus considers it wrong to consider the Nile as the border river between the continents of Asia and Libya. Otherwise, he would ignore the unity of the country of Egypt created by the natural mudflows of the Nile (cf. esp. 2.5; 10-12; 15-17). It would therefore be necessary 9 Prontera 2001a. On the general maritime perspective of Greek geographical concepts, see Prontera 2007–8a; Kowalski 2012. 10 Sieberer 1995, 26–28.

Bichler

to include all of Libya along with Egypt in Asia (cf. 4:36-45). Arabia to the south and Ethiopia to the southwest are the most remote inhabited regions on this continent (3.107.1; 114–115.1). No one can tell how far Asia extends east of India (4.40; cf. 3.98.2). In any case, in Herodotus' imagination, the Indus River flows in an easterly direction (4.44.2) and then flows south into the sea commonly called the Red Sea (4.37.1). Now Herodotus had concluded from the ancient tradition, according to which the Ethiopian nobles live with the Okeans (Il. 1.423; 23.205 f.), that Libya borders on a southern sea (cf. 3.17.1). According to his idea, a sea encloses the entire south of the Oikoumene, which includes the Atlantic, the Pillars of Heracles, and the Mediterranean (cf. 1.202.4). In principle, it should be possible to sail from the Indus estuary around Libya (ie Africa) to the Mediterranean. Herodotus proves this by referring to stories of expeditions.11 He refers, for example, to the story of Scylax of Carianda. In the service of Darius, this man is said to have sailed east up the Indus River, entered the sea, and then returned west to the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea (4.44). Scylax had written an account of which only scant fragments survive (FGrHist 709). It is not clear if Herodotus used this text.12 His version of the Voyage of Scylax raises problems. In fact, Herodotus still had no real knowledge of the Persian Gulf, but if the voyage had taken place as reported, Scylax would surely have discovered it. On the other hand, Herodotus knew that King Darius had built a canal that facilitated travel from the Nile Valley to the Red Sea (2.158; 4.42). He probably also knew of the Great King's claim to have opened the sea route to Egypt for the Persians (DZc). This may have been the inspiration for Herodotus's version of Scylax's journey. Another story told by Herodotus is that of a Phoenician fleet that is said to have sailed across the Red Sea to the South Sea, circumnavigated Libya and passed through the Pillars of Heracles and across the Mediterranean Sea, on the orders of the Egyptian king Neco ( 4.42) . The authenticity of the circumnavigation of Africa has always been questioned. The statement that the Phoenicians observed the sun to their right, that is, to the north, while circumnavigating Libya (4.42.4) does not serve as conclusive evidence. Because this can be deduced from simple astronomical observations. The phenomenon that at the time of the summer solstice the sun is in the north at noon can already be observed south of Aswan. You don't have to circumnavigate Africa for that. Herodotus reports two other reconnaissance trips to the Libyan shores. An expedition led by the Egyptian king 11 Cf. Bichler 2011, esp. 316–324. 12 Cf. West 2012.

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Sesostris had departed from the Persian Gulf, as had the Phoenician later. The other, undertaken in the name of King Xerxes and led by Sataspes, followed the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts. With a striking resemblance, the two expeditions, after a long journey, reached a region where shoals forced them to turn back (2.102; 4.43). However, these three expedition reports confirm Herodotus' geographical view of the world: with the exception of the narrow land bridge in Egypt connecting it to Asia, Libya is surrounded by sea on all sides (4.42.2). In principle, Libya must be circumnavigable from Egypt. But supposedly this had only been accomplished once. Herodotus uses another expedition story to illustrate the position of the continents. A group of young Libyans from a people called the Nasamonian traversed forests and deserts, eventually coming across a river in the extreme southwest of the country that flowed east and contained crocodiles. The region was inhabited by blacks (2:32). This relates to the narrative of the journey of Sataspes. Landing in southwestern Libya, the sailors are said to have seen very small (4.43) people. The story of the Nasamonians supports Herodotus' assumption that the Nile, coming from remote southwestern Libya, flows east and turns north south of Meroe (2:29-33). Herodotus imagines that the course of the Nile is symmetrical to the course of the Istros (Danube) in Europe. On a mental map, the estuaries of the two rivers, in the Black Sea and in the Mediterranean, would have to be marked at approximately the same "degree of longitude". Likewise, the source regions of the two rivers are assumed to be approximately the same distance to the west, well beyond the "length" that is marked by the straight lines on the Pillars of Heracles (2:33-34; 4:48-49). . The imaginary north-south axis from the mouth of the Danube to the Nile delta corresponds to the course of the Halys River in Anatolia, which Herodotus had imagined to be extremely narrow at this point. He believes that it is possible to cover the distance from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea off Cyprus in just five days (1.72). To the east, Anatolia widens again. So the heart of Asia is formed, in Herodotus' imagination, by a surprisingly narrow strip of land stretching from the river Phasis in the north to the sea in the south. In fact, it is inhabited by only four peoples, namely, from north to south, the Colchians, the Saspirians, the Medes, and the Persians. This strip of land also forms a fixed reference point on Herodotus' mental map (4.37). This strip of land is bordered on the east by a much larger area, stretching from the Caspian Sea and Araxes in the north to the sea in the south, and even beyond the inhabited areas of India to the east. However, it remains uncertain how far this sandy desert zone extends to the east (4.40; 3.98.2). Two

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The peoples lying on the same north-south axis on Herodotus' mental map represent an extreme landmark: the Massagetae to the north of Araxes and the Isedonians, who settled far to the north of them (1201). Possibly they can be imagined at the same "length" as the indigenous settlements in the Paktyike area (3,102). While the eastern extent of Asia remains undetermined, Herodotus gives clear outlines to the shape of those parts of Asia that lie to the west of the previously mentioned strip of land. He compares them to two peninsulas ( ἀκταὶ διφάσιαι). Viewed from this core, therefore, Asia Minor appears as a peninsula extending west to the Aegean (4.38). A second peninsula, to the south, includes Persia, Assyria, and Arabia and is bordered on the west by the Arabian Gulf and the Phoenician coast (4.39). It is connected to Egypt by a narrow land bridge. Therefore, as already mentioned, Herodotus includes all of Libya (Africa) in this second land bridge and therefore Asia (4:41). 2

The geography of the various major regions and the world map problem

Like Herodotus's claims about the shape of the continents and his claims about the seas, the amount of information contained in his description of the various main regions of Oikoumene depends on the amount of knowledge available in each case.13 For the differences of density and There is another important reason for the accuracy of his geographical explanations: the special relationship of the respective region with the central theme of the stories. The work focuses on the history of the great kingdoms of Asia and their confrontation with the Hellenic ruling powers. Herodotus, therefore, focuses primarily on the lesser-known and exotic areas that were either conquered by the Persian Empire or were presumed targets of its quest for conquest, presenting them to his audience in special geographical and ethnographic thematic representations. For Herodotus, the geographical coverage of certain areas also means the coverage of the different lifestyles of its inhabitants. Differences in economic habits and the capacity for political organization imply different risks and opportunities in armed conflicts. To facilitate orientation, Herodotus applies established procedures that were already among the basic principles of ancient 13 . For additional details and references, see Bichler 2013b.

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Geography.14 This includes route descriptions of rural roads and shipping lanes. Its course is illustrated by an imaginary sequence of stages (as linear as possible) and a simple indication of the cardinal points. The description of fluvial courses and coasts also follows this principle. Highlighting conspicuous landmarks strengthens mental orientation. The horizontal surface of a territory can be better visualized mainly by comparing it with geometric shapes. The tried and tested instrument of complete lists of peoples, including lists of combatants and lists of contributors, is also used to illustrate the spatial dimensions. In addition to various products, there are also clothes and weapons typical of the country. In all these cases Herodotus was able to draw on a rich tradition. It ranges from Homer to the immediate contemporaries of Hecataeus and Herodotus, but also includes examples from the ancient Near East. The various military projects of the Persian kings provide a convenient opportunity for more detailed geographical comment. Aryandes' campaign in Cyrenaica, carried out at the behest of King Darius, sheds light not only on the Greek settlements in the region. It also offers the opportunity to describe Libya in more detail. The westward expansion of the continent is illustrated, for example, in the catalog of indigenous peoples who settled north from Egypt (4.168-197). Herodotus divides them into two large groups: nomads in the east and farmers in the west. Unlike the population of Scythia, where the degree of economic advancement diminishes with the distance from the influence of the Hellenic settlements (cf. 4.17-27), the Libyan farmers live much further from Egypt and the Cyrenaian settlements than the nomads. Herodotus defines the Triton River and the lake of the same name, known from the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (4.178-179), as the limit between nomads and farmers. The cultural limit that Herodotus marks here can no longer be specified in real geography. Furthermore, his description of the land and people becomes more and more vague as he looks west (cf. 4.187-197.1). His comments on the southern extent of Libya are classified according to the state of knowledge. Forests full of wild animals and deserts adjoin the populated area in the north. Herodotus tells of a desert route that leads directly south. Starting from Thebes in Egypt, he travels west in stages of ten-day journeys and continues even beyond the imaginary "length" marked by the Pillars of Heracles (4.181-185). 14 Cf. on these principles Janni 1984; Gehrke 2007; Rollinger and Ruffing 2013, esp. 135–138, with further references.

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Herodotus estimates its distance from the Mediterranean Sea at a travel time of 30 days (4183).15 The description of the locations of the individual stages along this route as a salt mound with a water source suggests a kind of map on which the oases were marked by corresponding symbols.16 The upper reaches of the Nile, on whose banks the young Nasamonians reached, must be imagined still farther south-west, as far from Meroe as the stretch from Elephantine to Meroe. By Herodotus' calculation, a journey upriver from Elephantine, Egypt's southern border, takes 56 days (2:29). The distance from Meroe to the sea on whose shores the long-lived Ethiopians inhabit remains a matter of speculation. In any case, Herodotus indicates the enormous distance (cf. 2.30.1; 3.17.1; 25). It is therefore no coincidence that the Phoenicians circumnavigating Libya took about three years for their journey, which clearly corresponds to the 30-month duration of the Scylax expedition (4.42.4; 44.2). Geographically, Herodotus uses the name Libya as a generic term that also includes Egypt. However, Egypt is understood as a homogeneous cultural area, which is of outstanding importance due to its great historical past and its influence on Greek religion. This is also reflected in the wealth of geographic information about the country. However, this abundance should not obscure the fact that many of the dimensions given do not stand up to a reality test.17 However, Herodotus's claim to convey an accurate description of Egypt is based on the authority of the Egyptian priests, but especially in his own experience as an eyewitness, remains remarkable. He not without pride he claims to have traveled to Elephantine on the southern border of Egypt (2.29.1). Until then, as he suggests, accurate information about the course of the Nile could be given. He not only gives information about travel time, starting from the delta, but also gives the distance to Elephantine in furlongs (2.7-9). Details also refer to the extent of the Egyptian coastline (2.6), and the distance from the sea to Heliopolis is compared to that from Athens to Olympia (2.7). There are also estimates of the extent of the Nile valley south of Heliopolis and the width of the mountain range between the Nile valley and the Red Sea (2.8), as well as information on the length of the Red Sea and the distance between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea (2.11; 4.41). . Another notable feature is the geological speculations of Herodotus. He assumes that in ancient times all the fertile land of Egypt was limited to the area 15 Liverani 2000. 16 Bichler 2013a. 17 For more details, see Lloyd in Asheri, Lloyd and Corcella 2007.

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the Thebaid, the extension of which is also given (2.15.3). The Nile valley to the north was once a gulf, comparable in size to the Arabian Gulf, our Red Sea, which emptied into the South Sea. However, over time, siltation from the Nile River replenished all the fertile areas between Memphis and the delta. Herodotus suspects that this process did not last much longer than 10,000 years (2.11-15). In his own speculation about the annual summer floods of the Nile, he does not shy away from criticizing older, opposing views on this notoriously controversial subject (2.19-27). Although he does not state the real cause either, namely the summer monsoon rains in Ethiopia, his argument is undoubtedly ambitious.18 From a geographical point of view, the representation of Egypt on the occasion of the conquest of the country by Cambyses is one of the most more vivid and dense sections of the stories. The situation is different when it comes to describing Egypt's Asian neighbors. According to Herodotus, they must be understood as part of a great peninsula that extends from Persia to Phoenicia and also encompasses all of Arabia, while Libya together with Egypt constitute one more part of this Asian peninsula (4:39; 41). In its entirety, Libya is inhabited by only four peoples: the Libyan and Ethiopian natives, and the Hellenic and Phoenician immigrants (4,197). Similarly, Herodotus speaks of three nations inhabiting the region adjacent to Egypt, that is, the Assyrians, the Arabs, and the inhabitants of "Palestine-Syria" (4:39). It is assumed that the location of the Phoenician cities on the Mediterranean coast is known here. The most detailed information about the Phoenicians is widely scattered in the stories, depending on the historical-political context. On certain occasions, southern Syria and the extreme northwest of Arabia come into a little more focus (cf. esp. 3.5-9). As the southernmost country of Oikoumene, Arabia deserves a separate digression. However, its geographic dimensions remain undetermined. Although Herodotus mentions miracle stories about the flora and fauna of the south, he takes little account of the local population (3.107–113). Assyria's geographical positioning also remains rather undefined. Herodotus correctly places Ninus (Nineveh), the ancient capital of the Assyrians, on the Tigris (2,150). The river flows from Armenia, which is above Assyria (1,194). To Herodotus Babylon seems to be part of Assyria (cf. eg 1.178.1; 193.1). He gives a legendary account of the monumental metropolis of the Euphrates and the ways and customs of the Babylonians (1181-200), but gives only a few vague indications. 18 For Herodotus's argument, see Thomas 2000, 182-185; Lloyd in Asheri, Lloyd, and Corcella 2007, 254–257. See generally Rehm 1939.

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on the road to Babylon (cf. 1.178; 189). In stark contrast to this is his description of the royal road leading from Ephesus to Susa. Herodotus gives precise information about the individual stages and the duration of the journey: the passes and the rivers serve as reference points. Thus, the Euphrates separates Cilicia from Armenia. Herodotus calculates the complete route as 14,040 stadia (5.52–54). The royal cities of Susa in the Cissia district and Ecbatana in Media form the center of the Persian Empire. As explained above, the strip of land that stretches from the South Sea to the Phasis and is inhabited only by the Saspirians and Colchids, apart from the Persians and the Medes, forms a central area of Asia in Herodotus' mental map. (4.37). Only vague information is available about the large contiguous territory to the east. With the exception of Bactra, central Bactria (4.9.4; 9.113.1), and Caspatyros, Herodotus no longer names any cities further east. Caspatyros was the starting point of Scylax's voyage and must be located in the far north-west of India (3.102.1; 4.44.2), but can no longer be located with certainty. excursus on India as the easternmost country of Oikoumene, however, remains reticent in terms of topography (3.98-106). The two main catalogs of the fiscal districts organized by the military and naval forces of Darius and Xerxes provide a source for the problematic geography of the Persian Empire (3:90-94; 7:61-99). The importance of these catalogs in mirroring the representation of Persian rule will be discussed later in Part 3. Although structured on geographical principles, it is particularly difficult to identify the attributable nations and districts to the east of the Persian Empire. Outside of these catalogues, Herodotus mentions two northern peoples of the empire for their military prowess, namely the Sacae and the Bactrians. And there are also the Indians from the northeast of the empire (8:113; 9:31). Facing the eastern half of Asia, in geographical relation to Europe, are the settlement areas and grasslands of the steppe peoples. Herodotus provides information on the sea and river borders separating the two continents, the accuracy of which decreases as the distance from the Aegean Sea increases. The exact measurements of the length and breadth of the Hellespont and the Bosporus, the Propontis and the Black Sea are still given. He proudly explains how he himself calculated the distance from the Hellespont to the mouth of the Phasis using the voyage times of sailing ships (4.85.3–86). In his calculation, the total distance is 11,110 stadia (4.86.2). The length and width of the Caspian Sea are given solely by the travel times of the 19 Corcella rowboats in Asheri, Lloyd and Corcella 2007, 498 and 613.

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Ships (1,203). Information about Lake Maeotis remains vague and conflicting (1.104.1; 4.3.2; 21; 116). The fateful campaign of the Persian king Cyrus against the Massagetae in the extreme east, north of Araxes, offers him the opportunity to outline the situation of the Caspian Sea and the pastures of this people (1201-204). However, it remains incomplete. Darius's campaign against the Scythians leads to detailed explanations of the various Scythian peoples and their neighbors. The geography of this region is covered in various essays. Herodotus obviously faced the task of accepting heterogeneous traditions. The general image of him is anything but consistent. Mapping information from him on a map poses great problems.20 The vastness of the inhabited territory is conveyed by the catalog-like representation of individual Scythian peoples and their neighbors (4:17-27; 4:99-101). In addition, two catalogs of the country's rivers produce a network of orientation lines on an imaginary map (4.17–20; 47–58). There is also an overview of the country, which can be seen in highly simplified diamond-shaped strokes. Herodotus also gives distances and travel times to cover some routes within this quadrangle (4.99–101). To exemplify the location of the part of the peninsula inhabited by the Tauroi, occupying the southeast of Scythia, he makes comparisons that require knowledge of Attica or Iapygia, the region south of Brindisi and Taranto (4.99). The density of geographic information about the western part of Europe largely depends on the extent to which it was affected by or seemed potentially threatened by events related to the war under Darius and Xerxes. On the occasion of the advance of the Persian troops and the subjugation of the coastal areas and the adjacent interior, Herodotus provides a series of detailed topographical information on Thrace (esp. 4.89-93; 7.108-116). Of course, historical events in the Aegean, as well as in mainland Greece and Asia Minor, provide a wealth of topographical information. However, Herodotus' knowledge of the regions farthest from the northern Aegean coast becomes rather vague. His ethnographic digressions on Thracians and Paeonians offer few precise geographical indications (cf. c. 5:3-10; 15-16). In his opinion, the land north of the Istros is largely uninhabited (5.9). Western Europe was only marginally affected by the Persian Wars and their predecessors. This may partly explain why this area is not systematically addressed in his work. Only occasionally does it happen that special geographical aspects 20 Cf. Sieberer 1995, especially Map 21; Angel 2013.

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they are highlighted. The Pillars of Heracles serve as an outstanding reference, behind which are the legendary Tartessos and Gadeira (Cádiz) (1.163; 4.152; 4.8.2). The city of Pyrene in the land of the Celts represents the westernmost point of the interior, here Herodot locates the source of the Istros. The Alpis and Carpis rivers, which come from the land of the Umbrians and flow into the Istros, mark a kind of "longitudinal line" (2.33; 4.49). In the Mediterranean area, Iapygia, Sicily, Sardinia (thinking much larger; especially cf. 6.106.2, 6.2.1) and Corsica are important points on the way west. A catalog of combatants under the Carthaginian Amilcar (Hamilcar) at the Battle of Himera lists, along with the Phoenicians and Libyans, five indigenous peoples in Western Europe (7,165). It is striking that Herodotus does not mention any Phoenician or Carthaginian settlement on the Iberian coast or on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia. The only nation north of Istros that Herodotus refers to are the Sigynnae, who live close to the Veneti. You are north of the Adriatic Sea (5.9). Herodotus does not want to offer imaginative stories. He rejects as unproven the traditions of the Tin Islands at the western end of the Eridanus River, which is said to flow into the sea, whence the amber comes (3.115). Herodotus struggled to distinguish reliable or plausibly derived geographic knowledge from unverified sources and speculation. The graphic implementation of his geographical concepts, as they can be derived from his writings, is not an easy task.21 It would be a mistake to suppose that a complete and generally consistent world view could be put together on the basis of histories, all the more so. that Herodotus himself believed a critical distance to the maps of the ancient world. But he wasn't the only one criticizing cartographers who thought they could map the entire shape of the earth. He also addressed the problem that a world map of manageable size can only provide a very limited amount of geographic information. This is illustrated by the story of the letter that Aristagoras brought from Miletus when he received the support of King Cleomenes in Sparta for a rebellion against the Great King Darius: "... A world map engraved in bronze showing all the seas and rivers... ..." (5.49.1) Aristagoras used this map to represent the settlement areas of certain nations and the wealth that could be won in the campaign to Susa. Only when he made the mistake of stating the length of the journey to Susa (quite accurately) at three months, the danger of such a daring enterprise became evident (5.50).The bronze tablet of Aristagoras was treacherous: it failed on January 21, 2013.

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quince

they do not even offer the wealth of information that the geographic and ethnographic catalogs of a Hecataeus had provided. Herodotus credits the latter with pointing out the dangers of rebellion to his countrymen: Hecataeus had listed all the nations over which Darius ruled (5:36). So using this map as a tool for political manipulation was a dirty trick.22 In the end, Aristagoras almost would have achieved his goal by bribing the king of Sparta if the king's young daughter had not intervened in time (5.51). On the other hand, Athena and the entire assembly of him easily fell victim to him and his lures, this time apparently without his card (5.97). This account contains a bitter irony and is a vivid example of the political dimension of Herodotus' geographical interest. 3

The political dimension of the conceptualization of space. Herodotus and Achaemenids representing imperial power

The search for mastery and its limitations are a central theme in the stories of Herodotus. This gives the conquest of space a geopolitical dimension. From this point of view, Herodotus's contribution to geography can also be seen as a reaction to the Achaemenid representation of imperial power and the perception of geographic space that developed in this context. The latter was initially based on a legacy of practical knowledge already developed at the founding of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. Managing a large kingdom spanning a multitude of territories and nations requires considerable knowledge, particularly in terms of geography, and requires well-developed transportation routes for trade and military purposes. Under the new Persian rule, the necessary know-how and physical infrastructure were further developed. It was not for nothing that Herodotus had great admiration for the Persian road and postal system, the ἀγγαρήιον (cf. esp. 8:99). In fact, Elamite administrative documents from Persepolis attest to the extensive and intensive use and control of the road network.23 The mentioned routes cover an area stretching from Susa and Persepolis to Bactria and India, to the Persian Gulf and Egypt.24 The local administrations were responsible for the safety and supply of the envoys and for the good maintenance of the building

22 Jacob 1991, 44-47; Pelling 2007. 23 Kuhrt Witness Collection 2007, 733–735. 24 Cf. Henkelmann 2008.

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supra-regional road network, as described, for example, in an Aramaic document from Egypt.25 It goes without saying that successful military operations require appropriate geographical knowledge. It should be noted, however, that the Bisitun inscription of King Darius contains a number of GIs to record the extent of his campaigns. In particular, the text contains precise dates and locations of the various battles against the rebellious nobles. This also applies if the battle is not fought by the king himself, but by a vassal (DB§ 25). Occasionally there are details such as the description of the arduous crossing of the Tigris (DB§ 18). Most of these geographical details are also preserved in the fragments of the Aramaic version of the Bisitun inscription, which contains eight campaign and twelve battle reports. Babylonian traditions were oriented. After the war-torn period in which Darius ruthlessly asserted his claim to power, they must document the consolidation of power and its religious foundation: it is Ahuramazda on whose will and support Darius's supremacy rests. The rule of kings represented divine order.27 Persian rulers did not consider themselves divine beings. However, their position in relation to the supreme deities was adapted to the respective traditions in the areas they ruled. At the same time, a general domain over the territory based on theology was incorporated into the royal titular kingdom. The conquest of Babylon by Cyrus (539 BC) could be legitimized by the Marduk priesthood foreseen by the deity: “. . . he (Marduk) sought a ruler just after his heart, he took him by the hand: he called Cyrus, king of Anshan, to dominion over all, whom he called his name. 28 With that, the king took over the inheritance of the Assyrian and Babylonian rulers.29 It reflected an ambition to expand

25 Grelot 1972, no. 67. 26 Greenfield and Porten 1982. 27 Cf. in general De Jong 2010; Jacobs 2010; Kuhrt 2007. 28 Cylinder Cyrus v. 12; Kuhrt 2007, 70-74. 29 Cf. Nebuchadnezzar II's building inscriptions, especially George 2011, 166–167 n.a. 76,: "Thus I (Nebuchadnezzar) mobilized the multitude of people entrusted to me by my lord Marduk and entrusted to me by the sun god, all countries everywhere, each individual population from the upper sea to the sea lower". . .”. For the corresponding Neo-Assyrian concept of rule over Oikoumene, see Rollinger in Rollinger and Ruffing 2013, 93–134.

Persian Geography and the Ionians: Herodotus

his rule in the four directions.30 The verses of Deutero-Isaiah give a similar legitimation of Cyrus' rule as an expression of Yahweh's will.31 When Cambyses, Cyrus's son and successor, conquered Egypt (525 B.C.), he not only adopted the title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt" but also the title "Son of Ra."32 The full claim to world domination appears in the hieroglyphic inscription on the statue of Darius found in Susa but originally from Egypt: In it, Darius is mentioned as "The Perfect God" addressed. . . whom Atum, lord of Heliopolis, has chosen as lord of all that the disk of the sun describes, knowing that he is his son, his steward."33 The catalogs of countries and nations under the king's rule serve to demonstrate the magnitude and scope of his government at a symbolic level.34 The first catalogs are found in the Bisitun inscription. They include 23 units. A pictorial equivalent can be found in the reliefs on the eastern steps of the Apadana at Persepolis. Tribute bearers from all regions of the empire represented there are also organized into 23 groups. The number of representatives of the subjects grew and reached 30 units under Darius. His tomb at Naqs-i-Rustam refers directly to the connection of word and image, of catalogs of countries and peoples, and the symbolic bearers of royal power, namely the 30 bearers of the platform on which the king is enthroned. , depicted in a bas-relief: "Now, if you're thinking, 'How much land did King Darius own?', look at the sculptures (of those) who bear the throne."35 The way all the lands and nations of the kingdoms , each contributing in their own way to the king's reign are depicted in the architectural inscription from Darius's palace in Susa. It lists valuable goods from different countries, as well as artistic and technical achievements of the various inhabitants of the empire, and illustrates the diversity of the domain for all to see. Darius's claim to sovereignty was maintained by his successors. 30 Cf. the royal titles: “I, Cyrus, king of the universe, mighty king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quadrants”; Cyrus cylinder v. twenty; cf. also the verse account of Nabonidus: "Cyrus, king of the universe, who rules, whose yoke is lifted by the king of all lands"; Col. v. 4-5; Kuhrt 2007, 75-80. 31 “Thus says the Lord to Cyrus, his anointed, Cyrus, whom he took by the hand to subdue the nations before him.” . ."; Deutero-Isaiah 41-45, especially 45:1; Kuhrt 2007, 82-84. 32 Cf. the Apis sarcophagus inscription; Kuhrt 2007, 122-124. On the royal title see Vittmann 2011, 377-381 33 DSab; hieroglyphic text; Kuhrt 2007, 478-479. 34 The extent to which these catalogs correspond to administrative units is a matter of much discussion, cf. Wiesehöfer 2013 with references to the different positions. 35 ADN § 4; Kuhrt 2007 , 503.

Bichler

The title "King of Lands of All Kinds," in honor of Xerxes, succinctly expresses this diversity of nations within the unity of the empire.36 The arrangement of the various countries and peoples in catalogs and bas-reliefs occurs in several variants revealing a a concrete geographical vision of the world with Persia, Media, and Elam at the center.37 From there, the fringes of the ruled world are still in view. Reduced to a simple formula, the "four quarters" are defined: "This is the kingdom that I (Darius) have, from Saca, which is beyond Sogdiana, from there to Kush, from the Indus to Sardis." . .” (DPh).38 In principle, the king's domain granted by Ahuramazda extends as far as Persia and Media as space seems manageable. “A great (god is) Auramazda, who . . . He gave Darius kingship over this vast land where many lands lie: Persia, Media and the other lands of other languages, mountains and plains, from this side of the sea to that side of the sea, from this side of the desert to that side. of the desert." (DPg).39 The further expansion of the empire under Dareios was tied to the theoretical claim to unlimited government in principle. This now also included the supremacy of the sea. Darius boasts of having facilitated the consignment of Persia to Egypt by building the canal between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea.40 Even the Mediterranean Sea is no longer a limit to the claim to power. After the "Ionians of the mainland and (those) by the sea", Darius also counts "the lands beyond the sea" under his rule (DPe§ 2); likewise Xerxes with reference to the "Ionians who dwell by the sea and (those) who dwell beyond the sea" (XPh§ 3).41 With his account of a campaign against the "Saca with the pointed hat", Darius even boasts that he crossed a sea (Draya) (DB§ 74). This probably refers to the Amu Darya, who represents the Upper Sea in the imaginary northeast.42 This corresponds to his claim to rule over the Saca across the sea in the northwest (DNa§ 3; DSe§ 4).

36 XPa§ 2 Kuhrt 2007, 581. 37 Wiesehöfer 2007; Dan 2013. 38 Kuhrt 2007, 476; Cf. DHa§ 2. 39 Cf. the Babylonian inscription DPg; Kuhrt 2007, 483. 40 Cf. the stele of Chalouf, DZc§3: “King Darius announces: I am Persian; from Persia I conquered Egypt. I had this channel dug, from a river called the Nile, which flows in Egypt, to the sea, which leads to Persia. So this canal was dug as I commanded, and ships sailed from Egypt through this canal to Persia as I wanted”; Kuhrt 2007, 486. For the actual ideology in the text, see Lloyd 2007. 41 DPe§ 2: Kuhrt 2007, 486; XPh§ 3: Kuhrt 2007, 305. 42 Rollinger 2014, especially 197-200, with more references.

Persian Geography and the Ionians: Herodotus

The pursuit of global space supremacy is an essential aspect of Persian royal ideology. From the opponent's point of view, this claim to dominance could be taken literally and therefore critically rejected. This happened in the perception and interpretation of the success of the Hellenes in the Persian wars: this success was not measured by the actual events and actual war objectives of the opponent, but was claimed as a victory over the unlimited effort of conquest caused by arrogance. Herodotus also takes this point of view. Despite the wealth of military and economic resources that Darius and Xerxes had at their disposal, they were unable to subdue Hellas. The list of fiscal districts that Darius is said to have drawn up (3.90-94) and the catalogs of troops that Xerxes led against Hellas (7.61-99) are said to demonstrate this wealth of resources. The extent to which they are essentially based on Persian sources is uncertain and disputed.43 The description of the fiscal districts corresponds to Herodotus's geographical and ethnographic perception of the central and western half of the Persian Empire. For the eastern regions, he provides a series of more or less unknown town names, possibly indicating Persian geographical knowledge, which Herodotus was no longer able to grasp correctly.44 At the same time, however, he clarifies the expectations that are so characteristic of Herodotus. Idea, namely, that the wealth of countries ruled by Persians increases the further south and east one goes.45 – The catalog of troops provides a largely identical corpus of names for towns and countries.46 In turn, it is effective in illustrating the vastness and abundance of the area controlled by the Great King. His literary connection with the Iliad is obvious. Herodotus himself indicates that Hecataeus had already provided such a catalog (5.36). However, this does not exclude an indirect reference to knowledge of Iranian geography.47 In Herodotus' stories, any excessive attempt to struggle for power is ultimately doomed to failure; this is also to be understood as a critical comment on Athenian politics at the time of the Peloponnesian War. However, the failed conquest plans of the Persian kings provide a vivid example of an instructive lesson. Herodotus uses his account to reduce the claim to 43. Westen 2011, esp. 263–265, with further references. 44 Dan 2013, especially 110–115. 45 flyers 2009; Ruffing 2011, especially 86–94. 46 For ways to identify the various peoples listed in the two catalogs with those mentioned in the Persian texts, see Asheri, Lloyd, and Corcella 2007, 481–496 and 538–541; Kuhrt 2007, 527-529. 47 Dan 2013, especially 106–110.

Bichler

Sovereignty, as expressed in the Persian royal ideology, is reduced to absurdity. Cyrus suffers a fatal defeat in the war against the Massagetae in the far northeast (1201-214). Darius emerges relatively unscathed from his campaign against the Scythians in the northwest (cf. esp. 4.131-142). Crossing the Araxes and the Istros, both made a fatal mistake. Cambyses' plans to subjugate the Ethiopians living in the South Sea and the Ammonias and Carthaginians in the southwest broke all bounds and ended in disaster (3:17-26). Xerxes reaches the pinnacle of arrogance when he claims to rule over all the lands upon which the sun shines (7.8 β-γ). In Herodotus' scenario, his campaign against Hellas was ultimately part of his quest for global dominance (cf. 7.53.2), but crossing the Hellespont turned out to be a crucial step toward a predictable debacle. The limit formed by the Hellespont plays a crucial role in the dramaturgical composition of Herodotus. The area on both sides of the Aegean is not only the central scene of the latest war events, towards which its history is directed from the beginning, but also the center of geographical orientation. The border between Europe and Asia passes through the Hellespont. It forms the geopolitically critical section of a long border line that Herodotus envisioned as running from the western Mediterranean to the Black Sea and then further east. It is generally intended to be a north-south boundary, not an east-west boundary. – Herodotus' idea of Europe is clearly differentiated. In the strictest sense, the term retains an older meaning: Europe then designates the area through which Hellas can be reached coming from the northeast via Thessaly (6.43.4; 7.8b; 10b; cf. 3.96 .1; 7.126). 48 Below The term refers to the countries that Xerxes and Mardonius wanted to conquer after the long-awaited victory over Hellas (7.5; 8c; 50; 8.108). Finally, the term Europe as a continent includes all the land mass that lies opposite Asia. Despite the geopolitical dimension of the imaginary border between Europe and Asia, the Hellespont, Herodotus' concept of Europe, remains largely neutral.49

48 For the history of geographic concepts in Europe, see Berger 1907. 49 Cf. Prontera 2009; Rollinger and Ruffing 2013, especially 147-150 with more references.

EPISODE 2

The sea of the Greeks and Romans Pietro Janni Greek geography, from the beginning, also necessarily consisted of thalasography. If doing geography means building a picture of the earth's surface that goes beyond what is immediately observable or within the range of short voyages, for the Greeks geography meant above all the interaction between land and sea, observing and exploring how sea and land interact and how one penetrates the other. Few parts of Greece are far from the sea, and the mountainous interior tends to push human settlements towards the coast. The Greeks settled on the myriad of islands and peninsulas, larger or smaller, that surround or jut out from the continent, forming unrecognizable coastal patterns.1 Ultimately, the colonial expansion of the Greeks was purely a maritime phenomenon, a migration, which ceased on the coast, if not on the islands off the coast.2 The first great antagonism in which Greek geographical thought in its origins articulated the world was an antagonism of continents separated by the sea: Europe and Asia were the first names given to the opposite shores of the Aegean Sea. This inevitable primacy of the sea in Greek geographical thought was recognized by Strabo, who expressed it in the clearest terms: "The sea bounds (geographei) the land and gives it its shape, forming gulfs, open expanses, and straits, and also isthmuses, peninsulas and promontories. Only then does he add: "Rivers and mountains also serve the same purpose."3 There are many ways to construct a coordinate system, and before the advent of scientific geography, with its parallels and meridians, it was this very coastline, of the one that the Greeks dealt with their main geographical coordinate, the axis of their orientation and reference system.4 In the time of Strabo the science of geography had existed for quite some time, almost three centuries earlier, Eratosthenes (275–195) had measured the earth's meridian, that is, the size of the globe, with a precision of 1 Kowalski 2012, 139–146, “Défis de la représentation des espaces Maritimes.” 2 Boardman 1964;Braccesi 2003. 3 Strabo 2.5.17. 4 On the subject of “the land seen from the sea” when examining a specific case, Prontera 1996c; Bianchetti 2008, 16-17.

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not to determine with certainty was nevertheless certainly surprising, and he had done it in any case with a perfectly scientific method.5 Yet this geography, so theoretically advanced, continued to rely largely on a legacy of measurements drawn from experience in the field. sea. The first virtual line drawn on the earth's surface by Greek science around which they were able to organize geographic space was the famous Dicearchus diaphragm (350-290), which essentially coincides with the longitudinal extension of the Mediterranean Sea along of the 36° N parallel coincides (with some errors), and Eratosthenes' famous map was built around a basic parallel and meridian in which much of the space was taken up by the sea. The measurement of distances was initially based on the practical experience of maritime routes, which remained indispensable for the Greeks.6 The distances between Rhodes and Egypt, between the Mediterranean ports of Gaul and Africa, were fundamental for the creation of the map and they coincided with important sea routes traveled by centuries of experience that yielded a sufficiently reliable estimate.7 As early as late antiquity, an author of Periplo, Martian of Heracleia, taught how to convert this temporal data into spatial measurements based on daily distance traveled. by a ship under various conditions.8 Thus, ancient geography arose first from the practical experience of navigation, which was later rationalized by geometry.9 1

The first navigators and their ships

Speaking of the "Sea of the Greeks and Romans" and the importance it had for its geography, it is important to say something about their nautical skills, especially navigation in the strict sense, and their ability to approach the sea to face the open sea .10 The knowledge of the coasts and the experience of the landings constitute a form of practical knowledge, purely utilitarian, which is not a science and which cannot yet be called geography. To reach this level, it is necessary to recognize the two-dimensionality of marine areas, that is, to compose linear routes 5 Aujac 2001. 6 Arnaud 1993. 7 Arnaud 2005, 61-95; Arnaud 2014. See Prontera 1997, 57–58 at 19. 8 Martian of Heracleia (between AD 250 and 500), E.Per.Men. 5. 9 Gehrke 1992, 1998, on a special case of “problems in maritime communication”; Arnaud 1992 on the Black Sea; Arnaud 2011. 10 Casson 1971.

The sea of the Greeks and Romans

of coastal shipping in a higher scheme, a network that connects the various pieces of the puzzle into an organized whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. In short, experience in navigation on the open sea is required: only this would establish the transversal connections between the coastal routes and provide the positions and shapes of the islands and peninsulas that so richly marked the background of ancient civilization. The Greeks must have mastered this level of sailing early on, despite the popular misconception that all ancient sailors were shy coastal sailors.11 The feeling of the open sea, "sky and sea," is described as early as the Odyssey. , in one of the occasions in which the poet, as it were, betrays himself and attributes to his heroes nautical abilities superior to the rather meager ones that their archaic nature normally grants them, obviously, crossing the open sea. Although we are dealing with a fictional story, the author wants it to be credible and therefore cannot violate ordinary reality.13 Navigating through vast expanses of sea where the safest option of navigating by eye is absent for days requires a minimum of navigation skills. , the art of knowing where you are and how to get there. We know little about this, also because in all probability there is not much to know. We can safely rule out that the ancients possessed a device to measure their speed and therefore the distance covered, not even the primitive but effective knotted rope (log-line) fell overboard, which is known to have been extended later : in fact, the speed at sea is still expressed in knots. Therefore, the estimation of the distances was based exclusively on estimates. However, the use of rhumb lines is clearly documented and underwater archeology has recovered some examples. In addition to its obvious use for measuring water depth, it also served as a very primitive form of fixation, taking samples from the seafloor that, at least in commonly visited waters, gave a rough idea of the area in which the ship was located. . . Herodotus tells us that this system was used by sailors going to Egypt to estimate their distance from the coast.14 The main means of orientation was astronomical navigation.15 Already in the Odyssey we see it used by the hero in a somewhat primitive way , while trying to return home by boat from Calypso Island 11 Arnaud 2005, 1–59. 12 d. 12.403-404. 13 Od. 14.245-256. 14 hours 2.5.2; Casson 1971, 246. 15 Lorimer 1951; Le Boeuffle 1989; Perez Jimenez 2011.

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that he built with his own hands. On the instructions of the nymph he has just said goodbye to, Odysseus is to see the Big Dipper (also known as the Chariot) along with a number of other stars hastily mentioned in a standard formula but with little astronomical consistency.16 A Method, then, to make sure it would maintain a (very approximate) heading to the east. We have no evidence that celestial navigation was very refined in antiquity, in any case our sources say little or nothing about it. The ancient source that attributed a treatise on "nautical astronomy" to the philosopher Thales (6th century) deserves the same confidence as those who attributed to him the theory that the earth is spherical.17 Moreover, we have every reason to believe that the ancients they probably conceived of some kind of nautical astronomy, but it stayed largely on paper. A truism from ancient poetry, repeated innumerable times, states that the Phoenicians, navigators valued by the Greeks, oriented themselves by observing the Little Dipper closer to the celestial pole and therefore a more precise reference, while the Greeks were content with The big bear. , which is farthest from the pole there marks a "north," turning widely around true north in the course of a night.18 But neither the Phoenicians nor the Greeks could use the more accurate pole star because it was predicted until precession. of the equinoxes was alpha Ursae Minoris not so close to the celestial pole as now; in fact, it was farther away than two other stars in the same constellation, Beta and Gamma.19 All in all, it seems that the ancients never went very far down this path, even compared to other "primitive" seafaring cultures. In antiquity there is no trace of simple instruments such as the "Jacob's staff" used by medieval sailors, let alone the more sophisticated astrolabe; As for the compass, it goes without saying that it only appeared at the end of the Middle Ages.20 The famous "Antikythera Mechanism", a battered metal device recovered from a shipwreck (1902), whose complexity and precision we can still discern, was first neglected. hailed as a sophisticated navigational instrument, but today it is 16 od. 5.271-275. 17 This accreditation was already distrusted in antiquity. diog. Laert. 1.23 attributes the work to Phocus. 18 On celestial navigation in general: Cic., Rep. 5.5; Manil. 4.280: "The sky is used to conquer the sea" For orientation in the sea with the bears: Prop. 2.28.24; Senator, Herc. Hair. 6-7; Luc. 8,176; Ursa Major for the Greeks, Ursa Minor for the Phoenicians: Ov., Fast. 3.107-108; Sen., Med. 697: Pelasgis major apta, Sidoniis minor; Arat., Fen. 36-44; Philostr., Her., p. 128:18 emperors; Janni 1996, 67-69. 19 Hipparchus, In Arat. 1.4.1, explicitly states that the celestial pole is empty (kenos) and criticizes Aratus's claim that it is marked by a stationary star. 20 Arnaud 1998, 50-59, "Naviguer sans carte ni instrument".

The sea of the Greeks and Romans

it turned out to be a purely scientific device, a portable "planetarium."21 All these shortcomings, if we can call them that, lead us to a conclusion that few today question: antiquity, for which the geographical map always did much more, was an instrument of knowledge as a guide to practical use, I was completely unfamiliar with nautical cartography.22 But while nautical charts are lacking, antiquity has left us a whole series of very characteristic writings, which fall under the general heading Peripli (sing. periplus), step-by-step descriptions of navigation along extensive stretches of coastline and even around the entire Black Sea or the entire Mediterranean Sea. Another title, Ports (Limenes), is also attested; This seems to refer to something essentially similar to peripli, but it was less successful. It seems natural to equate this with our medieval and modern Porto Lan charts and pilotage books, but the comparison is highly doubtful. Although ancient texts often offer guidance and inspiration to seafarers, it seems unlikely that captains and helmsmen actually used them as how-to and practical manuals: what prevails generally is their literal and narrative nature. In fact, texts of this type are difficult to classify and compare.23 2

Sailors and landlubbers: the Greeks and the Romans

Much has been written about the supposedly irresistible attraction that the sea exerted on the Greeks and their familiarity with it since the dawn of their national history, and about the very different relationship attributed to the Romans, inseparable from the mainland in the Cash, circulated a lot of rhetoric. Of course, certain idées reçues must be questioned and critically rethought, and that too has happened. In 1947, Albin Lesky's famous book “Thalassa” proclaimed his thesis under the subtitle “The path of the Greeks to the sea”24: Far from being “Marins de toujours” (De Saint-Denis), the Greeks had emerged from a distant continent. past and gradually became navigators, in a long 21 See De Solla Price's seminal study 1974. The extensive subsequent literature has questioned some of his conclusions, but no one since has attributed a nautical use to this instrument. 22 Casson 1971, 245–246: “There is no evidence for the use of diagrams”; Janni 1998b; Arnaud 2005, 46-50: "Absence of letters". Uggeri 1998 supports the existence of nautical charts Brodersen 1995 on the use or non-use of charts in general 23 Gernez 1949; Güngerich 1950, general introduction to the Peripli literature, with a brief introduction to the main authors; Peretti 1979, 13-83; Dilke 1985, 130-144; Prontera 1992a; Cordano 1992; González Ponce 1993; 1998; Bianchetti 2013c. 24 Lesky 1947.

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a process that its history and literature still allow us to understand today. Other authors have also questioned whether the Greeks had a deep seafaring vocation and were really familiar with the marine environment. Indeed, the curse of the sea and navigation as a sign of man's decline from the bliss of the Golden Age is commonplace in the history of Greek poetry, examples of which fill volumes. opinion already expressed by some of his compatriots, contrasting the Greeks with the "North Germans", the much more enterprising and intrepid Vikings. "Had the Greeks been like them," he wrote with fanciful imagination, "Hercules would not have erected his pillars in the Strait of Gibraltar, but would have defeated Triton in the Caribbean Sea." certain amount of respect, but that's where it ends. The Romans remained landlubbers forever and also let the legacy of the Greeks fade away.26 But there are plenty of clichés here, too. It is true that Italy, despite its exceedingly long coastlines, is geographically far less "maritime" than Greece, and the Romans appear in all their early adventures as a people of shepherds and farmers to whom one could hardly expect to be attracted. by sea and navigation; but it is also true that their geopolitical instincts could not ignore the fact that naval power would be crucial in establishing the imperial rule to which they soon felt destined. When they 264 B.C. When they first went to war against Carthage when they first went to war against Carthage, they couldn't have been too ignorant about shipping, if only because they already had very close cultural ties to two powerful neighbors: the Etruscans and the Greeks from southern Italy. -Who were very advanced in this area. Clear evidence of this, more reliable than any historical record, is furnished by Maritime Latin, which is replete with Greek terms whose pronunciation and endings have been adjusted to show the great antiquity of their origin. Polybius recorded the texts of no less than three naval treaties concluded between Rome and Carthage, both in commercial and military matters, before the great conflict broke out. In fact, the first originally dates from the year 508, shortly after the fall of the monarchy. Some modern critics have since revised this date, but not later than the middle of the fourth century (8.138-139) and so on. . . . Roman poetry followed in his wake. For first introduction only, Heydenreich 1970. 26 Wilamowitz 19593, 1.219. 27 polyb. 3.22-25. On the debut of the Roman Navy in the Carthaginian wars, De Saint-Denis 1975; on the Scarigli contracts of 1991.

The sea of the Greeks and Romans

However, it remains true that the Romans entered the Mediterranean nautical scene only after the Greeks had dominated them for centuries, and that their contribution to the geography of the seas came much later, when the fleets of the Empire advanced towards the northern seas between the Kimbrian (Jutland) peninsula and Great Britain, where previously there had been only isolated raids.28 But his greatest achievement was the pacification of the Mediterranean, the Roman "lake" over which Greek geographers could now roam with security, information gathering, and exploration, and have repeatedly expressed their gratitude to the Romans for making this possible.29 3

The sea of heroes and myths

The sea and navigation play a central role in the great cycles of myth and epic legend. The Trojan War was an overseas expedition, with its incidents related to navigation -the lack of wind on the outward journey and the vicissitudes on the return, the nostoi-, all of which occurred at sea. In the Odyssey, as in the Iliad, the ancient myth of the Okeanos River - the water that created everything and encircled the entire world30 - is well presented, albeit in a way that is difficult to 'map' to visualize31. It is a myth that whoever had to accept all the new knowledge, so to speak, and whose name represents the vast expanses of the open sea in contrast to the closed Mediterranean and Black Sea, there was a complicated game that continued throughout antiquity. : this is how the name ocean in use continued and survived in modern geography. And when the Odyssey took its final form, the saga of the Argonauts (if we can believe what the poem itself tells us) was already very popular. 28 The voyage of discovery of the Greek historian Polybius along the west African coast, as a kind of cultural adviser to his protector Scipio Aemilianus (Plin., HN 5.9: Scipione Aemilianus res in Africa manager Polybius [. . .] ab eo accepta classe scrutandi illius orbis gratia Circumvectus . . .), does not seem to have achieved any memorable results. 29 Strabo, a high praise of Rome, asserts that the empire guarantees the safety of the seas (3.2.5); Clarke 2009. Likewise, the famous orator Aelius Aristides in the 2nd century AD (Or. 48.91). 30 Homeric loci related to Oceanus are listed in Buchholz 1871, 54–57; Lesky 1947, 58-87; Romm 1992. 31 In Od. 11, 9-22 (Odysseus's journey to the land of the dead) it is impossible to imagine how the poet imagines the relationship between the sea through which the hero sails and the Ocean river to which he arrives.

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Once again it is a sea voyage, or rather nothing less than the story of man's first real sea voyage, with a cast of the most beloved heroes.32 The legend, which was probably born against a background hazy, fabled The distant countries soon had to reckon with the growing store of geographical knowledge, because the destination of the journey was Colchis, at the other end of the Black Sea. The variants of the story, especially the part about the return of the heroes, form in their own way a true chapter in the history of Greek geography, the knowledge of the seas and continents.33 4

The Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea

The first great advance in Greek geographical knowledge was undoubtedly the realization that the Mediterranean Sea was a closed basin, separated from everything "external". For the civilizations of the Near East, both the Babylonians and the Persians, the Mediterranean Sea was just one sea, along with others - the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. As a subject of the Persian Empire, Herodotus reiterates these concepts in a famous passage in which he describes a "meridian" of that geography, a line stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, successively naming the peoples who inhabit it. 34 For the Greeks, however, the center of the world map, as they perceived it, was necessarily the Mediterranean Sea, the inland sea, our sea. 35 With this came the colonization movement, which caused them to pour out of the motherland. , to the western Mediterranean Sea and the northern shores of the Black Sea.36 The Odyssey reveals that when the Homeric poems were written in their final form (8th-7th centuries BC), the Greeks had already recovered and even surpassed the knowledge from the "far west" of the Mediterranean Sea, acquired by Mycenaean navigators and then during the so-called "dark ages" between the decline of this 32 Od was partially lost. 12:69-70; Meuli 1921. 33 Delage 1930; Gomez-Espelosin 2000, 41-53. 34 Hdt. 4.37. 35 Burr 1932, on the gradual expansion of Greek knowledge through the history of marine names; Ronconi 1932; dike 1981; Prontera 1996a; 2007-2008b; 2011b, 185: “The inland sea continually exerts its centripetal function in the maps of the ancient world, not only in the primitive circular ges periodoi, but also in the new cartography introduced by Eratosthenes”. always used by the Romans in a purely geographical sense, see De Saint-Denis 1975, 62–63. 36 Labaree 1957; Manoledakis 2008.

The sea of the Greeks and Romans

Civilization and the beginning of the archaic Greek:37 In fact, at this time Greek colonies were already emerging in Sicily and Italy. It seems as if the poet wants to lay waste to everything west of Odysseus's homeland, the Ionian Islands, in order to populate these "unknown" regions with the fabulous or monstrous wonders of a bygone tradition. But he betrays himself when he reveals that he knows Sicily not only as the homeland of Polyphemus, but also as the homeland of one of Laertes's servants. the goddess Circe,39 in the west, then betrays her knowledge of the Tyrrhenian by naming a son Odysseus said to have been fathered by her Latins and mentions the Tyrsenoi (ie, the Tyrrhenians, Etruscans) as a famous people. 40 During the same period, that of the Homeric poems, the Greeks are said to have established permanent colonies in what would later become Magna Graecia. Both ancient sources and modern archeology agree that the founding of Naxos and Syracuse in Sicily and that of Sybaris in mainland Italy date back to the second half of the 8th century BC. And some important archaeological finds from Pythekoussai, present-day Ischia, also date back to the 8th century, that is, exactly to the Tyrrhenian period. An important role in the westward expansion is attributed to the Euboeans of Eretria, who occupied Corcyra (Corfu) around the same time, 733, and were later driven out by the Corinthian Sea and then successfully penetrated to its end. north, where they settled in Spina. transforming it into a city shaped by its presence and culture, it had openings at its opposite ends: the strait that ran through the "Antechamber" of the Propontis (the Sea of Marmara) to the Black Sea, and what we now call the Strait of Gibraltar, the legendary Pillars of Hercules. They soon managed to pass both channels, the 37 Pugliese Carratelli 1971; Frey 1982. On Myceneans in Italy and the Central Mediterranean, an essential bibliography in Feuer 2004. 38 od. 24,211; 389. At 20.383 Sicily is mentioned as a country with which there are normal trade relations. 39 Her name became permanently associated with the promontory in Lazio still known as "Circeo". 40 Hes., Theog. 1011-1016. West 1966, 398 expresses doubts about the authenticity of the lines 41 Braccesi 2003, 44–46. 42 Beaumont 1936; Braccesi 19772; 2003, 75-80; Scuccimarra 1990; Braccesi and Rossignoli 1999; Braccesi 2001.

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before very early; and even the latter, contrary to popular belief, was never actually considered impassable, although in this case things were more complicated.43 As early as the eighth century the Greeks must have begun visiting the Black Sea, which was gradually inundated with colonies. on both its southern and northern coasts.44 In this expansion, as in the colonization of the Propontis, an important role was played by the Milesians, representatives of the important and extremely dynamic Greek presence already firmly established on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. . Not surprisingly, the name of Miletus is so central when referring to the beginnings of Greek philosophy and science, particularly in relation to cosmology and geography. Colonies along the Scythian coast of the northern Black Sea allowed the Greeks access to a world that greatly stimulated their geographical and ethnographic thinking (Herodotus and the pseudo-Hippocratic De aere, aquis, locis) as well as their geological reflections on the Sea. Black. Sea itself, the Azov Sea with which it was connected, and the physical relationship between these seas and the Mediterranean Sea. The subject is discussed at length by Aristotle in his Meteorologica in the course of a long exposition of his views on the sea and its nature in general.45 With the establishment of Greek colonies in the strait connecting it with the Black Sea, the The Azov Sea soon became known specifically as Limne Maiotis, which the Latins translated as Palus Maeotis. It was known to be flat, but its size was greatly exaggerated, a misconception that was perpetuated in antiquity.46 Another serious misconception that has been widespread for a long time concerned the Caspian Sea. After Herodotus and Aristotle correctly recognized its extraordinary nature as a closed basin,47 Alexander's expedition and a reconnaissance by Patrocles spread the belief that it was a gulf in the northern ocean. In Ptolemy's geography it is again an inland sea.48 The interest of the ancients in a sea that was relatively close and accessible, but at the same time exotic, never waned. At the height of the Roman Empire (2nd century AD), Arrian of Nicomedia wrote his Periplus of the Euxinian Sea when he was appointed official in that region.

43 carpenters in 1966; Amiotti 1987. 44 Olshausen 1991, 171–177, with further references. 45 Arist., Mete. 2.1.354a. 46 HDt. 4,123.3; street 2/5/23; 7.4.5; Plin., HN 4.78; polyb. 4.39; 40; Thomson 1948, 87, 103. 47 Hdt. 1,202.4; Arist., Mete. 2.1.354a. 48 Arr., Anab. 5.26; Plin., HN 1173; Ptol., Geogr. 7.5,4; Neumann 1884 .

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The Pillars of Hercules and beyond

As is the entrance to the strait between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, where ancient myth placed the Symplegades as an archetypal obstacle in the path of the Argonauts, as is the crucial passage marked by the Strait of Gibraltar - the Pillars of Hercules - Throughout the centuries. , a number of legends and myths have been surrounded, albeit on a much larger scale. Nearby, the Greek imagination placed the mythical island of Erytheia, whose name evokes the red of sunset, and the fabulously wealthy King Arganthonios of Tartessus, the city whose name resembles that of the mysteriously situated Biblical Tarshish and is a kind of Eldorado. . of the ancients.49 Even before the rise of Carthage, the western Mediterranean was the scene of Phoenician expansion and colonization, and the 'pillars', the gateway to the Atlantic, were named after the Phoenician hero Melqart: this was just the interpretatio graeca linking them to the Theban hero Heracles or Hercules. This Phoenician expansion on the westernmost border of the Mediterranean became a true thalassocracy under Carthage, firmly establishing its supremacy on both sides of the strait and on the two continents of Africa and Iberia, exercising a jealous monopoly on the voyages of discovery that could open new trade routes. The myth of the "insurmountable" Pillars of Hercules, a literary topos known for its enduring success, probably originates from this western blockade.50 The Carthaginians are credited with exploring the outer ocean south along the western coast from Africa, after North. to the Casitéridas, the "Islands of Tin" -perhaps identifiable with the Isles of Scilly- and to an island or archipelago in the Atlantic -the Canary Islands, the Azores or Madeira.51 A pseudo-Aristotelian work contains the famous account of a wonderful island discovered by Punic sailors in the ocean and kept as a closely guarded secret, as they used to do with other lucrative trade routes. and Tartessus, Hdt. 1163 ("they were the first among the Greeks"); Strabo 3.2.11. Rivalry with the Carthaginians (and the Etruscans) in the western Mediterranean led to the Battle of Alalia (circa 540 BC), which the Phocaean thalassocracy, Hdt. 1,166. On the mythical complex of the Pillars of Hercules Antonelli 1997; Braccesi 2003, 164-178; Rouillard 2009. 50 See for example: Pind., Nem. 4.69, O. 3.44. For Phoenician expansion to the west, Melqart Pillars, etc., see Bernardini 2009 for numerous references. 51 Schmitt 1968; Network from 1979; Isserlin 1984; 1985; roll 2006a. 52 Ps.-Arist., From mir. the end. 84; see diode. sic 5.19-20, Plut., Sert. 8.3-5, Hor., Epod. 16, Plin., HN 6.202-205.

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this wonderful island, of course, has continued to be the subject of endless speculation. The problem is complicated by the overlap between authentic historical accounts and widespread legendary traditions, common to the various peoples of Europe, from happy islands or islands of the blessed far to the west.53 The names of the ancient Carthaginian navigators are they stayed with them forever. the daring combined Atlantic routes: Himilco exploring the shores of Europe and perhaps reaching the British Isles, and Hanno sailing up the African coast, though exactly how far is not clear. In fact, this question is the subject of much literature based on the few surviving pages in the Greek translation of Hanno's so-called Journey, supposedly the account of his adventurous journey of exploration and colonization. The dates of both are uncertain: Pliny only says that Hanno's campaign took place when Carthage was at the height of its power, which in itself seems plausible, so perhaps sometime between the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. Chr.54 As stated, how far Hanno reached is debatable: the most passionate affirm that he reached the Gulf of Guinea and Cameroon, but others are more skeptical, even denying the historical authenticity of this figure and his achievement. 55 Even for the Greeks, the columns did not represent an insurmountable barrier.56 An isolated account by Herodotus tells of Colaeus of Samos, a navigator who supposedly discovered new lands around 660 BC) - and eventually ended up in the Phoenician port of Gades (Cádiz). ) and the legendary Tartesus, whose connection to Gades himself is somewhat difficult to establish.57 Later the Phocaeans of Marseilles had their own pair of daring navigators who explored the northern and southern Atlantic coast: to the north of Europe sailed the famous Pytheas (zur time of Alexander the Great), while the earlier but less famous Euthymenes (6th century) went south, perhaps to Africa

53 Plut., de facto 26–29; Hennig 1936, not always reliable; Thomson 1948, 237-238; Amyoti 1988; Borcas 2000, 53-69. 54 Plin., HN 2.67; in Himilco, Avien., O.mar. 116, 407, 368. July 55, 1927; Germany 1957; See 1961; Ramin 1976; Desanges 1978, 39-85; Blomqvist 1979-1980; Desanges 1981; Garcia Moreno 1989; Jacob 1991, 73-81, utterly skeptical; Euzennat 1994, with a discussion of the previous literature; Roller 2006b (123: "There appears to be little doubt that it has penetrated deep into the West African tropics"). About Hanno and others González Ponce 2008; on navigation along the Atlantic coast of Africa: Mauny 1955; Lonis 1978; Santana Santana 2002. 56 Fabre 1992. 57 Hdt. 4,152; on Colaeus, Braccesi 2003, 164–168.

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to Senegal.58 In the history of ancient geography, Pytheas is probably the figure for whom there is the most extensive, albeit sometimes amateurish and uncritical, bibliography, which should be used with due caution. However, he is mentioned relatively rarely in ancient sources, considering the importance of his discoveries, as far as we can determine. Some writers were so skeptical and so discredited that it was sometimes taken as a true case of "censorship". From the limited but relatively significant collection of fragments of his text (entitled On the Ocean), his case emerges as unique in antiquity: a science-savvy traveler bravely facing the unknown to test and test its limits, expand the knowledge through observation.59 Pytheas himself appears as a man determined to define the relationship between the earth and the celestial bodies, the height of the sun and the length of the day, thus laying the foundations of scientific geography. And this truth cannot be overlooked, though in the lore there are fabulous tales of his encounters in the far north, so common in sailors' stories even in recent times. As for the lands and seas that he is said to have reached, there are a variety of theories to choose from. There is wide agreement that he reached the British Isles, but disagreements arise as soon as the discussion relates to the extent of his voyage along the coast, whether he circumnavigated the islands, and if so, in what direction, clockwise or counterclockwise. and whether he should be credited with the discovery of Ireland and the archipelagos north of Scotland. But all this pales before the myth that Pytheas bequeathed to our culture: the mysterious Thule, which lasts long in ancient literature (Virgil, Seneca, Tacitus...) and is mentioned countless times by modern writers in the most diverse contexts. , from esotericism to the point of political extremism.60 The exact whereabouts (if it makes sense to ask) are also unclear. Possible options are the Shetland Islands, the Norwegian fjords and Iceland. There are even people who claim that Pytheas sailed to the Baltic Sea. However, what is clear is that, despite the unfortunate attention of the most ruthless champions on him, he is a very interesting figure: perhaps the only ancient explorer in the modern sense of the word, an example of skill 58 Bianchetti 2002b; 2010; Bernardini 2009; on Phoceans in general, Antonelli 2008. 59 Editions of the Pytheas fragments: Mette 1952; Roseman 1994; Bianchetti 1998. See also Aujac 1972; Aujac 1988 takes up the theme of Thule in the history of scientific geography and ancient astronomy: "On peut en effet considerer l'île de Thule comme un pur produit de la Sphérique et de la Sphéropée." On Pytheas as a scientist, Bianchetti 2000; Braccesi 2003, 178-184. 60 Chevallier 1984; Aujac 1988; Anne 1998.

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and constancy dedicated to the advancement of knowledge.61 Today his statue, along with that of Euthymenes, adorns the façade of the Marseille Stock Exchange, a kind of honor granted elsewhere only to figures of the caliber of Christopher Columbus or Vasco da Gama. . Pytheas's legacy spawned the rich literary vein dealing with the wonders and mysteries of the Poles, from antiquity to Antony Diogenes' imaginative romance The Incredible Wonders Beyond Thule to writers such as E.A. Poe (Gordon Pym) and Jules Verne (La Sphinx des Glaces). In short, it was the non-navigated western ocean that continued to propose to the Greek geographers (conscious of the roundness of the earth) the most daring and modern idea of all: what in Columbus' time would be called "searching for the Levant by the West". ".', which reaches the Far East and India, traveling west from Iberia. "The distance is minimal", estimated Seneca, a defect that Columbus would inherit and spurred him to undertake the task.62 6

In the wake of Pytheas: Romans in the North Sea

In Herodotus's time no one knew if Europe was also surrounded by sea to the north.63 But now Augustus in his Res Gestae could boast that Roman power had reached the northern seas: "My fleet sailed from the mouth of the ocean over the ocean. east along the Rhine to the land of the Cimbri, which no Roman had ever reached before, either by sea or by land."64 This is a general reference to Fines Cimbrorum, but we know from other sources that the specific place is the promunturium of Cimbri or Jutland, the Danish peninsula. Pliny the Elder confirms this and is even more optimistic: “Starting from Gades [Cádiz] and the Pillars of Hercules, the entire western ocean is navigable along the coasts of Hispania and Gaul.65 The northern ocean has been extensively navigable. Under the patronage of the divine Augustus, the fleet surrounded Germany as far as the Cimbrian peninsula; beyond there were sightings and oral accounts of a boundless sea stretching as far as Scythia and 61 Broche in 1935; Dion 1966a; 1966b; Hawkes 1985; Cunliffe 2001; Magnani 2002. 62 Arist., Cael. 2.14.298a; street 2.3.6; Senator, QNat. 1.13. On Colón and the classics Moretti 1986. 63 Hdt. 4.45.1. 64 R G 26. 65 Seneca was just as confident: Nunc vero tota exteri maris ora mercatorum navibus stringitur (QNat. 4a.24).

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the frozen wastes.”66 The British Isles, which had already been attacked by Caesar's fleet (locally built, that is, off the coast of Gaul, and with characteristics suited to local conditions), did not mark the furthest extreme. north of Roman navigation. Tacitus, in his pamphlet, praises his father-in-law Agricola, a gifted military governor in Britain: “For the first time, the Roman fleet rounded the shore of this outer sea and confirmed that Britain is an island. At the same time, he discovered and subdued the islands known as the Orcades. Thule was also sighted. Such were the orders, and winter was drawing near.”67 (Consequently, says Tacitus, it was necessary to withdraw before landing.) This time, in all probability, Thule was one of the Shetlands. Thule could be more or less where you want, depending on the vicissitudes of life and the impulses of your imagination. Tacitus apparently invokes this for the glory of his father-in-law.68 The Classis Germanica, probably founded by Augustus to control the Rhine and Danube, the main rivers on the German side of the empire, also gained participation in joint operations with land. forces from the North Sea coast to the mouth of the Elbe and Ems. These operations were part of the plans to conquer Germania Magna, which were abandoned after the defeat of Varus in AD 9. But even in the year 15 d. C., a large Roman fleet under the command of the adoptive son of Tiberius, Germanicus, transported a large number of troops from the Batavorum Island (present-day Holland) in a combined operation with land forces to the mouth of the Ems. This time it was a violent storm (graphed by Tacitus as apocalyptic) that struck the Roman fleet, sowing death and destruction and certainly helping to thwart overly ambitious plans. Rhine.70

66 Plin., HN 2.67. The information on the northern coast of Europe is doubtful and sometimes contradictory and varies depending on the current status of the information collected. Strabo once says that the coast beyond the Elbe is unknown (7.2.4: pantapasi agnosta), while Pomponius Mela (3.33) mentions the Vistula. But there was evidence of a legendary "island" of Scandinavia, or rather a series of islands: Plin., HN 4.96 (Scatinavia, incompertae magnitudinis, as far as is known, only a part of it was inhabited); Mela 3.44 (Scandinavia); Ptol., Geogr. 8.6.4 (Skandia), cf. 2.11.33–34 (the “so-called” Skandiai of three minors). 67 Tac., Agr. 10.5-6. 68 Wolfson 2008; Seebold 2009. 69 Tac., Ann. 2.9-24. 70 Strab. 7.2.4: "The Romans have not yet advanced in the parts beyond the Albis"; Knight 1984.

36 7

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the asian seas

The Asian Greeks were involved in the discovery of the Orient from the very beginning, when they became subjects of the Persian Empire after the conquests of Cyrus the Great in the mid-sixth century. Under the command of Darius I, the famous sea captain Scylax of Caryanda embarked on an ambitious reconnaissance voyage to pave the way for the Persian conquest of the West Indies. Between 519 and 513 B.C. Scylax is said to have sailed up the Cophen (now the Kabul River) and then the Indus and returned to Egypt along the Indian Ocean coast. The discovery voyage of the Oikoumene Scylax is considered to have opened up a whole strip of sea to Persian navigation, helping to demonstrate the insularity of the oikoumene, a fact most likely already established in the African sector, according to Herodotus (see below). ).72 The theory was of Ionian origin, from the house of Thales himself, who asserted that the world was created out of water, and who gave a primitive scientific form to the very early myth of the ocean river encircling the earth. Two centuries later there was a continuation of Scylax's explorations as Alexander completed his conquest of India by building a fleet that sailed up the Indus and tasked his admiral Nearchus with re-exploring the shores of the Indian Ocean, a voyage. which this time ended after a difficult voyage across the Persian Gulf.73 There is an account of it in the short treatise on India (Indike) by Arrian of Nicomedia (AD 95-180), the second part of which is reproduced by an extensive summary of the account that Nearchus left in his blog, one of the most remarkable works of all Greek literature, even in the abbreviated form in which it has come down to us. According to the theories of Greek science that he had learned from his teacher Aristotle, Alexander might well have expected to find the ocean to the east, that is, h Works of ancient literature: a circumnavigation of all the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea , with a small detour to the sea as an encore. The extent to which the work can be considered authentic and original, and speculation as to what additions were made, when, and by whom to give it its present form, are questions that have given rise to debate on such a wide and subtle scale that they are discouraged. See Peretti 1979 72 Hdt. 4.44. 73 For the Persian Gulf in ancient geography, see Salles 1992.

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to the other side of the world that he hoped to reach in his dream of universal conquest; in fact he found it in the south. This corresponded to the concept of the island of Oikoumene, which in turn encapsulated the idea of large-scale circumnavigation, or the circumnavigation of entire continents, something of an obsession of ancient geographers. There have always been traditions that speak of dubious or fabulous voyages around Africa or from India to Germany, made intentionally or made by accident.74 We do not know to what extent the ancients realized that they had underestimated the extent of the earth towards the East. Herodotus believed that India (i.e. Persian India, roughly modern Pakistan) was the farthest land, very close to dawn, on what was still thought to be a flat earth.75 In Hellenistic times and especially in the Roman, something new was opened: a channel for regular relations with India, mainly by sea. Tradition has handed down the name of an unusual character, whom our source portrays as a merchant rather than a true navigator, adding one or two curious, somewhat implausible details: he is the Greek Eudoxus of Cyzicus, "the would-be Vasco da Gama." ". of the Ancient World ”, to which he attributes himself, towards the end of the 2nd century B.C. It is said that he twice left Alexandria with the support of the Ptolemies who then ruled Egypt; on the other two occasions from points further west, Pozzuoli and Iberia. What was accomplished by such ventures remained uncertain.76 More credible, though much debated, is the story of the navigator Hippalus, who is said to have discovered at about the same time that the monsoon winds were regular, allowing the Indian River to be crossed. . ocean from the Red Sea in relative safety.77 Trade in the area was not new, but the 74 Cf. account of Indians caught in storms in the time of Metellus Celer and finally driven far from their native waters into the German Sea. The story, which dates back to a lost work by Cornelius Nepos, was later related by Mela. 3.45, Plin., HN 2.170, Mart. Top. 6,621; Biffi 2003. 75 Hdt. 3.38.1-2. 76 Thiel 1939; Amiotti 2004. It is no coincidence that the adventures of Eudoxo inspired a historical novel: The Golden Wind by L. Sprague de Camp. 77 journey. M. Rubr. 57: Captain Hippalus, discoverer of the India route; Ptol., Geogr. 4.7.41: The sea off Ethiopia, between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, is called the "Sea of Hippalus"; according to Plin., HN 6.172 "Hipalo" was the name given by some authors to a spit of land in the Red Sea. For the complex issue of the relationship between Hippalus and Eudoxus of Cyzicus, who have been referred to by some as contemporaries, see Otto and Bengtson 1938; Rostovtzeff 1953, 2926-929; Mazzarino 1982/1987: Hippalus never existed as a real character; the name derives from a textual misinterpretation Casson 1989, 224.

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The realization that the monsoon winds could be harnessed made voyages to India almost routine: they left Egyptian Red Sea ports in the summer with the southwest monsoon; They reached the west coast of India and returned with the northeast monsoon the following winter. With the annexation of Egypt to the Roman Empire, there were no longer trade barriers between the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, East Africa, and the Indian Ocean. It should not be an exaggeration to say that after the Middle Ages, Europe was only able to seize this opportunity again with the advent of modern times, and then a much longer and more dangerous route through the Cape of Good Hope. The ease of communication supposedly achieved by Hippalus was not surpassed until the opening of the Suez Canal.78 Strabo reports that before the Roman reorganization of Egypt it was considered quite unusual for as many as twenty ships a year to venture across the Red Sea to the strait. . ; now great fleets came to India and returned to Egypt with valuable goods, which were then exported to many different countries; he himself had seen one hundred and twenty ships put to sea for India.79 The many Roman coins discovered on Indian soil speak a clear and distinct language, and the moralistic trend in Roman philosophy found a mouthpiece in Pliny, who denounced the lavish spending of his fellow citizens for oriental luxuries, to the serious detriment of the finances of the Empire.80 When Horace described the Roman merchant "on the run" to do business in India, he did not revel in poetic freedom.81 The discussion has already turned to this centered on how large the proportion of Mediterranean sailors (Greeks and Romans) was on these voyages. It may well be that Westerners were simply traders, traveling on ships sailed by crews from other nations, perhaps Arabs. The so-called Periplus Maris Rubri, a Greek term for the Indian Ocean, deals much more with trade than with geographical or maritime issues. Due to its extremely practical nature, this document occupies a very special place among works entitled peripli (see above).82 78 The relevant bibliography is extremely extensive: Warmington 1928; Poujade 1946; Charlesworth 1951; Wheeler 1954; Bianchetti 2002a; Casson 1980; 1984; 1988; 1993; Delbrück 1955-1956; Diehle 1974; 1978; Raschke 1978; Schlingloff 1982; Begley and DePuma 1991; Kartunen 1997; De Romanis 1982-1987; 1988; 1992 (on the statuette of the Indian goddess Lakshmi found in Pompeii, 253, figs. 86, 87); nineteen ninety six; De Romanis and Chernia 1997; Sirago 2000. 79 Strab. 5/2/12; 17.1.13. 80 Plin., HN 16.41; see also 6.26 and 12.41. 81 Hor., Epist. 1.1.45. 82Frisk 1927; Casson 1984; 1989; González Ponce 1992; Belfiore 2004; Boussac 2012. "If Strabo and Tacitus had had their eyes open to things like this man of action did, we would know more about antiquity", Mommsen 1885, 613, n. one.

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When asked what lay beyond Sri Lanka (commonly known as Taprobane, but its size was greatly overestimated) and the Ganges, the ancients were confident they knew something, but perhaps they were rather optimistic. Strabo alludes to the famous navigators who sailed to the Ganges, but immediately adds that they were few (spanioi).83 In the 2nd century AD. Argyra the Silver, and behind them the Great Gulf (Megas Kolpos). The Periplus Maris Rubri is the other main source of ancient navigators for the Far East, but it is all doubtful and disputed, impossible to locate reliably on our charts. It is likely that Western geographers had second- or third-hand access to all of this information, and that it was transmitted haphazardly by Indian sailors and traders familiar with these seas.84 To cite just one example, some identify Chryse with the Malay Peninsula while than others is Sumatra. The fabulous Cattigara, "the port of Sinai", whose coordinates Ptolemy gives with his usual illusory precision,85 has been identified with all possible port cities between Singapore, Manila and Canton. 8

African seas

Traveling in Africa is one of the most dubious and controversial areas in the history of early exploration. The attempts of the Euthymenes Greeks and the Hanno Carthaginians have been discussed, but no one has ever credited them with a complete circumnavigation of the continent. On the other hand, Herodotus has turned the famous story of the Phoenician navigators, who are said to have successfully completed the voyage in an adventurous and exotic manner, at the behest of Pharaoh Necho (late 7th century), into a series of allusions to stopping and conversing with the produce sown along the way and harvested.86 But it is a highly dubious tradition, and all we know of the difficulties that the circumnavigation of Africa presented to premodern nautical science tends to discount it. There are 83 strabs. 15.1.4. However, the geographical horizon of the Peripl. M. Rubr. it extends to the east coast of the Bay of Bengal; see Dihle 1974, 574 (= Dihle 1984, 109–117). On Western finds in Indochina, Coedès 1947. 84 For a clear and sensible account, Thomson 1948, 313–319. 85 Ptol., Geog. 1.14; 7.3.3. 86 Hdt. 4.42.

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ample documentary evidence of the long efforts of the Portuguese, before being rewarded with the successes of Bartolomeu Diaz and Vasco da Gama. The detail intended to substantiate the feat, namely "the sun to the right", which the Phoenicians are said to have observed during their voyages, is most likely only evidence of the practice of many ancient navigators, or those who keep records of their stories. —from him to pass off as factual experience the conclusions derived from the cosmological theories they advocated. In other words, the theoretical edifice precedes rather than is based on lived experience, and the theoretical a priori is offered as a result of observation.87 And it is important to remember that the extent of southern Africa was vastly underestimated in just antiquity. If the ancients had had a clearer idea of how far south the continent extended, they would have thought twice before giving credence to certain overly optimistic traditions. Herodotus contrasts a circumnavigation that has been reported as a success with another unsuccessful circumnavigation: the Persian nobleman Sataspes was sentenced to the profession of discovery, but encountered such insurmountable difficulties en route that he had to turn back and be executed.88 Centuries later, the aforementioned Eudoxus of Cyzicus is said to have been killed (see above) to have repeatedly attempted to circumnavigate Africa en route to India. The wonderful story of Eudoxus suffered from a series of embellishments that smack of fanciful confirmation of geographical theories someone was very fond of, like the chance discovery of the usual shipwreck, evidence of early voyages: this time a figurehead in the shape of a horse's head that had to prove that fishermen from Cádiz had reached the coast of Ethiopia. Something like the Roman coins recovered in Guinea or, worse still, the Phoenician inscription in Brazil.89 However, the Stoic philosopher and influential scientist is Posidonius of Apamea (135-50 BC), whose greatest contribution to science was complete Theory of the tides in relation to the moon and the sun,90 accepted and evaluated 87 Janni 1978. 88 Phoenicians and Sataspens: Hdt. 4.42-43. We will not even attempt to provide a bibliography on the subject of African circumnavigation (those familiar with it will understand) and will confine ourselves to referring to the seminal work of Desanges 1978, 39-85, to Janni 1978; 1996, 456-459; 2008, the knowledgeable Zimmermann 1999, 98-112, and Corcella, Medaglia, and Fraschetti 1993, 265-267. On Eudoxo, Thiel 1939 and more recently Amiotti 2004, with the essential prior bibliography. Via Necho, Sataspes, Hanno, Nicolai 2005 inclined to embrace tradition. 89 On these and other issues Acquaro 1985. 90 Not entirely original, but we owe him detailed proof work. See Gemstone and Kidd 1989-19992; 1981, 774-776.

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the story as further evidence of Oikoumene's insularity, surrounded on all sides by ocean, a theory he strongly supported. Horn of Africa. Ptolemy, citing his predecessor Marinus of Tyre, and Periplus Maris Rubri recognize a number of names for the coastal regions of East Africa: Aromatophoros, 'Coast of Aromas', perhaps identifiable with the coast of Somalia; the other coast called Azania that is beyond; the large port city of Rhapta (possibly located near present-day Dar es Salaam) and a few other names. That this information is first hand, or at least from reliable sources, seems to be corroborated by the assumption that inland from this coast, the African coast that empties into the Indian Ocean, were the "swamps" that were the source of the Nile. .92 These are all details that, even in their imprecision, smack of personal experience. And it is extraordinary that our source of information for the most remote regions of the Mediterranean, of which the first travelers knew something, is a text as unscientific as the Periplus Maris Rubri, a nautical and commercial manual intended for merchants on the north coast. and west. of the Indian Ocean. It was the Indian Ocean that received the most erroneous treatment in ancient geography and in that work which had long enjoyed the greatest authority: Ptolemy's Geography. Here the Indian Ocean becomes a vast closed basin, an expanse of sea bounded by Asia, Africa, and a hypothetical vast southern land that connects them from the extreme south to the extreme east. Ancient geography had begun with the mythical conception of the Oikoumene surrounded by the ocean—the land, as it were, in the womb of the great cosmic waters—and this conception had been further developed, in a curious variation with little or no relation to it. with any geographical fact, from the Stoic philosophers Crates de Mallo, the area of Rome 169-168 BC, and another on the other side.93 This led the leading geographer of his time to the opposite notion of the sea surrounded by land. Remember the meaning of 91 Posidonius F 49 EK = F 13 Theiler = Strab. 2.3.5, who accuses him of believing such a tale. See also Plin., HN 2.169. On Posidonius and the Ocean, Villani 2009. 92 Ptol., Geog. 1.9.1. From a nautical point of view, a competent analysis of voyages along the African coast and voyages to India can be found in Casson 1989, 283-291. 93 Thomson 1948, 202–203; Mette 1936 (with Crates fragments); Broggiato 2001, on the geography of Crates, li–lv.

John

role that schemes and prejudices have always played throughout ancient geography. The seas, of which these geographers had direct and verified knowledge, make up a very small fraction of the total surface area of water that covers the globe.94 The real turning point would not come until the Age of Great Discoveries, when travel exploration benefited from a very different level of commitment and organization. 94 No more than three percent, according to Warnecke 2002, 83.

CHAPTER 3

The term "Magna Graecia" and the Pythagoreans Gianfranco Maddoli The image of the most widespread Hellenic presence in the West is, according to the general opinion, but also according to the opinion of many scholars, directly associated with the expression Μεγάλη ῾Ελλάς – Magna Graecia. Magna Graecia, whose origin and relevance are not always sufficiently known: this is demonstrated by a long list of proposals, ranging from antiquity to current debates, particularly lively in Italian historiography.1 Even those who rightly limit it, only in Southern Italy lacks the perception of its true meaning and at the same time of the territorial and temporal limits within which the denomination was born and kept alive, leaving in the memory of subsequent generations the trace of a civilization and such power until become successfully transmitted in our time. First the Greek colonization, then the colonization of the western Mediterranean spans at least a millennium of history, between the contacts of the Mycenaean kingdoms with the overseas commercial centers and the Roman occupation of the territories where the polis were founded starting in the 8th century. Therefore, the central questions are: When was the name "Magna Graecia" born and how long was it alive? In what area of interest do we need to investigate to find its origins and what was the meaning of such a name? Before giving an answer, we must examine the main supporting evidence.2 The first thing to note about this is the following: in some sources, the name refers explicitly to an era in western Greek history between the end of the sixth century and the 19th century. related to the early 5th century; but all sources on this 1 Main reference points: Pais 18941, 513-26; Ciaceri 19762, 2:188-206; Gianelli 1934, 909; Momigliano 1929 (= 1975); Cantarella 1968; Manni 1969; Cazzaniga 1971; Calderon 1976; Bartos 1980; Maddoli 1971, 1982 (= 2013) and 1985; Mele 1982, 2007 and 2013; Musti 1988 and 2005, 103-87; Ameruoso 1996. RE is missing the entry Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, Magna Graecia, Magna Graecia. 2 All the sources can be found in Ameruoso 1996, who analyzes them individually, while Maddoli, Mele, Musti (see n.1) have presented specific reflections on some of the most important ones more recently.

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they are relatively late: actually they begin with IV.–III. century BC. and then continue through the Roman period and beyond. The oldest, preserved by a scholia in Plato's Phaedrus (209c), probably dates back to the historian Timaeus3 quoted in a commentary on a proverb (κοινὰ τὰ τῶν φιλον) said to have been used about Magna Graecia in antiquity when According to Italy, Pythagoras convinced the inhabitants of this region to pool all their goods. Photius explicitly repeats the attribution of the expression to Timaeus (Lex. s.v. κοινὰ τὰ φιλον). The connection with the school of Pythagoras is also found in the second oldest testimony of the name, which goes back to Polybius (2.39.1) and mentions the burning of the Pythagorean Synedrion, which occurred in Italy, in Magna Graecia, which was prohibited in the epoch: the chronological assignment is the middle of the 5th century, as indicated at that time. Cicero associates the name with Pythagoras qui on several occasions. . . tenuit Magnam illam Graeciam cum honore disciplinae tum etiam auctoritate (Tusc. 1.16.38) and again cites the concept of auctoritas of the ancients, more precisely that qui in hac terra fuerunt Magnamque Graeciam, quae nunc quidem deleteta est tum florebat, institutis et praeceptis suis erudated (Lael. 4.13; Tusc. 5.4.10; cf. Arch. 10); and again, in another clear passage in the Tusculanae, he associates the name "Magna Graecia" with the flowering of the italiote poleis: first Crotona, the city of Pythagoras, and then that of the other Pythagoreans (Tusc. 4.1.2). . And so he also speaks in the de oratore (2.37.154; 3.34.139) of a vetus Italia in which Pythagoras lived and which was populated by Pythagoreans cum erat in hac gente Magna illa Graecia, a Greece quae quondam Magna vocitata est: there it is a clear awareness of a distant reality that has been destroyed and no longer exists, underlined by adverbs that directly recall the then of the Polybius passage (cum erat . . ., quae quondam . . ., and before, in Lael. 4.13, the tum.). Therefore, it is well known that Magna Graecia was an experience from the past that ended centuries ago and whose excellence is alive in the collective memory. The association of Megali Ἑλλας with Pythagoras and his school reappears in the remaining testimonies of two, or rather three authors who, along with others whose works have been lost, have given rise to extensive reflection (recently also redefined as "Refoundation ”). on Pythagoreanism in the field of Neoplatonic thought: Nicomacheus of Gerasa, quoted by Porfirio, and Iamblichus, a disciple of the latter; the reference to Magna Graecia is found in the Life of the Pythagoreans written by these last two authors in an uninterrupted line of tradition on the thought, life and school of the great philosopher of Samos. Nicomachus (Porph., Vita Pyth. 20) tells us that Pythagoras became a point of reference for a very wide audience and his 3 FGrHist 566 F 13.

The concept of "Magna Graecia" and the Pythagoreans

The doctrines formed the basis of the poleis of Magna Graecia. Jamblichus mentions Megale Hellas twice: in Vita Pyth. 30 repeats the expression of Nicomacheus/Porphyry (. . . and the inhabitants of all called Magna Graecia. . .), while in VP 166 he explicitly places what in the other testimonies is only a logical comparison in a cause-effect relationship , stating that after Italy was "filled" with philosophers, from a place essentially ignored by Pythagoras, it is called Magna Graecia. A possible indirect echo of the Crotonian Pythagoreans is to be found in the late geographical vocabulary of Stephen of Byzantium, who under the entry Terina, quoting Phlegon, states that the polis on the western side of Calabria was founded by Crotona and, according to Apollonides, by Nicaia. , was named Megali associated with Ιλλας. A connection with the heyday of the Italian poleis, but without reference to Pythagoreanism, was already (late 2nd century BC) in the Psalm Scymn. 300–304: Italy, once the seat of a host of barbarians, great d᾿ysteron prầs await ῾έλες προσαγορευθείσα τῆς ποικίαις. The designation "Magna Graecia" reappears among the sophists in the Supper of Athenaeus of Naucratis (12,523e-II-III century AD), who, starting from Siris, extends his vision to all the Greek settlements established in this area by wealth and number. they were created by citizens and he comes to the conclusion: almost the entire Italian settlement was called Magna Graecia? this text has been used incorrectly to trace the origin of the term to a time (7th century BC) before the destruction of Siris. Among the Latin sources, Pliny first (HN 3.42) and Servius later (ad Aen. 1.569) associate the designation, respectively Graecia Magna and Virgilian Hesperiam Magnam, with the expansion of the Greeks and their colonies in Italy. Remaining in the Roman world, we note the existence of a group of testimonies in which the name Magna Graecia is transformed into Graecia Maior in an apparent but not explicit comparison with another Grecism: the absolute Greek adjective magna is interpreted as a comparison, which means emphasizes the superiority of the Western Hellenic Italiote world. From Livy (31.7.11) to Ovid (Fast. 4.64), to Seneca (Helv. 7.2), to Valerio Maximus (8.7.2), to Justin (20.1 s.), to Festus (134 s. v. Maior Graecia ): Common to all the testimonies is the reference to Italy, either to a part of it (Livio, Seneca, Valerio Maximus and Justin) or more generally to the whole (Ovid: Itala nam tellus Graecia Maior est). The memory of Magna Graecia will endure for centuries. Still in the sixth century AD. C., Procopius of Caesarea, who describes the exploits of Belisarius and mentions the distribution of the various peoples on the peninsula, ends the list of those of the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas with the words (Goth 5.15.23) : "and that used to called Magna Graecia". To pay

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With particular reference to ancient sources, the definition of the territorial scope of Magna Graecia is repeatedly mentioned by different authors of Italian humanism: Leandro Alberti, for example, reflects the opinion of those who had written about it before him, identifying it with ancient Italy, and restricts it more precisely to "the end around the Bay of Taras, south of the city (according to some) or (according to others) from Metapontum to the river Alessus, border of Rhegium". Alberti has direct knowledge both of Servius (ad Aen. 1569), who extends the designation of Taranto to usque ad Cumas, and of Pliny, who attributes the southern border to the territory of Locris (HN 3.42: a Locris Italiae frons incipit Magna Graecia appellata). , and by Strabo, who, with Antiochus of Syracuse, considers Taras outside the borders of Italy (6.1.4; cf. 1.15; 3.1). A more careful rereading of the classics allowed the humanists, and in particular the great Dutch cartographer Abraham Ortelius, at the end of the 16th century to draw, within reasonable limits, Magna Graecia on a famous map that he titled, based on Ovid, Graecia Maior. .4 As we can easily see, in numerous sources from all periods we find the conviction that the designation is restricted solely to ᾿Ιταλία, excluding Σικελία, which was also the scene of intense Hellenic colonization. However, there is a very important source that helps us understand the meaning of Μεγάλη ᾿Ελλάς and the dynamics of Western Hellenism, which seems to extend the name to Sicily. There has recently been an extensive debate on this source, which has not yet produced unanimous opinions5, but which, according to the author, should lead to the exclusion of anomalous island extension6. It is a well-known chapter of Strabo's Geographia. (6.1.2), where at the beginning of the discussion of the history of southern Italy he essentially reconstructs and outlines the development and decline of the Hellenic presence. It is necessary to delve into this text, since understanding the true meaning that the Greeks attributed to the name depends to a large extent on its understanding. Strabo begins the design of it from the period when the Greeks were not yet present in southern Italy, then inhabited only by indigenous peoples whose names in traditional memory were Chones and Oinotroi. It follows a period in which the first Greeks moved west from the time of Troy 4 Prontera 1996d. See map. 5 The question of the participation of Sicily in the name Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς according to Strabo encouraged the recent debate: see Cazzaniga, Calderone, Maddoli, Mele, Musti, Ameruoso (see N° 1), debate that despite what seems clear for now It seems to me, it seems in progress. 6 Maddoli 1971 and later contributions; Braccesi in Braccesi and Raviola 2008, 5.

FIGURE 3.1 A. Ortelius, Magna Graecia (courtesy of the Institute of History and Archeology of Magna Graecia).

The concept of "Magna Graecia" and the Pythagoreans

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Guerra (that is, in the area of the pre-colonial era, to which the first documented contacts date) begin their first settlement in the indigenous context: a settlement that develops in a progressive conquest of territories, in a conflict with the indigenous peoples , especially with the Lucanians, who had meanwhile moved inland. Here Strabo opens a parenthesis and considers the fate of these populations that, after being subjected to the violence of the Greeks in Italy, met with that of the Sicilian tyrants and then with that of the Carthaginians who fought against the Romans for control. both Sicily and southern Italy. After closing the parenthesis, the author again begins to trace the expansion of the Greek colonists from Italy in the next phase (ὕστερον . . .): the expansion of the conquered territory and the subsequent subjugation of both the old and new non-Hellenics. . population to the Strait of Rhegion-Messana, led the Greeks from the various poleis of the Ionian coast to reach the Tyrrhenian coast with sub-colonies, effectively controlling the end of the peninsula. At this point Strabo ends the expansion phase with a controversial ruling that has been the subject of interpretative debates for or against the inclusion of Sicily in the name "Μεγάλη ῾Ελλάς". Strabo says, closing the expansive stage in the hinterland: ὕστερον μὲν γε καὶ τῆς μεσογαίας πολλὴν ἀφη̩ ́ ρηντο ἀπὸ τῶν Τρωικῶν ἀρξάμενοι καὶ δὴ ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον ηὔξηντο ὥστε τὴν μεγάλην Ἑλλάδα ταύτην ἔλεγον καὶ τὴν Σικελίαν. The interpretation of this passage has divided scholars, but it can be shown that even Strabo is no exception in the unanimous chorus of those in favor of delimiting Magna Graecia within Italy and Italy alone. It is the very singularity of the eventual participation of the Σικελία in the denomination, if accepted, which gives rise to confusion and questions: how to explain, an authorized historian-geographer who was very present and used both Timaeus and Polybius, and lived in a Roman cultural world from which so many other contemporary and authoritative testimonials to the unique Italy-Megale Hellas connection come, could he deviate from the prevailing stream of thought without explanation? In order to answer all the doubts and bring Strabo back to the opinio communis, it is necessary to read the passage as a whole with the utmost attention, philologically and syntactically. First of all, it should be noted that there is only one theme in the entire text, grammatically and logically, in the entire passage: οἱ ῞Ελληνες (more precisely οἱ κατὰ τὴν ᾿Ιταλίαν ῞Ελληνες, thus identified at the end of the previous chapter in its relation with 1 the Lucanians, which continues without repeating the theme (῞Ελληνες) at the beginning of the next chapter 2). The affair of the Greeks is divided into four stages:

The concept of "Magna Graecia" and the Pythagoreans

1) 2)

The Greeks are not present on any of the Italian coasts; The Greeks of the first settlements, initially settled only on the coast, fought for a long time to conquer the inland areas from the barbarians (the same will happen in Sicily with the tyrants, and later - both in Sicily and in Italy - with the Carthaginians at war with At this point in the text, the original μετά must be replaced by the μάλιστα of the modern correction!).7 From this parenthesis, attention is also drawn to Sicily! The Greeks, continuing their conquest (ὕστερον), deprive the indigenous population of most of the interior of Italy, as well as Sicily. Καὶ . . .καὶ . . .: If one misses this connection, it will be impossible to understand this passage correctly. It is striking that after the first of the two καί, after ἀρξάμενοι, there follows a clarification that is not introduced by a normal καί, but by a καὶ δή, which means "and more precisely": the Greeks took from the indigenous peoples left most of the "Mesogaia" and their power grew so much that this was called Μεγάλη ῾Ελλάς. This period ends with the other correlate καί: it was also the Greeks who ceded control of Sicily to the aborigines. In other words, the designation "Magna Graecia" is in the first paragraph of the map and has nothing to do with the island. Last phase: everything went backwards, southern Italy fell back under the control of the barbarians, who in turn fell under the control of the Romans, and also the Greeks, who in the meantime have become Romans (καὶ γὰρ αὐτοὶ ῾Ρωμαῖοι γεγόνασιν) .

If this is the documentary evidence available for the genesis and location of the phrase Μεγάλη ῾Ελλάς, the problem now is to answer two questions: who created the appellation and in what historical context? How 7 The correct interpretation of the text, as it is generally handed down (see Maddoli 1971), is a prerequisite for a correct interpretation on Strabo's side, be it in relation to μάλιστα, which many philologists from Villebrun onwards have replaced with μετά, or in relation to the following ὕστερον, which many post-Kramer scholars incorrectly corrected with πρότερον. The text is correct in Biffi 1988 (see also Ameruoso 1996, 37), but the anomaly remains open: the most recent critical edition based on Radt 2003, 130–1 offers no reliable text (scholar states μάλιστα, puts ὕστερον between crosses) . he avoids translating it and also considers the name Megale Hellas to include Sicily).

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explain the adjective μεγάλη (μέγα), which undoubtedly implies a further differentiation over the simple ῾Ελλάς, without assuming in its most genuine and ancient form the form of a comparison? In this sense, too, the scientists' proposals were in any case differentiated and articulated in a variety of ways. Numerous hypotheses have been formulated up to the last few years, but none of them offered a convincing solution, probably because when trying to explain the meaning of the epithet μεγάλη, no one thought about who could have created it according to the available sources. If we start, as seems methodically correct, from the testimonies available to us, we cannot ignore the fact that many of them, beginning with the oldest, have a broad consensus on the connection between the name and Pythagoreanism. In the eighteenth century, Alessio Simmaco Mazzocchi in his Commentarii in. . . . Aeneas tabulas Heracleenses (Naples 1754-1755) already noted this and linked the denomination to the flourishing philosophical schools of southern Hellenism, and this is the safest approach to obtain a reliable explanation. Polybius, and before him the very probable testimony of Timaeus, who followed the unanimous successive statements of the Pythagorean tradition, both in Greek and Latin, inextricably links the name to the arrival of Pythagoras in the West and to that created there by the philosophical school. thinking . As is well known, the Pythagorean doctrine was not limited to the speculative level, but extended to its implications for everyday reality, until it became a political plan that, as the number and quality of the audience increased, became in a rapid and progressive conquest of power, aristocratically, but not tyrannically, in the polis of present-day Calabria.8 Pythagoras had come west to find great prosperity and prosperity there around 530 BC. C., which the western colonies have now reached, albeit in conflict with each other, with the prospect of prosperous shipping activity and the conquest of indigenous territory inland. Siris, the Ionian colony of Colophon, had reached such a level of prosperity and luxury -the sources say- that it caused the rivalry of the Achaean colonies to the point that a few decades before the arrival of the philosopher (around 570 BC) they were destroyed for an invasion). Athenaeus, as has already been said, points to the origin of the expression Μεγάλη ῾Ελλάς in this flourishing of the western colonies, to the point that in relation to the Ionians and especially Siris there are those who place special emphasis on the Pythagoreanism of southern Italy, is extremely extensive from Fritz's seminal study in 1940; this is not the place to rebuild it. See the useful lists of Navia 1990; Giangiulio 2000, 1:XXI-XXXIII. See also C.H. Khan 2001; Scrum 2013.

The concept of "Magna Graecia" and the Pythagoreans

it was between the end of the 7th century and the beginning of the 6th.9 But it is almost impossible that such a torn political struggle could suggest the full designation of a Hellenic "μεγάλη", especially since all the major conquests of the inland areas had not taken place. I haven't started yet. More reasonable, but still improbable, is the theory that the denomination was already attributed to the "empire" of Sybaris before the advent of Pythagoras, characterized by a luxury of oriental origin and supposedly extensive (Estrab., 6.1.13) to four groups ethnic. groups and twenty-five poleis; Pythagoras would have arrived in an Italy that already knew a Megale Hellas, to which Crotona already belonged, but which would soon have destroyed the original nucleus.10 In addition to the considerations about Siris, the silence of the explicit testimonial statements in this regard and the fact that speaks against this theory that the name is constantly associated with Pythagoras and his school. This seems to be the context that produced a denomination that would remain alive through the centuries, despite being confined to a well-defined geographical space and time frame. As is well known, Pythagoras gains recognition shortly after his arrival thanks to his strong personality and his speeches, which attract and persuade an increasing number of listeners, who mostly become students and, under the direction of the teacher and of a school, which is also a true and proper community. The Pythagorean tradition shows through numerous testimonies how Pythagoras was considered a superior being, almost divine, who, through his teaching and meditation on the role of the universe and on the destiny of man, indicates and achieves a harmonious social order that , when implemented will ensure the safety of humanity. Already widely accepted and more recent studies, the most recent by Alfonso Mele, 11 provide a striking illustration of the climate created in southern Italy by the arrival of Pythagoras and his followers, the latter coming largely from the local aristocracies and the wealthy classes. The Pythagoreans were pre-tested and then organized into a rigid hierarchical structure involving specific duties, some of a purely financial nature, divided into classes by age and education; They were oriented from adolescence to civic education and then to a political orientation, which for some became a specific role (politikoi), while others devoted themselves to philosophy and the study of mathematics in the four main disciplines: arithmetic , geometry, astronomy and music. In this real and proper sect of a high cultural level, progressively structured in synedria present in the various poleis, the politikoi represent the highest level, as Polibio affirms (2.39.2), they are usually 9 Ciaceri 19762, 200-5; Ameruoso 1996, 35 note 85. 10 Mele 2013, 105–11. May 11, 2013.

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were οἱ πρῶτοι ἄνδρες of the various cities, whose presence, however, provoked internal conflicts with the local aristocracies: Pythagoras himself got involved and had to leave Croton for Metapontum owing to the resistance of Cylon, who had not been accepted at Hetairen , and so on his Follower. The enormous network of synedria was able to offer the government of the poleis an economically strong and culturally qualified aristocratic ruling class. As a result, as Aristoxenus relates,12 despite internal ruptures and frictions, “the Kalokagatia of the Pythagoreans and the will of the citizens prevailed for a time, and subsequently the administration and government of their cities (τὰ περὶ τὰς πολιτείας) se entrusted them." The extension of the Pythagorean dominion to all the Achaean cities of Italy, begun by Crotona, together with the progressive conquest of the interior, assumed by the Lucans till they reached the Tyrrhenian coast with the foundation of new polis and the submission of the existing ones. was the main feature of the history of this area of the peninsula between the end of the sixth century and the beginning of the second half of the fifth century.13 Crotona founded Terina in the Tyrrhenian Sea, which according to Apollonides of Nikaia (in Steph. Byz . s.v.) was closely named Megale Hellas connected, which indicates the extent of an area spanning the two seas; with the same purpose, from at least the second decade of the fifth century, Crotona joined other coastal cities such as Laos, Timisoara and Pandosia for economic dominance and minted there its own symbol, as Sybaris had previously done in subjugated Poland. The conquest of Sybaris (510 B. C.) and the failure in the taking of the lands of Locrida, by the defeat which the river Sagra cost him in the middle of the 6th of Sybaris and, after the initial internal conflict between Cylon and Pythagoras, . followed by the banishment of the latter, and creating a politically homogenous consortium with Metapontum. Soon the Pythagoreans outnumbered the Cylons and gained 12 Iambl., VP 249 = F 18 W. 13 On the inland expansion of Crotona, but also on the growth of other Greek colonies on the Ionian coast at the expense of the non-Hellenic populations of the Interior, the literary sources are extensive and extensively corroborated by archaeological research, which has been enriched in recent decades. See the review of the year in the Proceedings of the Taranto International Meetings on Magna Grecia (Atti dei Convegni Internazionali sulla Magna Grecia - Taranto: 1961 ff.): especially Crotone (XXIII) with Mele 1984; Giangulio 1989; Belli Pasqua and Spadea 2005. For native populations of the area see: Pontrandolfo Greco 1989; Guzzo 1989; De Sensi Sestito 1995; De Sensi Sestito and Mancuso 2011. On acculturation processes see Malkin 2001, 2003; Luke 2007; consult now the Proceedings of the LIV International Conference on Magna Graecia, Taranto 2014 (forthcoming).

The concept of "Magna Graecia" and the Pythagoreans

support the government of Croton, although the conflicts with the cylons lasted until the end of the Pythagoreans; Milo, the famous Olympic champion and son-in-law of Pythagoras, came from Crotona: the Politicians met in his house to make decisions περὶ πολιτικῶν πραγμάτων (Iambl., VP 249). Meanwhile, the Pythagorean synedry was consolidated in Caulonia and in Locri; The influence of the Pythagoreans passed from the ethical-cultural leaven to the political control of the poleis. His control, however, was never easy due to attrition among the aristocrats and the social and ethnic unrest that recent conflicts had exacerbated to the point of prompting an attempt to establish a Klinien-like tyranny directly in Croton. However, it was precisely in the prosperous period of the Pythagorean school and the heyday of the Pythagorean synedria, between the late sixth and mid-fifth centuries, that much of what is now Calabria and Lucania came under essentially unified Greek control. Thank you Croton. growth even the "Empire" of Sybaris surpasses and absorbs. Through the inland river valleys connecting the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas, the Apoikiai have grown in strength and splendor, the indigenous population has been subjugated and increasingly Hellenized, the "barbarians" flock to the school of Pythagoras. This extraordinary result brought the Achaean colonists, the heirs of the ᾿αχαιῶν, the heroes of the ᾿αχαιίς γαῖα in the epic (cf. Hom., Il. 1.254, 276), the descendants of the ᾿αχαικὸν (Hοαχαιν) 8. historical . A connection through time connects the western Achaeans from VI.–V. Century to the Achaeans who destroyed Troy in the Mycenaean period and later brought Hellas to the East and are now also threatened by the Persians: in modern times those who ultimately made Hellas in the West at the expense of the barbarians. of Italy, are still the Achaeans. A great, enormous Achaean success, a source of pride and praise.14 At this point we must return to Strabo's chapter No. We have already seen that the theme, both grammatical and logical, of the entire chapter is οἱ Ἕλληνες, formerly absent in Italy, then founders of Apoikiai on the shores, then victorious for them through the Choni and Oinotrians, then antagonists of the next wave. of barbarians (the Lucanians) who had replaced the previous inhabitants; then (ὕστερον) the Greeks defeated the barbarians and managed to snatch most of μεσόγαια from them –where they multiplied to the point that they called it Μεγάλη ῾Ελλάς– and Sicily. This reference to the island and the interior conquered before the arrival of the Romans and Carthaginians, 14 cf. Greek 2002.

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is evoked by the above mention of Sicily in the parenthesis centered on it; it does not belong to the original appellation! But we have not turned to Strabo to repeat what has already been discussed and said, but to focus on the verb and the concept through which the conquered territory possibly arose: ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον ηὔξηντο > αὔξησις > αὔνανννν . The idiomatic expressions ἐπὶ τὸ μέγα αὐξάνειν / αὐξάνεσθαι, ο αὐξάνεσθαι μέθα(ς) are used to convey the idea of growth, a progressive increase up to a high partinue comparison point in development. The morphology confirms that the suffix -ανω indicates the completion of a process. They are neutral expressions, which means they are applicable to the widest variety of situations where the “grand” result obtained does not involve comparison with other subordinate realities (except the starting point itself), but is only the outcome of a process of growth. Just give some examples: δεῖ γάρ νιν ὄντα παῖδα?. . . . . . . . . αὔξησθαι μέγαν (Eur., Bacch. 183); μέγας or μικροῦ?. . . . . . . . . τὸ κατ'ἀρχὰς Φίλιππος ηὔξεται (Dem., Phil. 3.21); It is not a matter of circumcision or of the apostles (Aristox.4); extremely clear example of Aristotle ([Ath. Pol.] 3) on the archon: γέγονεν ἠ ἀρχὴ μεγάλη τοῖς ἐπιθέτοις αὐξηθεῖσα. To elucidate unequivocally the genesis of the expression Μεγάλη ῾Ελλάς, explicitly linked to the verb αὐξάνειν in Strabo’s passage, suffice to compare the use made of the expression in the analysis of Hellenic Icon development by the most influential Greek historiography . The idea of Thucydides, too well known to insist, expressed in the "Archaeology" on the growth of Hellenism, is completely inspired by the concept of a Greece which, owing to the perpetual migration of its population, cannot grow like Attica ( μὴ ὁμοίως αὐξηθῆναι) and that even after the Trojan war it remains unstable ὥστε μὴ ἡσυχάσασαν αὐξηθῆναι (1.11). But Herodotus had already clearly expressed the same idea using an analogous terminology on the growth of the Hellenikon, which, initially weak, progressively αὔηθαι until the attainment of a πλῆῆν ἐθνῶν dside of the Pelasgic substratum. We are faced with a conception of progress as the 'consciousness of the αὔξησις', coming from the laboriousness and intelligence of man, which characterizes fifth-century Greek thought, in contrast to the old picture of human history in progressive decline from one primordial golden age, as such many studies have illustrated16 from one situation

15 Mazzarino 19733, 274-6. 16 On the disease, see Schütz 1964; in Mega Bissinger 1966.

The concept of "Magna Graecia" and the Pythagoreans

from ἀσθένεια, of weakness, to reach a situation of plenitude, of “greatness”: from ἀσθενές to μέγα.17 Here the emergence of the expression “Magna Graecia” clearly appears in a cultural context of archaic Hellenism, in a vision of the world matured in the Asiatic Ionia of pre-Socratic speculation on the physical and applied to the origins of ethnicity and state; a speculation about initial asthenia gradually superseded by auxesis. It reaches us through the voices of Hecateus, Herodotus and Thucydides; For the great historians of the fifth century, weakness is manifested in depopulation, ethnic and political instability, and the absence or precariousness of the polis. It has been hypothesized, though not certain, that it might be possible to infer Antiochus of Syracuse's περὶ ᾿Ιταλίας behind the process of Hellenic growth in Italy traced by Strabo;18 however, it seems clear that the definition Μεγάλη ῾ Ελλάς was originated in the Greek environment of southern Italy, by the Greeks who lived there, who were proud to have been the creators of so much growth, and therefore thanks to them Hellas finally became μεγάλη here and only here. This is confirmed by the complete absence of the phrase in both Herodotus and Thucydides, despite their careful attention to this Western Hellenism, while at the same time having a complete and comprehensive view of Greek history. On the other hand, the expression implies a reality of real political and economic development together with a unity of ethnic roots and the goals pursued and achieved by the protagonists of that development. There is only one subject with these characteristics: the Achaean settlers. First with the alliance that allowed them to destroy Siris, then with the flourishing of Sybaris, finally with the supremacy of Crotona, the city that Pythagoras received, who destroyed and incorporated the empire of Sybaris and definitively subjugated the Lucan peoples, who formed the grid. of the Pythagorean synedria and radiated a philosophical, religious, political, naturalistic thought that attracted the attention and presence of the aristocracies of the entire peninsula and Sicily. The insistence of most of the ancient evidence on the connection between Megale Hellas and Pythagoreanism, together with the flourishing of the Poleis in this part of Italy, cannot be ignored or underestimated. In other words, it was the Achaeans of Italy who shaped the denomination between the end of the 6th century and the beginning of the 5th century,19 more precisely the 17 Maddoli 1971. 18 Momigliano 1929 (= 1975); Maddoli 1982; against Musti 2005, 114 s.: but the theme "non risulta che Antioco abbia mai parlato di Sanniti" does not seem decisive. 19 The conclusion of Giannelli (1934) is thus confirmed.

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Pythagorean Achaeans who could proudly boast of having achieved the political, economic and intellectual prosperity that shaped the "empires" first of Sybaris and later of Crotona. With them, the Greeks in the West, Greece had become μεγάλη real and tangible. Megale Hellas did not have a long life: it ended with the collapse of the Pythagorean synedria in the mid-5th century due to internal conflicts in the Greek cities and the simultaneous return of the Lucanians. The high balance between thought and politics was broken, which was not achieved and spread to the Achaean poles without internal resistance. Polybius (2.39.3) reports the κίνημα ὁλοσχλερές, which surpassed the πρῶτοι ἄνδρες of all the Pythagorean cities; he saw them victims of massacres, rebellions and general disorder. This Western Greece could no longer be called μεγάλη. The confession is limited to the time and space of the person who formulates it. It is certainly of scientific origin because it presupposes a conceptual reflection of the idea of progress; it did not arise from external and superficial observation. This consideration evokes a further refinement of its meaning, independent of late Roman interpretations; the latter translated it into Latin as Graecia Maior and introduced a contrast of superiority over continental Greece from where the colonists had come; interpretation also made by some modern scholars.20 On the contrary, it can be affirmed that the term originally did not imply a comparison with another Greece -the other- but on the contrary represented Greece in the spirit of its creator, a supplement and a raise. In this sense, a Philon Mechanicus (2.57; III/II JH. BC) notation can be useful: τὴν ῾ελλάδα ῾ελάσι πολλαῖς παυήήσας: implicit, in the use of the verb αὐήήσας: implicit, in the use of the verb αὐήήσας: implicit , in the use of the verb αὐήήσας: Implicit, in the use of the verb αὐήήσας: Implicit, in the use of the verb αὐήήσας, as ναb in the use of theας, να the various experiences of hell and being an idea of a growth that expands but does not resist, a primordial Hellas21 that over time enriches other manifestations of a Hellas in other places, while always remaining a single Hellas.22 Consciousness is indeed clear and unequivocal (Herodotus, Pindar, Thucydides, etc.) that where some Hellenes are permanently present, there is ῾Ελλάς: the more the Greeks settle beyond the archaic borders of original Hellas, the more ῾Ελλάς, as well as 20 interpretation already justly rejected by Cantarella 1968 21 Meyer 1889, 2: 274, in a brief note (note 12) associated c orcorrectly the expression with the original homeland of the Achaioi in Thessaly brought, but he attributed to it a sense of contrast. 22 See Aristotle's theorem ([Ath. Pol.] 3) on the archon: γέγονεν ἠ ἀρχή μεγάλη τοῖς ἐπιθέτοις αὐξηθεῖσα.

The concept of "Magna Graecia" and the Pythagoreans

the ῾Ελληνικόν, expands and remains unique. Similarly, the polis in the Greek conception does not primarily refer to a spatial concept, walls or territory, but to the politai23 associated with the Pythagorean Achaeans, who conquered, achieved political control and cultural unity of such a vast area. territory, it could have more poleis, claiming more inhabitants and more subjugated ethnic groups: in fact, it represented a true expansion of Hellas, a growth that took place there, in Italy, as ῾Ελλάς μεγάλη. Cicero also uses Simple Graecia twice (Tusc. 4.1.2; Arch. 10), and this is not accidental in this context, when he speaks of Magna Graecia. With the end of the Achaean political Pythagoreanism and the rupture of reality that they themselves carried out, the denomination also ceased to exist: only its memory remained. It is very possible that the original expression could be extended and generalized as a result of the reach of the disciples of the Samian philosopher and the diffusion of the thought of the Pythagorean schools from the Sicilian Pythagoreans (Empedocles, Epicharmus) to Archytas of Taras; and if so, she was still a Magna Graecia Pythagorean; a reflection of Megale Hellas in absolutely cultural terms.24 It was precisely the fame of the great Hellenic colonies, lasting in time together with the Achaean Poles and independent of them associated with the true Pythagorean regimes, which facilitated the expansion, as will be pointed out. later sources. In this sense, one can certainly speak of a broader and more complete meaning of the term, without ever having included Sicily in the original designation. The Romans will have already lost the original meaning and use of the term μεγάλη and many will have the idea of a comparison with mainland Greece (Graecia Maior). A Magna Graecia, the latter, not well defined and not anchored in its true historical, temporal and territorial roots, heir to the memory of a sublime Hellenic civilization that took place in southern Italy and spread from there on the basis of a a doctrine that found adherents throughout the Mediterranean world, as witnessed by the long list of Pythagorean philosophers at the end of Jamblichus's Vita Pythagorica.

23 "It is the people who make up the polis, not the walls or the ships." . .”: Thuk. 7.77.7. 24 Mele 2013, 124-30.

CHAPTER 4

Border Systems in Ancient Greece Giovanna Daverio Rocchi 1

A multifaceted dimension

The ancient Greeks used geography to shape a natural and flexible border corridor identified with the ends of the territory they inhabited. It was the border areas of the western Mediterranean and northern Pontus and the Balkans that became bridges between different peoples and cultures, giving life over time to a border Greece immersed in contacts with the Hellenic world. In some regions, border states with highly mixed ethnic elements arose, evolving into a new type of Greek society.1 Applied to Hellenocentric models of culture, geography mapped alternative borders that were built around symbolic locations and acquired multiple meanings in view of of the different contexts within them referred to. Geography consisting of Thermopylae, the 'hot gates', the main land access to south-central Greece through which all the great invasions of Hellenic territory had to pass. After the sacrifice of the three hundred Spartiats who tried to stop the Persian advance here, Hellenic imagery identified it as the boundary between Hellas and the outside, although much of Greece lay beyond, because they represented the space that allowed the visibility of the division. cultural. between free peoples and subject populations. Various readings placed Thermopylae within the regional boundary. It was here where the processes of political and territorial unification took place, to which we can attribute the historical origins of the eastern locreros, as well as the Phocian resistance to Thessalian rule, which led to the establishment of the Photian federal state.2 Thermopylae was also a sacred border: the cult center of Demeter in its position "at the gates" was materially and symbolically a border sanctuary that delimited the space of Hellenic religiosity expressed by the piliana-delphic amphictyony through central-border roles complementary to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. 1 See Tsetskhladze 1998; Braccesi 2003, 13-18. 2 Locria: FGrHist 115 F 63; FGrHist 239 A 5. Phocians: Hdt. 8:27-28; To break. 10.1. 4-10; Plut., Demul. virtual 2.

Boundary systems in ancient Greece

According to the agreements of the Koine Eirene 387/3863, geography supported the separation between the sphere of power of the Great King and the world of the polis. The eastern shores of the Aegean formed the long belt of land on the border between the Greeks and the barbarians. Athenian imperialism in the Aegean and Spartan rule in the Peloponnese created peculiar forms of borders belonging to the dimension of supremacy and hegemony. The clergy, who settled groups of Athenian citizens in economically and militarily strategic sectors outside of Attica, as outposts of Athenian expansionism, represented the external front of Athenian power characterized by the displacement of human resources. The Spartan expansion phase in the Peloponnese between the 8th and 7th centuries BC. provided a consistent context for the Laconian apothegm that the Lacedaemonians claimed to own everything they touched with a spear.4 This line of thought would find new interpretations in the Hellenistic period, when territorial conquests in warfare gained their legitimacy through the notion of the doriktetos chora and the border arose from the connection between territoriality and the power of the ruler. There is a kind of limit that belongs to the discourse of ethnicity. The limit of ethnicity reveals how a social group that wants to participate in a homogeneous self-expression builds its identity and uses it as a bulwark to reinforce belonging and exclude the outside.5 The limit is shaped by the perception of the margin through a dialectical relationship . between ethnic homologies, religious, linguistic and cultural particularities, geographic and political particularities, all of which together shape a common and shared perception of identity.6 In this way, the ethnicity boundary is not a reflection of the physical geopolitical boundary; Instead, the collective perception turns it into a flexible dimension that can be deconstructed and reassembled according to what the social group wants to communicate to the outside. This does not mean that the border of ethnicity should be seen simply as an abstract category or as a form of social coexistence detached from the territorial context. The distribution in the territory of some categories of artifacts, dating from the Iron Age, represents a social and subjective elaboration 3 Xen., Hell. 5.2.1. 4 Plut., app. lake 28 = Mor. 210 E. 5 Regarding the theoretical and methodological aspects, I limit myself to citing Donnan and Wilson 1999, 19–62 of the most recently published studies; Abulafia 2002, 1-33; Rokkan 2002, 133-146; Cella 2006, 113-146, 147-184; Scaramellini 2007, 117-126; Serene 2007, 45-64. 6 See Hall 1997, 2002; McInerney 1999, 8-39; Morgan 2003; Luraghi 2008, 11-13; Funke and Luraghi 2009; Daverio Rocchi 2011a, 3-20.

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Strategy aimed at establishing a correspondence between the peoples and communities and the part of the country where they have settled. In other words, it reflects the conscious use of border identity markers that formed a semiotic system that makes it possible to identify the boundary of space with each other. with processes of territorialization related to poleogenesis. Borders thus functioned as effective signs of identity. Among the peoples of north-central Greece, mythical and religious traditions helped strengthen the sense of common tribal affiliation. Ethnic borders, however, were adapted to territorial criteria, thus overlapping and crossing a kind of identity based on the vertical control of time and another on the horizontal control of space. of the prepolitical past. Rather, its constructive character should be taken into account: the aim was to draw the boundaries of tribal and state affiliation and anchor them in consciously developed and selected reference symbols. Thus, the historical limits were intertwined with the limits of memory to rewrite the past in accordance with the present. In their historical development, border systems have entered into a polycentric and multipolar framework. The liminality discourse does not refer to cultural differences, but to issues of coexistence in a network of autonomous and independent states that are homogeneous in their ways of life, customs and traditions, their social and political organization, and their religion. This galaxy of Poland corresponds to a mosaic of borders that has helped to multiply the places of belonging. Since the territorial demarcation delimited the space in which the citizen could exercise his rights -mainly participation in political life, the monopoly of land ownership, legal protection and common cults-, the border fulfilled a civic function. . It also had a discriminatory function because, in the same space, certain strata of the population were institutionally excluded from citizenship. Hence, the border of civic identity had a double function, both inclusive and exclusive. The poleocentric perspective determined the cultural alterity that drew a kind of hidden border around the poleis Greece, thus assimilating the barbarians to the inhabitants of central and northern Greece, who lived in village communities in the time of Thucydides.9 It was the model de polis, which reinforced the metaphorical meaning of the city walls of 7 Rokkan 2002, 140–146. See also Antonaccio 1994, 79-104; Halle 1997, 19-26. 8 See Morgan 2003; Daverio Rocchi 2011a, 3-20. 9 Thuk. 1.5.3; 3.94.4-5; 95.3. For the hidden edge, see Cole and Wolf 1974.

Boundary systems in ancient Greece

Boristhenites, in which the Scythian king Scyles, once the gates were closed, discarded the customs of his country, wore Greek clothes, and enjoyed the Greek way of life.10 In the polis, civic identity comprised a web of affiliations that included the family, phratry, Deme, public and private religious associations like Thiasoi and Orgeones, all of which created so many personal, social and cult boundaries. It was not so much a series of ascending identities, but rather a ramification of invisible borders that were activated in different situations and according to the objectives and expectations dictated by the circumstances. Despite the network of micro-borders created by the territorial distribution of the polis, we must refuse to believe that these borders make it necessary to read Greek polycentrism as a kind of particularism. The awareness of belonging to a common system of values, religious beliefs, languages, customs and traditions united local and regional identities in a common Hellenic consciousness that made the autonomy and freedom of the polis a cardinal principle of their political system. 2

significant definitions

In modern studies, border, border, border (and the derived words borderline and borderland) are terminological definitions that appeal to different research perspectives. JRV Prescott strongly advocated a strict semantic distinction between borders as lines delimiting state territory and borders that fit into border spaces, thus privileging the dimension of breadth.11 According to F. Barth, the border is a complex cultural model, or rather a syndrome of ideas. , since it goes from a line that locally separates territories and separates different social or political groups, to a scheme that conceptualizes different categories of the mind.12 As Donnan and Wilson do not fail to explain, during the last twenty years of the In the last century "frontiers" have acquired a new meaning due to theoretical developments. Border studies pay attention to border areas as places where a variety of practices and experiences can bring to life a society different from the one at its core. Recently, interest has shifted to case studies, so the history of borders has shifted to the history of borders. It means looking towards the border region and 10 Hdt. 4.78.3-5. 11 Prescott 1987, 12-14: "There is no excuse for geographers to use the terms 'limit' and 'limit' interchangeably." For a complete bibliography up to the 1980s, see Daverio Rocchi 1988; 2007, 87-105. 12 Barth 2000, 17–36.

David Rocchi

their people as important forces in their nation and state's relationship with the territory, but also to focus on how local communities and institutions become trapped in border areas between two often competing national societies. a range of situations associated with border spaces.14 However, we cannot fail to note that sometimes all the above terms are used as synonyms, although it is clear that they cover different phenomena. I will assume that this lexical distinction will be respected in the following pages, although I agree with scholars who believe that these terms are not necessarily discriminatory.15 The polis system contributed to the institutional formalization of the border and stimulated reflections on liminality in the fields of geography and history, as well as politics and philosophy. Strabo and Pausanias - familiar respectively with the Greek world of Augustus and the second century AD - turned their attention to the polis, which they identified as the typical form of settlement in ancient Greece, and illustrated its territorial and political peculiarities. The limits fulfilled a prominent function among the components of territoriality for both authors. Strabo16 considered them as an element of taxonomy, and in this perspective considered the inner limits of Attica as an example of situations of conflict and controversy where clear demarcations with visible markers were lacking: where there are no precise border markers, pillars (ὅροι), or walls , as in Kollytos and Melite, it is easy for us to say that such a place is Kollytos, and such another is Melite, but it is not so easy to point out the exact boundaries: thus disputes over certain districts have often arisen [. . .]. Pausanias17 noted that Panopaea could claim polis status in Phocis, although its seat of government, gymnasium, theatre, agora, and water system (the latter in keeping with the Roman urban landscape) not only lacked the ability to send delegates to the panfocian. assembly but because it shared territorial boundaries with its neighbors (ὅροι τῆς γῆς ἐς τοὺς ὁμόρους).

13 Donnan and Wilson 1999, 47–59; Rokkan 2002, 147-159. 14 So Donnan and Wilson 1999, 14. 15 Viazzo 2007, 21–44. 16 Strab. 1.4.7. 17 rest. 1.4.1.

Boundary systems in ancient Greece

Authors of the classical period considered the notion of borders as a system that circumscribed that part of the country subject to a central authority.18 Although philosophical reflection and political thought privileged the social aspects of the polis as a community of citizens (κοινωνία τῶν πολιτῶν) the A definition, also provided by Aristotle19 to this philosopher and before Plato, the principles of equality and justice aimed at promoting social harmony and creating a homogeneous and coherent society could not be achieved without eliminating the differences in citizen status caused by the unequal distribution of resources. , mainly agrarian, because the land on the borders was poorer than that in the center.20 The lexicon outlines a semantic field of marginality, which can be seen in the nomenclature of the border preserved in Pollux's Onomasticon, in the section on the city and its subdivisions:21 and as for the parts outside the city: the borders (ὅρ οι), the market border (ἐφορία ἀγορά) the border areas (ἐσχατιαί) [. . .]. And of the borders and the border stelae and the river between the borders (μεθόριος), [. . [. . .] and removing the cairns. The one who draws the limit ( ὁ δὲ ὀρίζων), the one who marks the limits ( ὁριστής). These lexemes are related to both the morphology of the border and its function of marking divisions or contiguities, as well as its role in the generation of conflicts or in supporting economic projects in border areas. They mention the epiclesis horios attributed to the tutelary deities of the borders, they list the border demarcation procedures and the titles of the officials in charge of drawing and controlling the border, they distinguish between a border and the internal and external borders. The lexicographer's nomenclature represents a layered vocabulary of different contexts that originally had no spatial, chronological, or historical relationships, but generally helps to define a kind of frontier lexical technology.22 18 For sources, see Daverio Rocchi 1988, 49. –68 . 19 Arist., Pol. 3.1.1275 a. But the image of the human city goes back to the archaic poetic tradition and is taken up by Thucydides. See Hes., op. 270-272; alcohol F426LP; Thuk. 7.77.7. 20 pl., leg. 5.745 a-c-d-e; Arist., Pol. 7.10.1330a. 21 Survey., Onom. 9.8. 22 Cf. Daverio Rocchi 2007, 87–105; Friday 2007, 49-70.

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The list offers insight into the various and complex situations that have developed around the topic of liminality over time and provides a veritable borderline vocabulary. The epigraphic documents preserve extensive evidence of the acts of demarcation. They provide very detailed descriptions of specific limits and the dynamics that lead to their appearance. These texts cover a wide chronological range and show similar practices in almost all areas inhabited by Greek-speaking populations. Unlike Pollux's enumeration, the epigraphic evidence sheds light on the plot situations: they show that demarcations were a well-established and widespread practice, used consistently to define the extent of polis territory and organize contacts with the exterior world. All the testimonies coincide in defining the border as a key instrument to control the political space and in emphasizing its interlocutionary character in the network of territorially connected cities. In general, epigraphic documentation transmits a set of practices and behaviors that help to understand how borders in ancient Greece were part of a discourse that encompassed geography, history, law, economics, and religion. From 3 B.C. the number of border disputes between Poles increased considerably. With the rise of the Hellenistic kingdoms and later with the transition to the Roman sphere of influence, the political autonomy of the cities became increasingly restricted and limited mainly to administrative functions and roles. It seems that the need to preserve the integrity of the territorial extent of the city reached the point where claiming even small portions of border territory became a major issue in relations between the Polish neighbours. The impression is that in a world like the Hellenistic one, in which cosmopolitanism became both a way of life and a way of thinking, enforcing Diogenes' declaration of being a citizen of the world, the limit of the poleis acquired a new meaning. An important part of the epigraphic documentation comes from cities outside the circles of the great centers of decision. As the border lost its function of delimiting spaces of territorial sovereignty, it gained symbolic weight and became the main source of redefinition of particularisms and local interests. It embodied small regional narratives that intersected without altering the great histories of the spaces of political homologation. Simultaneously with the decline in the political role of the polis, the importance given to their borders grew. Boundary disputes became a rhetorical theme in concord speculation that flourished in the philosophical tradition of Hellenistic and Roman times. Dio Chrysostom used the dispute23 against his city of Prusa and Apamea 23 Cf. Dio Chrys., Or. 40.

Boundary systems in ancient Greece

Sixty-five

call on the two litigants to reconcile, refer to all the arguments that made the border an instrument of unity and not division, confront the importance of territorial contiguity with the blood ties created by marriage and children , with the legal obligations derived from mutual donations result from citizenship when sharing cults, ceremonies and religious rites. From a means of spatial demarcation, borders became a means of reinforcing the pervasive importance of a moral category. 3

shaping the borders

The border legitimizes the territoriality of the polis as a key structure of the civic organization in a horizontal way. The control function, which exercised political and/or administrative power over the national territory, made it necessary to know the extension of the country. In this perspective, the limit tended to be a line that delimited the geographical and social scope of the circumscribed entity. Therefore, as discussed above, the borders were true markers of identity. On the other hand, they could fulfill an important function of interaction between neighboring communities. According to Aristotle, relations with neighbors formed the basis of the relational system that constitutes the very essence of the polis:24 And it is said that the legislator, when establishing laws, must pay attention to two things, the territory and the Population. . But it would also be good to add that he must also take into account the neighboring regions (τοὺς γειτνιῶντας τόπους) if the city wants to live a life of relationship with other states and not in isolation. Thus, borders seem to work in two directions: inwards, expressing a set of conditions that mediated the perception of a closed system and the awareness of a shared identity, and outwards as a sign of an open system of flexible relationships. In general, they responded to the need of the polis for normalization and stability in both internal and external relations. The institutional formalization of the border required the use of tools to recognize it. It materialized in a system of symmetrical and reciprocal signs that could indicate where the territory of one state ended and that of its neighbor began. The term horos denotes the border in the general sense, 24 Arist., Pol. 2.1265a.

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as well as the line that delimited it and also the mark of the material on the floor. For this, traditional identification devices were used, resorting to elements of the landscape, such as orography or water systems, more general elements that somehow created discontinuity in the natural landscape and, in case of being insufficient, with artificial landmarks such as the cairns, burial mounds, walls and ditches, as well as marks of sacred value, ranging from simple statues of gods and humble altars and sanctuaries to great temples, according to a custom that Strabo attributes to distant antiquity.25 These marks define the boundary within of a sacred landscape and constitute a key element that represents a network of connections between divine protection and human control. Some gods may be characterized by certain attributes of liminality, such as Hermes and Artemis, or may assume that attribute through the Horios/Horia epiclesis; In addition, divine or semi-legendary figures associated with the forests or aquatic environments of the border, such as Pan and the nymphs, should be added.26 The Thracian Chersonese border was marked by the altar of Zeus Horios.27 We can connect a cult system of the border with some specific characteristics that differentiate it from the central cults celebrated. In earlier times, border sanctuaries could play a crucial role in the territorialization processes associated with poleogenesis. The places of worship of the neighboring communities were the focus of processes of political unification, as in the case of the Argive Heraion, or marked the culmination of territorial annexations, as in the case of the Limnaion after the Spartan conquest of Messenia.28 The border line was permanent, inviolable and immovable. Legal restrictions and divine sanctions supported their sacred value, so crossing the line, removing, or tampering with the horoi was a transgression that broke the laws and was also an offense to the gods. A law of Chios states:

25 Strab. 3.5. 5. 26 Pausanias's periegesis provides numerous testimonies of border sanctuaries, which he considers special features of the monumental landscape of border areas. They are often mentioned under the limits in epigraphic sources. See Daverio Rocchi 1988, 54-57. 27 [Dem.], 7.39-40. See Daverio Rocchi 1988, 55. 28 See Daverio Rocchi 1988, 195–203 (with bibliography). Among the successive studies I limit myself to Marinatos and Hägg 1993; De Polignac 1996; Halle 2007, 83-87; Luraghi 2008, 15-45.

Boundary systems in ancient Greece

If someone removes, breaks or makes one of the Horoi invisible, commits a crime against the city, they must pay a fine of one hundred staters and be deprived of their citizenship (atimos).29 According to the rules governing the border dispute between Sparta and Megalopolis: 30 Stelae and cairns erected according to judgment will have lasting value and nothing will have higher authority. Solon's Law, quoted by Gaius, says:31 Do not change the limit. Plato's first agrarian law refers to Zeus Horios and stipulates that the limits must be immovable.32 The cairns were fixed on the ground to compensate for the stability of natural markers, assimilating the object with the ground and thus expressing an unlimited duration of weather. The main criterion was visibility. See the border with your own eyes, i. h the autopsy, gained great authority to confirm the order from him on the spot. Xenophon has the Corinthian aristocrats say that after the synecism with Argos their city became invisible (ἀφανιζομένην τὴν πόλιν) since the cairns that marked their territory were being destroyed. The invisibility of Corinth is a powerful metaphor that expresses how the material destruction of the border markers affected the political system. political agreement. This was the case with the Plataii when they died before the battle of 479 BC. they united their country to the Athenians.34 The return to the original conditions was admitted, and the authentication was provided by the written record of the border, as the Sympoliteia attests, between two cities of Thessaly:35

29 Haussoullier 1879, 230–255. 30 Syll.3 665, lines 20–23. about 164 BC 31 Gai., Finally. I asked. 11.1.1.3 D. 32 Pl., leg. 8842e-843a. 33 Xen., Hell. 4.4.6. 34 Plut., Arist. 11.8. 35 See Daverio Rocchi 1988, 143–151, no. 2B.

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When the inhabitants of Perea withdraw from the sympoliteia with the inhabitants of Melitea, they will refer to those who are registered in writing as to the limits of the territory. The demarcation was made on the basis of practical experience, following a route consistent with that of the officials in charge of defining the local boundary:36 The boundary of the territories of the residents of Xyniae and of Melitea is that of the residents of Melitea visited with me: from the temple of Boreas in the valley, at the source of Charadros; and from the fountain in the forest towards Walkplatz; from the woods to the carriage road; of the highway in the ionian hills; from the Ionian hills to the forests of Ainnaios; from the Ainnaios forest to the Charadros river, from the Charadros river to the hill; from the hill to the spring called Xytaris. In addition to the border as a mark on the landscape, we must also consider a second level of visibility: that created by the written codification of the border. The description of the course of the border line was transferred to a writing and put on public display. The real landscape corresponded, therefore, to a codified visibility, in which the features of the geographic landscape, the cairns and stelae, go through a process of homologation and become cairns through which to draw a geometric dividing line, resulting from the combination of all the segments, connecting each reference point. The written transcription serves a selection of the landscape: what can be read is a partial landscape that coincides with the elements chosen to trace the dividing line. An epigraphic record makes it possible to measure the entire boundary at once, while the material boundary is made up of marks placed at great distances from each other and distributed along a route that is sometimes very long.37 The places where the inscription could have multiplied: not only in the cities in question, but also in the great poles of the region and in the regional and Panhellenic sanctuaries, and thus the local border became embedded in broader information circuits.

36 See Daverio Rocchi 1988, 144–145, no. 13.2; 2005, 31–39: Boundaries between Melitea and Xyniae. General considerations in Sereno 2007, 45–64. 37 On the long boundaries of Cretan cities, see Van Effenterre, H. and M. Van Effenterre 1994, 111–125.

Boundary systems in ancient Greece

Writing played a fundamental role. He favored a standardization of the lexicon and of the procedures that we cannot ignore when it comes to understanding the essential analogies in the descriptions of limits and their origin. The writing formed a framework that could be adapted to different circumstances and thus created the premise for the formalization of the border and, ultimately, for its institutional legitimacy. Carved border documents, and even more so their posting in multiple places, replaced the function of property registration by giving officially confirmed recognition by posting in a public place. In some cases, writing was the conclusion of a long stage in which knowledge of the border was entrusted to the experience of the settlers and to the memory of the elders, according to oral tradition, which formed a kind of popular geography transmitted from generation to generation. generation to generation. It is in this sense that we must understand the epigraphic file on the Gonnoi perrebian limit.38 When the decision was made to rebuild and write down the limit of this city, it was necessary to be inspired by the experience of the shepherds who led their flocks. to graze on the borders of the territory, and the memory of the elders: Menippus testifies . . . «I have tended the herds in the temenos of Apollo and in the disputed places. . . . And I heard the elders say that the land in Porthnaieus belonged to Callias and Philombrotos, citizens of Gonnoi, who had tilled and used it for pasture until the war that Porthnaieus waged." Writing replaced the spoken word and the oral tradition changed. in the written tradition, along with a process that changed the boundary from a practice of life to a formalized institution. Boundary setting has produced a technology, manifested in Pollux's nomenclature, which not only refers to the structure of the boundary, but also relates to the way the boundary line is to be drawn, the means of drawing it in the ground, the To measure distances and choose the geographic features to be used as reference marks and to illustrate where the Horoi should be placed. This process activated the specific judicial arbitration procedure to find peaceful and consensual solutions to border disputes. It also institutionalized the demarcation process. The main official was the horistes (ὁριστής), appointed to set the limits.39 The political, cultural and religious significance of the act of "marking the limits" is well documented in the Roman world, where the task of fining is more common.

38 Helly 1973, 2:93-105; Daverio Rocchi 1988, 102–108. 39 The accusation is called in Anecd ἀρχή. Stream. 1:2

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specifically attributed to the rex.40 The direction follows a straight line (ἐπ εὐθείας), as prescribed in the Greek demarcations.41 The king is the ruler, but also the religious and moral authority who charts the "straight" path. Thus, he establishes the material and metaphorical rule that orders the space and the community that inhabits it, separating the interior, ordered by civil and sacred laws, from the exterior, which is exposed to disorder. In this sense, trespassing the limits of the Mother City meant entering a threatening, hostile world that offered no protection. The border line itself acquired a strong sacred meaning and crossing it was a religious offense. In this light we must see the rites of passage of the border (Diabateria) that the Spartan kings celebrated on the outskirts of Laconia when they left the country at the head of a military expedition to decide, measure, trace, control, preserve the border and the writing it testifies to the institutional formalization tending to qualify the territoriality within the system of the polis and its relations with the exterior. 4

life on the border

In most of the situations in Greece, the territories of two neighboring cities did not physically touch each other, but rather opened up in a space that was a kind of extraterritorial strip. The lexicon made a semantic distinction to describe this midland as Methorion, in methoriois (between the borders) and as Chora eremos (no man's land), referring to the natural and anthropic environment, a wild landscape with a low concentration of population.43 From Ecological Frontier the landscapes made no distinction between inside and outside, creating homogeneous spaces where cultivated lands gave way to areas of scrub and forests, which stretched from the hyporeia, the foothills, to the hills that surrounded the central plain. The specific aspects of the border zone were discontinuity, distance and fluidity. There was a perception that the rim differed from the core in its landscape and land use. The Suda lexicon summarizes the activities in the definition erga tes hyles. These 'forestry activities' pointed to a system of skilled workers that we can associate with real forestry, the 40 See Benveniste 2001, 2: 294-296; Vinci 2004. 41 Daverio Rocchi 1988, 57–59. 42 Cf. Butti de Lima 1987, 100–116. 43 Suda sv. μεθόριον. For sources see Daverio Rocchi 1988, 31-37; 2009, 47-60.

Boundary systems in ancient Greece

its privileged place on the border. It was the open space where the subsistence regime based on grazing, hunting, gathering spontaneous fruits, fishing in swamps and rivers required intact land and free passage, in contrast to the central plain where fences and agriculture prevailed. .44 The economics of the separation of forests and pastures from the agrarian economy, the border marked the difference between a society of pastoralists and one of farmers. A border culture emerged across borders, expressing ways of life and meanings that were often the combination or sum of the cultures of the border people. However, they may be characterized, if not dependent upon, by two or more contentious cultures framing borders. For all these reasons, border cultures differed from those at their core, being shared by borders that developed a proper sense of belonging despite being members of separate states. It's not wrong to think that border culture connected and divided people. These aspects of hybridity and contamination make the border a world unto itself, at the same time a “space for making and breaking meanings.”45 As a sociocultural system, it was a living reality characterized by strong internal coherence, unity, identity, and consciousness. local union. In this way, the border could emphasize the feeling of social separation and otherness. Central authority control was evident at times and places where permanent forms of border patrol were instituted and entrusted to officers, such as the Council of Wardens of the Marshes on the Erythrai border, or the eponymous magistrate at Thetonion, Thessaly. ), or to units with more armed guards, as in the foothills of Mount Parnassus and in Acarnania.46 The border country could also provide the site for a kind of inland colonization. In this sense we must understand the two hundred warriors ( ἄνδρας δικατίος ἀξιομάχος ἐπιϝοίκος) who settled on the outskirts of a city of Locria, or the Cretan mercenaries in the district of Hybandis on the border of Miletus, or the artisans who entered the borderlands of Telmessos .47 44 Suda sv Ὑληωροί. In the context of the frontier economy, swamps and marshes were places of paramount importance. Alexander's edict on the border dispute between the city of Philippi and the Thracians disciplined, among other things, the use of a swamp. See SEG 34, 664, p. 12-13. 45 For the theoretical discussion, see Donnan and Wilson 1999, 64–67; Viazzo 2007, 21-44. 46 Erythrai: IvErythrai 1.17; SEG 15, 412. Ca. late 5th or 4th century B.C. See Daverio 1988, 84-91, 165-166. 47 Axiomachoi in the borderlands of the polis of Locria: IG 9 12, 3. 609, c. 525–500 BCE 196 BC The mercenaries in Hybandis: SEG 19, 677. Ca. Technitai on the border of Telmessos: SEG 29, 151. Ca. See Daverio Rocchi 1988, 35-36, 90-91, 126-129; 1994, 95-110; 2009, 47-61.

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This set of situations gave the border a fluid configuration: life experiences and social and political roles and status did not contribute to the final achievements, borders became negotiable spaces in relations between poleis and within the polis itself. between the center and the border. All of this could challenge the political allegiance of people living in border areas48 and invigorate a cultural landscape that transcends the physical boundaries of the state and challenges the power of state institutions in border regions. To remove this spatial ambiguity, Aristotle's law, mentioned above, stipulates that each citizen must be assigned two parcels of land, one in the center and one on the borders: where this system is not followed, a group of people He will fight mercilessly. with neighboring states, and the others are too cautious and neglect considerations of honor. Therefore, some people have a law that states that citizens whose country is close to the border should not participate in deliberations about wars against neighboring states on the grounds that private interests would prevent them from deliberating properly. This arrangement satisfies justice and equity and also contributes to greater unanimity in the treatment of border wars.49 The philosopher was aware that the border could be a destabilizing factor, or at least generate different and stronger social solidarities than the political membership. It is not known where this law was in force, but we can show how it served to establish decreasing degrees of citizenship that were lower in the border areas. However, we must remember that the political and legal status of internal border residents testifies to different levels of integration. In democratic Athens, the political status of "citizen" did not distinguish between residents of the center or of the border, but in other places, territorial distance from the center coincided with a reduction in the legal skills of residents. Integrated into the economy and ordered into the Spartan army, the Laconian perioikoi had no political representation. The border areas known as Peraiai must be understood in the context of the border: they were the continental extension of the territories of the island poles and were linked to them by forms of integration or of a political and administrative nature. 48 See Donnan and Wilson 1999, 64–67. 49 Arist., Pol. 7.10.1330a. For the multiple identities of frontier dwellers that can reinforce or violate status and social roles, see Donnan and Wilson 1999, 44–59 (for a detailed discussion of prior art and associated literature) and Rokkan 2002, 153–160. See above n.20.

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Dependence, more or less attachment. Most frequently attested, not before the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE. BC, the Peraiai in the eastern Aegean regions represented a kind of bridgehead between insularity and territoriality, and were often the subject of territorial claims that led to conflict situations with neighboring Poland; a typical example is the border conflict between Samos and Priene along the Sami Peraia.50 Being laying en methoriois (between the borders) and chora eremos (no man's land) are conditions that are not enough to think of a generic space. Local toponymy shows how deeply tied the borders were to a natural and social habitat. It was the geography, the ecosystem and the forms of land use that gave names to the districts, such as gorse and oak grove between Orchomenus and Methhydrion or oak square between Samos and Priene, forest and vineyard of Annaios on the border of Melitea or with Xyniae and Perea.51 I can only point to districts that have been both sources of spontaneous friendships and factors of instability over time. As case studies, I can mention the regions that remained as fluid borders of Sparta with Arcadia, Tegea, Messenia or Argos, such as the Skiritis region, the Belbinas and Aigytis districts, the Denthalioi and Karyai region, Cynuria. Furthermore, we can mention Batineatides, disputed between Samos and Priene, and Hybandis between Miletus and Magnesia, and Chonnea, disputed between the Locrian cities of Thronion and Skarphea, whose inhabitants could change as a result of political or military events. Such was the case of the peasant community that inhabited the lands of the Cefiso River between Boeotia and Phocis (παραποταμία γῆ), who were resettled in the urban settlement of Parapotamioi on a nearby hill to serve as a garrison on the Phocio-Boeotian border.53 The Interest in the exploitation of forest resources forced the poleis to enter into agreements to submit these central lands (totally or partially) to a regime of common use (koinai chorai). Markets were held at the borders.

50 Cf. Carusi 2003, 125–197. 51 Limits of methydrion: Daverio Rocchi 1988, 96–99; Limits of Melitea: Daverio Rocchi 1988, 143–151; 2005, 31-39; Limit between Thronion and Skarphaea: IG 9, 12, 5, Fasti 250. 52 Daverio Rocchi 1988, 195–203, 216–217, 126–129; 1994, 95-110; 2013, 139-161; 2015, 179-198; Christen 2006, 163–183. 53 school. en Dem. 19.73b; FGrHist 115 F 385. Véase Daverio Rocchi 2011b, 51–60.

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Mentioned by Demosthenes as an ancient Athenian custom and defined in Pollux's Grenzlexikon: In ancient times, cross-border travelers from their own countries and neighboring countries used to gather there; that is why he speaks of a “border market”.54 These border markets offered places of commerce accessible to all because they were located in areas of free access beyond the borders. In general, two types of border spaces, the geographic and the sociocultural, interacted in a continuous reciprocity of objectives and results.55 Borders were contested places. The arbitration proceedings epigraphically testify to expressly testify to conflict situations that can be considered endemic in some regions. They often gave peaceful responses to disputes that in the past had been resolved through armed conflict. In a closely intertwined polycentric context, it was almost inevitable that the need for land would exert social and economic pressures on the borders, turning some border areas into targets of claims and annexation projects. When the centrifugal movements coincided with processes of anthropization of the borders, the pressure on the borders was forced to increase and private profits could come into conflict with collective interests. With the arrival of new settlers on the border, deforestation became more intensive and specialized crops such as viticulture were developed, more profitable than forestry. However, we must be aware that border wars were special phenomena. They were localized in space and rooted in their causes, since they did not affect relations between Poles, or only to a limited extent.56 After conquering the Argives, the Spartan king Polydorus is said to have responded to those who encouraged him to conquer the Argive city: 57 In my opinion, it is honorable to defeat our opponents when we fight as equals, but after we have fought to conquer the borders of the land ( τὸ δ' ὑπὲρ τῶν ὅρων τῆς χώρας μεμαχημένον) city I do not consider it fair.

54 Dem. 23.37-41; Survey, Onom. 9.8. 55 Rokkan 2002, 140-144. 56 Daverio Rocchi 1988, 225–240. 57 Plut., app. lake 63 = Mor. 231 E. This conflict between Argos and Sparta should date back to ca. 8th century BC

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In view of the centuries-long dispute between Sparta and Argos over the possession of Cynuria, the Argives (420 BC) proposed agreeing to a 50-year peace treaty and submitting the issue to certain avenues of resolution during that time, through of which border conflicts are resolved. explicit distinguished from war:58 Both Lacedaemon and Argos, provided neither city suffered war (πόλεμος) or plague at that time, could challenge the other to fight ( διαμάχεσθαι) for the disputed territory. . .] but the vanquished must not be persecuted beyond their own borders. The obligations that weighed on the Eremia managed to grant some border areas the special status of sacred land because they were consecrated to a god: sanctity sanctioned their inviolability, prohibiting any alteration of the original state of the land, thus preserving it from exploitation. In particular, bringing about changes caused by human activities, even introducing cultivation, was against the character of the Holy Land. The epigraphical documents from Delphi show that the repeated desecration of the outskirts of the sacred land of Apollo, i. ancient production of arbitration solutions from classical to Roman times, which were the legal and peaceful response to a dispute that was never fully resolved. according to tradition, the madness of the Spartan king Cleomenes, while the Megarians paid by banning their ships from all Delian League ports for cultivating part of these lands. . The annexation of the borderlands resulted from victories in agonizing battles that had to be subjected to special regulations. This was the aforementioned case of the dispute over the possession of Cynuria, entrusted to champions of equal physical strength, legitimized by their dynastic titles, the nobility of their lineage, or their authority to represent their parties, and who would do so in their victory. , earns his 58 thuc. 5.41.2-3. 59 On this topic, see Rousset 2002; Daverio Rocchi 2011c, 61-70. 60 break. 3.4.2; Thuk. 1,139.2 cum school.; Plut., Per. 30.2. The lexicographers ὀργάς define each region of forests, mountains and swamps: Phot., Harp., Suda s.v. ὀργάς.

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the right of compatriots to own the disputed territory. When Oinoe and Panattus were annexed, the respective rulers of Athens and Thebes clashed in a monomachy.61 At the sanctuary of Artemis on Amarynthos, Strabo read the inscription containing the agreement setting out the rules for observing the Chalcideans and Eretrians and had to settle the dispute over the possession of the Lelantine plains, and Archilochus sang of this battle and of the warrior lords of Euboea, famous for their spears (δεσπόται Εὐβοίης δουρικλυτοί)62. Thus emerged a story of the border with its own places, protagonists and themes. The city preserved the memory of it as part of its ritual heritage, which recalled the most notable moments of the process of territorialization that underlies its genesis, and thus the battles also acquired a ritual character. Regular ceremonies consecrated these agonizing battles in the festivals of the polis, which is why they continued to play a very important role in legitimizing and confirming ownership and in elaborating the memory of its origins. Borders and border narratives were indispensable elements for the construction of national cultures and, ultimately, can be counted among the identity-forming factors. The border location and its function as a place of ritual battles made the border a privileged space for agonizing battles that do not correspond to the usual war situations. Pausanias, for example, calculates that the duel between Hyllus, son of Hercules, and the Arcadian Echemus for supremacy in the Peloponnese occurred on the border between Megaris and Corinthia Sources for different forms of government according to the continuity of property, right of conquest and autochthony. 5

Between ubiquity and hybridity

In short, the limits of the poleis covered a variety of situations that do not admit of a single and selective definition. Rather, they belong to a discourse on omnipresence and hybridity, the practical use of places, and the subjective perception of mental spaces, according to which liminality can be experienced as integration and assimilation, as well as distinction and separation. In general, this is a coevolution discourse. These situations can be referred to

61 Main source: FGrHist 4 F 125. See also FGrHist 70 F 22; Polyene, Strat. 1.19. 62 Strab. 01/10/12; Archil. F 3 West; Cf. Plut., Thess. 5.3. 63 rest. 1.44.10.

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to main categories that were distinguished by Donnan and Wilson.64 The legal border line demarcated the space under public control and circumscribed areas of different jurisdictions on the one hand, and on the other hand was the game in neighbor relations. According to these authors, it functioned ubiquitously as a means of opening or closing, a sign of state sovereignty, and also a marker of peaceful or hostile relations between Poles. The border was a territorial zone that stretched across state lines, where people negotiated different behaviors and meanings and fostered a sequence of interactions. To these categories of authors I would add the border as a ritual space in which the history of the formation of the polis and the process of territorialization can be traced. These multiple experiences generated in the border places require a multifaceted analysis of the relationship between the nucleus and the border, taking into account the discontinuity caused by the differences in the natural and anthropic landscape, in the occupation and exploitation of the land, in the situation legal status of the territories, which is controlled by political power, in the nature of relations with neighboring settlements. However, we must understand that in the practice of interpersonal and interstate relations there was no rigid juxtaposition of borders and border territories or in their functions, but mixed situations in which difference and homogeneity merged and influenced each other, distinction and integration intertwined with contamination. of shapes. and functions reshaped by objectives and contingent circumstances. So what comes to light is the real and symbolic value of the border in collective life as a means of building identity. However, we cannot fail to see the limits of the “good reasons that are invoked to justify or legitimize the social, ethical, political and economic consequences of the distinctions introduced in the coexistence between individuals and between collective subjects”.65

64 Donnan and Wilson 1999, 43–62. 65 Cella 2006, 14–15.

CHAPTER 5

Alexander the Great's "Revolution": The Old and the New in Hans-Joachim Gehrke's Worldview It is fair to say that Alexander the Great not only turned the world upside down, but also revolutionized worldview and worldview of the Greeks. Much had changed since then.1 Alexander's truly incredible campaign of conquest brought, above all, detailed knowledge of large parts of the world, from the Middle East to India. This affected the Greek conceptual horizon. The world that the Greeks had in mind simply grew. In a way, it was now given a tangible form. The enormous effect this had on the geographical imagination of the Greeks was perfectly clear, especially to Eratosthenes, one of the leading geographers.2 However, this was not, so to speak, simply a by-product of military action and the conquests. It was also due to Alexander's planning and actions. Part of his campaigns was devoted to geographical exploration. Although he did not intend the revolution just mentioned, he nonetheless initiated and consolidated it. So it wasn't a matter of coincidence, even if the concrete scientific elaboration was still to be done. However, the campaign of conquest and exploration had given it a new base. Polybius (3.59.3) clearly emphasized this fact in relation to Asia.3 Above all, the relationships between theoretical explanation and empirical investigation changed. The consideration-

1 The observations and considerations presented here are based on Gehrke 2011. In many respects, they are closely related to the important article by Geus 2003. In treating Alexander from this point of view, the comments by Hamilton 1969 and Bosworth 1980, 1995 should will also be mentioned, which have proven to be particularly effective: Endres 1924; Ehrenburg 1965; Schachermeyr 1973 (esp. 87ff., 337ff., 396ff., 442ff., 466ff., 654ff.); Kartunen 1997; Lauffer 19812 (especially 116, 121, 140, 150, 157, 177, 182ff.); Bosworth 1996 and Lane Fox 20042 (especially 436ff., 447ff.). For Alexander in India, compare the Hahn 2000 collection; I have explained my position on Alexander in general elsewhere (Gehrke 20136). Many suggestions and ideas are due to collaboration with Veronica Bucciantini, a leading expert on Nearchus and its geographical and literary background. 2 Strab. 1.2.1; 3.2. 3 See Bianchetti 2012a, 307ff on this and its possible implications.

The "Revolution" of Alexander the Great

The focus that follows is on the role that Alexander himself played in this development. How did the Greeks imagine the world before Alexander? We might start with a paradox, namely that the Greeks had conquered the world two hundred years before the Macedonian king. This had not happened in any concrete sense through war and power politics, but with the weapons of the intellect. The Greeks, more specifically the Greek intellectuals, had grasped it theoretically and conceptually. Like many others, they had benefited from the wisdom of the East, where the entire world was intended to be an imperial government in the sense of imperial ideology. Many kings had even begun exploring hitherto unknown regions and mapped the entire world in symbolic form. The Greeks also saw a whole world. But in his case it was not kings, but wise men and philosophers, scientists and mathematicians, and their number was limited. The principles according to which they ordered the world and expressed their vision of the world were those of geometry, which have bequeathed to us under the name of "Euclidean geometry." The world, and indeed the entire world, was mapped like this; he literally became manageable, at least mentally. The first to take this also truly revolutionary step in the sixth century was Anaximander of Miletus. Hecataeus, also from Miletus and already respected as his disciple in antiquity, soon after completed his highly schematic and circular map. He added numerous empirically identified names. In this way he arranged seas, mountains, rivers, tribes and more in a geographical order. Therefore, one can speak of an Ionic cartography. The accounts of the voyages of discovery of the Eastern rulers were also used in the creation of said maps, which were explained in the accompanying texts. Particularly famous was the voyage from the Indus to the Persian Gulf, undertaken by the Carian Scylax on behalf of the great Persian king Darius I at the end of the sixth century.4 The development of geographical knowledge and its philosophical-mathematical conceptualization was spectacular. The sphericity of the earth was soon postulated, and there were repeated attempts to record the known parts of the "inhabited" areas of this sphere, the Oikoumene, always on a geometric basis and drawing on practical knowledge. The investigation (which by the way was called history) was based on results investigated by the investigator himself or derived from other informants, the more reliable the better. Personal inspection and hearsay (opsis and akoe) were keywords. The discoverers and scholars always had the whole world or its inhabited part in 4 For this and the following, see Gehrke 1998, 2007.

Gehrke

Comprehension. However, they envisioned it as a plane (regardless of its spherical shape), so in the second dimension. The clear rules of elaborate and constantly evolving geometry were applied here, and symbolic figures were added to the maps accordingly. The work was limited to what was mathematically feasible. In principle, this was no different from the way new settlements were established and arable land distributed at the time. So geometry was the measure (meters) of both "earth" and "earth" (ge). This geometry provided the orientation: it provided the framework, which was a general framework. In this way, at least in theory, the Greek thinkers laid the foundations of modern scientific geometry. Because here too, the wealth of empirical field observations is ordered and mapped according to the rules of mathematics, with continuous explorations, ever more precise measurements, and ever more refined mathematical rules, meanwhile far beyond of the achievements of antiquity. However, the main principle was the same. The grid that spans our globe symbolizes this correspondence and connection to this day. However, this vision of the world was initially extremely schematic due to its geometric and cartographic nature. As already briefly mentioned, those figures that could be used mathematically correctly dominated: straight lines and rectangles, triangles and circles, at most trapezoids and similar figures. Sometimes metaphors were used (for example, in the form of a leaf or some other object), but if a precise construction was sought, the named figures were necessary. Furthermore, this vision was limited from a sociological perspective. It existed only in the very small and elitist circles of intellectuals. Most people in Greece (and this was not and is not different for comparable cultures) oriented towards roads and paths, as well as landmarks that served as landmarks. This perception of space, which can obviously be particularly well represented in the human brain and thus stored, was linear and one-dimensional. Today this is called a hodological perspective. According to this, the space was inhabited and in it the movement was carried out mentally, although in a very concrete way. The locations were relational, always related to the viewer or the subject of the movement. In this sense, a place or object was "in front" or "behind", "above" or "below", etc. Distances were usually given in terms of the time required to travel them, such as travel days. The practical knowledge that travelers, merchants, navigators, etc. derived from their experiences was structured according to these principles and, in turn, integrated into their perspective by the intellectuals. Due to the great importance of maritime communication, a first geographical classification scheme was developed,

The "Revolution" of Alexander the Great

who followed coastal navigation, the "circumnavigation" (Periplus): purely in thought, but related to concrete voyages. This everyday and therefore “normal” perception of space – Klaus Geus calls it the geography of common sense5 – was separated from the abstract, two-dimensional perspective of the philosophers by a deep chasm. His point of view was simply incomprehensible to the "layman". Significantly, this discrepancy was noted and addressed early on. A passage from the comedy The Clouds (200-218) by the Attic poet Aristophanes, written in 423 BC. BC was included in the list, you can illustrate this very briefly. His main character, Strepsiades, is portrayed as a very typical commoner. Saddled with debt, he hopes a lesson in rhetorical tricks will ease his worries. Thus he enters the "think tank" (phrontisterion) of Socrates, where various types of intellectual-philosophical activities are practiced. In this sense, one of Socrates' students tries to introduce Strepsiades into geometry. The latter combines surveying with this term, the practical and frequent activity of "surveying". He thinks specifically of the distribution of land among needy Athenians. When the student explains to him that geometry is about "the whole earth," Strepsiades continues this line of interpretation. He thinks of a division of the entire world among the Athenians and thus of the economic consequences of Attic world domination. That is why he calls the geometric method in this global sense - and herein lies a comic critique of Athenian imperialism - "beneficial to the people" and "useful." To help Strepsiades correctly understand this intellectual geometry, the student shows him a map of the world. However, when Strepsiades sees this letter, he immediately shows that he doesn't understand it at all. He can't read maps, but he concretely looks at them like a child. Finally realizing how close Athens and Sparta are on the map, he even urges the student to separate them further, as both are at war. Naturally, this is not possible cartographically, to which the "normal citizen" reacts aggressively. In the sixth and fifth centuries, the Greek sense of space was thus shaped by a fundamental distinction between theory and practice, which was clearly perceived as such by the philosophically educated. This persisted, and that is understandable since this can be seen in other cultures as well. Because it depended a lot on how widespread philosophical and historical education was and is (still applies today: a mind map, 5 www.topoi.org/group/c-5/.

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We only learn to function two-dimensionally and cartographically through specific instruction, for example, in school). With these basic comments on the nature of spatial vision, we can now move on to Alexander. Let us ask him how he saw and perceived the world. Did you stick to the general hodological orientation, which you certainly came to know as part of your primary education, or did you naturally also acquire the intellectual two-dimensional view of "the whole world" in your higher education, appropriate to its time and based on the level of education? development reached at that time of geometry and empirical information about the world? This question is not trivial, because the idea of conquering the whole world or achieving his goals determined his actions, if not from the beginning, then at some point. For this reason, it is important to know whether this guiding idea was inspired or dictated by a particular worldview. Perhaps he even he followed the ideas of philosophers and intellectuals in his actions and thereby closed the gap between theory and practice, an ancient Columbus? Even with a skeptical attitude to this question, a true historical interpretation must be careful to base any analysis of each agent's plans on their perception of the world and not on our modern, atlas-oriented ones. The objective of this article is, therefore, to reconstruct Alejandro's mental map. The questions just posed can be specified as follows. How did Alexander see his world through the eyes of a Macedonian warrior and a Greek peasant - here there is no essential difference between them - or through those of a Greek intellectual? How did this worldview affect his plans and actions? Did he subsequently establish references to this worldview and modify them accordingly? And above all: in this context, what was the meaning of his progress to the end of the world? Perhaps there are some for whom these questions go too far. In fact, however, there is a lot of material that will help find the answers. Even Alexander's contemporaries, especially his closest companions and confidants, wondered about his motives and intentions. Some of his observations and reflections have come down to us in our constantly later sources as part of the complex tradition of the king. Also in modern academic research special attention is paid to such problems. Also, not least through Alexander's own campaign reports, we have a wealth of information on geographic conditions and perceptions. Therefore, trying to see the world through Alexander's eyes is not necessarily doomed to failure. The questions raised here can focus precisely on the point already mentioned, namely, on education or intellectual education. To

The "Revolution" of Alexander the Great

Alexander, that means asking whether in the course of your education and training you became familiar with the geometric-cartographic worldview just outlined. This question can hardly be answered directly, since the reports on Alexander's youth and upbringing are particularly embellished. Many elements and aspects were later projected even back to the early period. These later additions certainly include the tradition that Alexander was interested in the geography of the Persian Empire from an early age (Plut., Alex. 5:1ff.). The nice story of Alexander's conversation with his geometry teacher Menaechmus (Stob., Flor. 4.205 no. 115) is also quite suspect in terms of his approach. When Alexander asked about the exact subject of geometry, the teacher replied that there have been two paths elsewhere, including a faster one for kings (the "royal path"), except in geometry where there is only one. On the one hand, this gives the strong impression that the difference between the young, practically oriented and hasty ruler and the highly intellectual scholar was particularly emphasized here, as was certainly the case with Alexander (one might think of the Gordian knot ). On the other hand, it is possible that this emphasis conceals a kernel of historical truth, namely the fact that Alexander had a mathematics teacher. And this teacher, Menaechmus, was after all a student of Eudox of Cnidus and a friend of Plato, who was later accused of being too specific. This is not implausible per se, so we can certainly accept Alexander's geometry lessons as fact. But we do not trust such speculation at all. Because there is no doubt that Alexander's intellectual formation corresponded or resembled the curriculum of an upper-class Greek. Familiarity with Homer's epics was traditionally of great importance. It is certainly attested that Alexander was greatly influenced by the study and knowledge of Homer, particularly the Iliad. It should even be seen as a key to understanding his personality. However, Homer was the teacher of the Greeks in almost all matters of life: Plato directly states that he "educated Greece" (Resp. 10.606e). He later he was considered the founder of geography and one of the most important representatives of this "discipline". His works have been used in geography classes, at least as far as mainland Greece is concerned. The ship catalog of the second book of the Iliad provided a clear and easy-to-remember orientation with its linear arrangement of Greek cities and tribes according to the voyage scheme. The truth is that the Macedonian child was the first to perceive and imagine the world of the Greeks in this way, always very much based on the elemental hodological point of view.

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We can get more information if we consider that Alexander's intellectual education was entrusted to the philosopher Aristotle at a particularly formative period of his life, namely from the age of fourteen to seventeen. This constellation of teachers and students inspired many partnerships. As a very attractive theme - the great man of intellect brought up the great man of action - it was already embellished in an almost legendary story in antiquity; he invented letters and advice, illustrated it, and "documented" it. Recent research has also indulged in speculation at times. Any attempt to reconstruct what Alexander learned from his teacher must keep in mind the aim of the lesson (i.e., the philosopher's "educational mission") and focus on those aspects that can reasonably be expected to be Subjects of the Greek elite. We are talking about the education of a future king and the Macedonian aristocrats who would become the functional elite of a new and powerful Macedonia; and all these were to be fashioned in the refined Greek manner. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that Aristotle introduced the prince into the deeper depths of his logic and metaphysics (however highly developed they were at the time). This did not correspond either to the objective of the lesson or to the age of his student. But it is well documented and it is plausible that they read the Homeric epics and other pieces of Greek literature. Given the intensity of Alexander's references to Xerxes' campaign during his time in Asia (Instinsky 1949), one cannot avoid the conclusion that Alexander was aware of the work of Herodotus. If so, then he was already familiar with the contours of the geometric worldview, albeit with a skeptical attitude towards cartography. Because both characterize the stories of Herodotus. By the way, the assumption can be justified that Aristotle's instruction of Alexander also included geographical issues and that maps of the earth played a role: in one of his works, which was particularly devoted to the practical horizon of life, namely, in the Rhetorica (1.4. 1360a 33-35), Aristotle stresses the usefulness of "maps of the earth" (by the way, he uses here the same word that is offered by this passage of clouds mentioned above and which is also used here). used elsewhere in this sense, ges periods).6 It is about legislation, a fundamental part of political action, to which Aristotle also paid special attention. That might well fit into the educational mission. To justify this utility, Aristotle affirms that it was possible to know 6 of the tribes. For the meaning, see, p. Romm 1992, 28: "It means 'representation of the circumference of the earth' in a pictorial or verbal sense or perhaps both at the same time." It should be noted that here too the connection to the road (hodos) still exists

The "Revolution" of Alexander the Great

customs in this way. This in turn shows that the maps of the earth were always accompanied by a text, something like an explanatory key, as we must also assume for the work of the mentioned founder of this genre, Hekataios. But most of the time the card was there too. We need not assume that Aristotle had with him in Macedonia those maps which later became part of the equipment of his Peripatos, his school in Athens (Diog. Laert. 5:51). It is easy to imagine that the teacher drew the relatively clear geometric figures and lines of the maps in the sand to illustrate his teaching, as is commonly practiced in geometry. We have a basic idea from these sketches, because Aristotle's worldview closely corresponded to the worldview of the Greek intellectuals briefly described above. In any case, this can be assumed in view of his breeding methods. Furthermore, his works also tell us the same thing. Although he did not devote his own essay directly to geography or cartography, he did deal with objects that were also of fundamental importance to geography. Particularly important in this context are his works Über den Himmel und Meteorologie (Meteorology), which deal with phenomena in the astronomical and sublunary areas.7 Astronomy, as discussed in his work on the sky, and geography were already closely linked and correlated in Greek geography. In addition, the Meteorology deals with important geographical issues, with the climate and time, with the peculiarities of the different continents and earthquakes. To these works might be added a book on the rising of the Nile, attributed to Aristotle, of which an extract exists in Latin.8 These works clearly show that Aristotle was familiar with geographical literature, including accounts of land investigations such as that of scylax. already mentioned. Even Aristotle mentions it explicitly in his work on politics (Pol. 7.14.1332b 24). Above all, the geometric-cartographic character of his worldview is evident in the aforementioned works. Although this is probably coincidental, it is interesting that this is particularly evident in two passages that are also of particular importance to Alexander.

7 For this work, see Flashar 2013, 266–296. 8 F 248 2 Rose (= FGrHist 646 F 1) and see now also the new edition of Bonneau 1971. According to Jacobi and Luppe 2000, the Aristotelian wording is contained in POxy. 4458, while Fowler 2000 sees in it a text by Poseidonius which, possibly only indirectly, through Eratosthenes, refers to a book attributed to Aristotle on the flooding of the Nile. While the work is not Aristotelian, it is nonetheless closely chronologically and thematically related. In addition to this discussion in P. Cappelletto on FGrHist V 2032 A 14. 16 (http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entrys/fragmente-der-greek-historians-v/nikagoras-von-kypros-2032-a2032).

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In the work on the rise of the Nile, an absolutely classic problem of ancient geography, Aristotle (or the author of the book, very close to him thematically and temporally) examines older explanations. One of them claims that the Nile flowed from the “Red Sea” (which is not necessarily the same as “our” Red Sea, since in ancient times it was long identified with or confused with the Persian Gulf or the western part of the Nile. Indian Ocean), considering that it is the continuation of Indian rivers inhabited by crocodiles. In this regard, the author points out that it was not clear whether or not the aforementioned Red Sea was connected to the surrounding great sea (ie, the Ocean). Of course, if the Nile was the continuation of one of the Indian rivers, or more precisely the Indus, the Red Sea had to be an inland sea. The question remains explicitly open at this point (nullum enim audivimus dignum fide nondum de rubro mari, utrum ipsum per se ipsum est aut coniungitur ad id quod extra Eracleas columns). to the sea outside the pillars, but only by a little (kata mikron), while the Hyrcanian and Caspian seas were separated from it (Mete. 2.1.354a 1ff.). All of this is based on the classical worldview of Greek scholars. He knows the "Inner" Sea, that is, the sea within the Pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar), that is, the Mediterranean Sea, and the "Great" or "Outer Sea", the Oceanus or Ocean that surrounds the world inhabited. He entered these in the form of slits and was in turn connected to the "Inland Sea" by the Pillars of Hercules. The inlets just mentioned, like the aforementioned "Red Sea" or the Caspian Sea, have been the subject of lively debate precisely because it was unclear whether they were actually connected to Oceanus or not. How schematic and constructed this worldview was is made clear elsewhere in Meteorologica. It is the theory that the most important rivers originate in the most important mountain ranges (1,350a 15ff.). In Asia, most of the largest rivers are said to have flowed from Mount Parnassus, which was agreed to be the largest mountain range in the north-eastern direction. This mountain range, which is referred to here -almost folk etymologically- with a common name in Greece, is Paropamisos (today Hindu Kush). Crossing this mountain range, Aristotle continues, the "Outer Sea" can be seen. This observation is very revealing of the character of this world view. It's obvious that this idea came from the desk, so to speak. It was based on the perspective that we have just described, according to which it was assumed that, behind the Hindu Kush with more bibliography).

The "Revolution" of Alexander the Great

the world was about to end, and therefore the oceanus had to be located there. Therefore, consequently, it had to be visible from the nearest peak at a certain altitude. Based on what has been said, we can assume that Aristotle in Macedonia taught his students, among other things, the geographical content and also drew it in pictures. This gave them an overview of the whole world and its seas in clear, memorable and at the same time suggestive images. It is doubtful that this image was particularly concrete or accurate, since this schematic, rectilinear perspective of the entire earth was not made that way. Exactly the things we associate with maps, accuracy and a concrete sense of space just weren't the point. Rather, the focus was on intellectual-mathematical clarity and philosophical order. It was used here in the sense of the Greek payeia, to convey understanding and knowledge of the world, some of which, as we have seen, also had a practical use. For these same reasons, we must not assume that the master presented the land to his great disciple in order to develop a program for his actual subjugation. This would be anachronistic in two ways. On the one hand, it would imply modern ways of thinking, for which the idea that practical action must be based on theoretical and scientific knowledge is widespread. In ancient times, however, this field was not related to such instructions and action plans, if only because of the wide gap between theory and practice. On the other hand, this would not have fit into the political context of those years when King Philip, Alexander's father and Aristotle's "client", was still fighting for supremacy in Greece. The quest for world domination was certainly beyond his imagination. Only in hindsight does this seem conceivable. However, the testimonies of contemporaries show that Alexander's campaign was initially considered absolutely unthinkable. However, Alexander had in mind the world as a whole and in the sense just outlined, taught roughly and schematically by Aristotle. And this would be demonstrated during the campaign itself (which, by the way, confirms the previous thought). Then it also became significant to Alexander's actions in a concrete sense. In addition to these didactic and content-related aspects, something else was important to the prince's education in those formative years, namely motivation and incentive itself. Whenever we look for the reasons for his behavior in our reports of Alexander's deeds, certain passages that always come up suggest that he was possessed by pothos (literally: longing) to do this or that. Usually this means concrete explorations at the frontiers of the known world and the imitation or overcoming of heroic deeds. Since this word is used by close interlocutors and companions of Alexander, such as

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like the Cretan Nearchus, Victor Ehrenberg (1965) came to the entirely plausible conclusion that Alexander himself used this formulation. Fritz Schachermeyr (1973) later referred to the same wording in this regard in the hymn that Aristotle composed to his friend Hermias, executed by the Persians, at the time when he was teaching Alexander. The word pothos in this hymn refers to a very elemental orientation towards glory, achieved through extraordinary deeds, namely areté (virtue), and is associated with great mythical heroes such as Heracles. So, did Aristotle encourage in his student not only the drive for great deeds, but also the ambition to reach the ends of the earth? Did the king himself use the term pothos to describe this desire? So both the drive for Herculean feats and the quest to the ends of the earth arose from an “emotional desire to conquer and explore the unknown world”?10 Some may entertain this speculation. But it can hardly be considered incredible that the philosopher, all too familiar with the human drive to "seek knowledge,"11 endowed his regal pupil with a great thirst for science and instilled in him not only knowledge but also a curiosity about science. literally, a thirst for knowledge. To further solve this problem, the following effective method is offered: we can examine Alexander's actions ourselves to draw conclusions about his motives and his background. Because his own actions are quite revealing. Through various ritual actions, Alexander has already charged the actual beginning of his campaign against the great Persian king, namely the crossing from Europe to Asia at the Hellespont, with a symbolic meaning: the first among the Greeks to fall during the Trojan battle. During the voyage he offered Poseidon a libation poured from a golden bowl; Similarly and at a similar location nearly 150 years ago, the Persian Great King Xerxes worshiped the sun god from the center of his specially built bridge on his ship's voyage from Asia to Europe. This clue was easy, since revenge for the destruction of the sanctuaries in connection with Xerxes' campaign was an official motive for Alexander's aggression. But the memory of the Trojan War goes further. In this way, the present campaign was evidently linked to a chain of long conflicts, from a perspective found in Herodotus. It was understood as 10 Ehrenberg 1965, 494. 11 See Arist., Metaph. 1.1.980a 21. 12 Also, importantly, Instinsky 1949.

The "Revolution" of Alexander the Great

Part of a universal dispute between Hellenes and barbarians, geographically located in Europe and Asia. It can be assumed that Alexander was based on a corresponding worldview, namely the "classical" division of Europe and Asia, whose border at this point was the Hellespont, which - though still rather crudely - the flat two-dimensional view of the Oikoumene . At the same time, the polarity of Europe and Asia and its relationship to the universal conflict could also refer to the idea of world domination. Hans Ulrich Instinsky (1949, 62ff.) came to this conclusion. A speech by Alexander makes clear how closely the perception of the world is related to the idea of conquering it and how this is related to his orientation towards fame and achievement. According to tradition, he made this speech before his officials at Hyphasis, on the eastern border of the Punjab, to persuade them to go east to the ends of the earth.13 Of course, the exact words are hardly authentic, but and it is hardly true. It is conceivable that Alexander gave geography lessons to his followers. Much is anticipated and therefore anachronistic in the situation described. Furthermore, the statements about the Caspian Sea suggest a certainty that Alexander evidently did not possess. However, the words put into his mouth find confirmation in many of his actions and plans (as we will see later). The text thus offers an accurate interpretation of his ideas and certainly relies to its core on information from people who, like Nearchus or Ptolemy, communicated with him on these matters. Particularly characteristic and in line with the aforementioned Pothos connotation is the connection between the performative orientation, the connection with myth and the idea of geographical borders. Alexander begins with a summary of what has been achieved (25.3ff.), followed by - framed by comments on "noble deeds" (kala erga, 26.1) leading to a comfortable life in "virtue" (arete) and "glory." immortal". lead (kleos athanaton) and with which Heracles has already been bested (26.4ff.) – a geographical vision of world domination: “But whoever wants to hear what will be the limit of the real fight must understand that there is no one great expanse of land before us to the river Ganges and the eastern sea. This sea, I assure you, will be connected with the Hyrcanian Sea; for the great sea surrounds the whole earth. And it will be my job to show the Macedonians and allies alike that the Indian Gulf forms only a body of water with the Persian Gulf, and the Hyrcanian Sea with the Indian Gulf. From the Persian Gulf our fleet sails towards Libya to the Pillars of Heracles; of the pillars the entire interior 13 Arr., Anab. 5.25.3-26.8; see short. 9.2.12ff.

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from Libya then becomes ours; as indeed Asia in its entirety becomes ours” (Arr., Anab. 5.26.1–2, translated by P.A. Brunt 1983). The basic problem with the world view shown here was its vagueness and the enormous lack of knowledge. The abstract, manageable and orderly character of the general picture was in stark contrast to the much more complex and literally unmanageable reality. The traditional gap between the theoretical and practical sense of space appears here, albeit in a different way. However, Alexander, who planned and carried out a military operation, relied particularly on realistic statements and the most accurate ideas possible. And it was precisely at this point that a very characteristic combination of theory and practice was achieved, which managed to partly overcome the aforementioned hiatus, that is, at least to relativize it. Because Alexander reviewed and inspected the map over and over again in his mind, quite significantly, sources regularly use the semantic field elenchos in this context, which is also used to describe the reasonable examination of theses and points of view, for example in Socratic philosophy. In other words, Alejandro constantly compared his worldview with reality, at least in the broad strokes that his own worldview provided. The thirst for knowledge and the longing for frontiers were complemented by the planned and concrete exploration of geographical conditions. There was an extremely practical side to this world tour that was planned from the very beginning of the campaign. A group of "pedometers" (bematistai) belonged to Alexander's staff. They recorded the distance traveled in a very concrete way, that is, in the hodological and very practical sense and for practical purposes. The data of these bematists, some of whom, like Baeton and Diognet, turned their findings into geography books,14 were of great importance for later geography and, therefore, formed part of the scientific study of the earth carried out also by the great scholar Eratosthenes. 15 Strabo also highlighted the great role played by Alexander in relation to the knowledge of the Punjab (15.1.26). On the other hand, the two-dimensional vision of the world simplified concrete action. Realizing the need to cross the rivers of the Punjab, which he envisioned as forming right angles to his line of march, he decided to cross them further north, and therefore closer to their sources, where this was easier to achieve (ibid.). .). . The exact subject of the investigations can be derived very clearly from the information provided by Nearchus regarding his tasks during the crossing from the Indus estuary to the Persian Gulf, namely, his instruction with the following 14 FGrHist 119-120 . 15 Cf. Strab. 11.8.8; 15.2.8; Plin., HN 6.45 and see #1 above.

The "Revolution" of Alexander the Great

Mission. He had to "find out the area of the sea, as well as the inhabitants, the anchorages, water sources and the customs of the people, and whether or not the area was apt to bear fruit." process of comparison, the geometric, two-dimensional vision of the entire world is joined to his concrete investigation, which is subject to military and political concerns, thus turning the conquest of the world into an exploration of the world and vice versa. Referring to other Alexander researchers, Victor Ehrenberg has strongly emphasized this aspect in the context of his remarks on the term pothos: "It is probably true to say that it is in the nature of genius that his irrational powers are governed by the highest degree of reason and intellectual Clarity, and that they are vigorously translated into reality. We cannot doubt that this was the case with Alexander" (1965, 500). These relationships can be clearly identified in various areas and locations, and above all in geographically neuralgic points. With Based on the worldview offered in Hyphasis's speech mentioned above, let's start with the northern part of the world, the Caspian Sea region.There were the Tanais (Don) and Iaxartes (Syr-Darya) rivers, often referred to as refers to or is confused with the name Araxes (Aras in Armenian or Amu-Darya).Two problems related to geography arose here.On the one hand, there was the question of whether e he Caspian Sea emptied into the Outer Sea or was it an inland sea. On the other hand, if the latter were the case, the question arose as to whether this Caspian Sea could in turn be identified or associated with the Black Sea or the Sea of Azov (the Maeotis) (the Aral Sea was in any case not identified as such or associated with them) equated with the Caspian Sea).17 This was also not trivial in a strategic sense. Because in the latter case the identification of Iaxartes and Tanais was offered, that is, Syr-Darya and Don. In this case, one would have to assume a fluvial connection from Central Asia to the Black Sea area, which offers an extremely convenient means of communication. Herodotus already knew, and therefore Alexander, that the Caspian Sea was an inland lake bordering the Caucasus to the west and a vast plain inhabited and controlled by the Massagetae to the east and south.18 Alexander had (or would have had) you can learn the same from Aristotle, and also that the "Araxes", in this case probably the Iaxartes 16 Arr., Anab. 7.20.10 = FGrHist 133 F 28. 17 Diode. sic 17.73.3; street 11.7.4; Little. 6.4.18 and following; 7.3.19-21; Plin., Hn 6, 36-40; Pluto, Alex. 44.1 and following; Arr., Anab. 5.25.4-26.2. 18 hours 1.202.4-203.2.

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(Syr-Darya), has its source in the Hindu Kush, and that the Tanais, which originally belonged to it, broke away and flowed into the Sea of Azov.19 Alexander obviously felt that this supposition was confirmed when, among other things, he arrived to the Caspian Sea, observations showed it to be fresh water.20 Of course, he was puzzled by the differing opinions of scholars21 who claimed that it was a bay of Oceanus. This idea seems to have held sway for some time, perhaps due to the realization that the Indus was not the headwaters of the Nile either (see below).22 In general, however, this question remained unclear, as can be seen from the speech just mentioned, dealing with the situation of Tanais (ibid. 25:5). What matters, however, is how Alexander ultimately reacted. In the spring of 323, during the preparations for the expedition to Arabia, he sent an expedition led by a certain Heraclides to explore the Caspian Sea (Arr., Anab. 7.16.1–4). "For the longing seized him to know what other sea joins this sea, which is called both the Caspian and the Hyrcanian, whether it joins the Euxinus, or whether the Great Sea joins on the east side towards India poured into a gulf that Hyrcanian, just as discovered the Persian Sea, or to use its proper name, the Red Sea, only as a gulf of the ocean" (Arr., Anab. 7.16.2, translated by P.A. Brunt 1983) . At this point it becomes particularly clear how great Alexander's geographical curiosity was and that he, unlike salon scholars, verified, extended and justified his world view through specific investigations, also in an eminently practical sense. Because the connection to concrete issues of the world's military and political development and thus ultimately its domination becomes apparent from comparable constellations. It becomes particularly clear where there was an equally important geographical problem, which was analogous to the question of the connections between the Caspian Sea, Tanais and Iaxartes. A similar question arose in the southern part of the world. Was it the "Red Sea" or the "Persian Gulf", both of which, as we have already seen, were mostly (at least partially) identified at first - an inland lake or was it connected to the ocean? And so, was the Indus possibly identical to the Nile as its headwaters? We have seen that in his Meteorologica Aristotle tends to think that the Red Sea is connected with the ocean, while in the work attributed to him on the flooding of the Nile the question remains a non liquet. In any case, the opinion about the identity of the Nile and the Indus was common in Alexander's time; It is also 19 meters. 1.13.350a 18ff.; 2.1.354a 1ff. 20 short. 6.4.18 and following; Pluto, Alex. 44.1 and following; see Strab. 11.7.4. 21 In Pluto. loc.cit. They are called physical andres. 22 Cf. the speech in Arr., Anab. 5.26.1ff.

The "Revolution" of Alexander the Great

he may already be behind a mention of "barbarian" peoples in Aeschylus's The Supplicants.23 In any case, Alexander seems to have had similar experiences, based on his own observations, and how important these had already been with regard to geographic location. . problems, his teacher emphasized above all in connection with the flooding of the Nile (F 246 Rose)-in the Indus and in the Caspian Sea. He found strong evidence for a particular geographic sight, namely crocodiles on the Indus itself and a particular species of bean, which he identified with the Egyptian bean, on Akesines, a tributary of the Indus. Thus arose the rather practical idea of returning from the East by ship. For this reason, Alexander ordered the construction of a fleet on the Hydaspes, where he had defeated Poro and founded two cities. Filled with pride for discovering the sources of the Nile, Alexander wanted to tell his mother Olympia about him. But this discoverer was not too naive. He also had to plan carefully and ask more questions to reconcile his big picture with concrete observations and information. The result was that the Indus emptied into the "Great Sea" with two arms. By the way, it is said that this is why he deleted the comments to his mother in the letter she sent him. he descended the Indus and his troops were abandoned and began to descend the tributaries25. It was now possible to reach the borders of the Oikoumene, at least in this direction, and here to complete the conquest of the world and its exploration. How much this thought troubled Alexander is shown by his behavior at the mouth of the Indus. At Patala, where the Indus divides into its two estuaries, he ordered the construction of a port station and shipyards, and then proceeded to navigate the western branch of the river towards the sea, despite all the difficulties involved. At the mouth of the river and immediately in front of it were two islands where Alexander sacrificed according to the instructions he received from the oracle of Amun at the Siwa oasis. 23 279–288, on this now Bianchetti 2009b, 119ff. 24 So after Arr., Anab. 6.1.1-6; see also diode. sic 17.89.5; street 01/15/32; Little. 8.9.9; 9.1.3. 25 See Beloch 1925, 29 note 1. In general, the sacrifices of November 326 in the Hydaspes must also be taken into account, see Arr., Ind. 18.11 and especially Anab. 6.3.1ff., where the geographical aspect becomes very clear. 26 diodes. sic 17.104.1; Little. 7.9.9; Pluto, Alex. 66.1 and following; Arr., Anab. 6.18ff.; Ind. 20.10; just epithet. 12.10.4.

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But that was not all, for he went out into the open sea "to have sailed the ocean out of India," as his companion Nearchus, who was nearby, suspected.27 He wanted to gain accurate knowledge, and he also saw this as a glorious fact. this scan. It is significant that here in the ocean, at the edge of the world, he sacrificed with a golden bowl to the same god, Poseidon, just as he did when crossing into Asia at the start of the Hellespont campaign, except this time he even carried the bowl thrown into the sea. This marked the beginning and ultimately the end of the expedition both in terms of time and place, and at the same time the borders of Asia, Europe and the world. He followed the retreat into the heart of the Persian Empire and the Eastern Empires, to Susa and Babylon. At the same time, an investigation was carried out. If the Indus were not the Nile and therefore obviously the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea were part of the Ocean, as one might learn from Scylax' Voyages and Aristotle's Meteorologica, then one might look for a return voyage on this route. and extend it. this time also existing knowledge by comparing global ideas and concrete research. In this sense, this return research voyage was the logical continuation of the Indus voyage and the advance towards the open sea. At the same time, it was part of a larger world exploration, as indicated in Hyphasis's speech mentioned above and as made visible in subsequent intentions and plans (see below). It is precisely at this point that Nearchus, who must have known better as he was the head of the reconnaissance fleet and would probably be entrusted with the king's plans, speaks of pothos: "Alexander had a longing to sail out to sea and its environs from India to Persia". . However, given the magnitude of the task and the difficulties, he hesitated. "However, his constant desire to do something new and extraordinary (kainon ti aiei kai atopon ergazesthai) won the day" (Arr., Ind. 20.1-2, translated by P.A. Brunt 1983). Characteristically, this elemental urge to discover and conquer was combined with deeply realistic instructions for concrete exploration, which was important to imperial administration, internal communication, and economic development. We have seen above that Nearchus himself, more severe than Alexander, emphasized this as his task, namely, investigations of the inhabitants and of the conditions connected with navigation and agriculture.28

27 Arr., Anab. 6.19.5. 28 Arr., Anab. 7.20.10 = Cerca. FGrHist 133F28.

The "Revolution" of Alexander the Great

Nearchus's voyage brought much information, though rather disappointing as to the practical purpose of coastal navigation. He barely survived, the discoverers could only report a really unfavorable region. In this respect it was second only to the Gedrosia desert, where Alexander had suffered immense losses while "exploring" a daring land route from India to Persia. However, the fleet's voyage brought more information about the Strait of Hormuz and the narrow entrance to the Persian Gulf, which suddenly revealed the rich and legendary Arabia. That this particularly appealed to Alexander is a foregone conclusion, but there is plenty of evidence for this as well; and again pothos is mentioned (Arr., Anab. 7.1.1) or, with the negative overtone of the immoderation contained in it, "restlessness" (polypragmosyne).29 If it is said in this context that his "desire" From traveling up the Euphrates and Tigris to the sea, as in the case of the Indus (Arr. loc.cit.), the characteristic mix of discovery and conquest, as well as practical and specific research and illustration, is also appreciated here. The very specific and carefully planned intention was to conquer or control the Arabian Peninsula. The king was no doubt stimulated by information about the country's religion, customs, and legendary riches (Arr., Anab. 7.20.1ff.), as well as the curiosity of a discoverer just mentioned. In addition, each Babylonian ruler was traditionally tasked with dealing with the tribes of the Arabian peninsula, as Peter Högemann eventually discovered.30 Alexander combined all these aspects into a large-scale and careful planning project, also geographical. In addition to the predominantly military preparations, several reconnaissance trips were planned to obtain information on the coastal contours of this largely unknown peninsula. Here, too, a juxtaposition and concretization of what was schematically and vaguely presented as a mental map was intended. Alexander knew that to the west of Arabia was another whole continent: Africa, or Libya, as it was called. Egypt, which he had already ruled and initially represented the other end of his empire, was also there. The three expeditions led by Archias, Androsthenes, and Hiero did not go as far as expected.31 However, Arrian claims that Alexander himself, as the discoverer, got to know the others in the meantime.

29 Arr., Ind. 43.10; see Anab. 7.1.6 and Strab in general. 16.1.11 = Aristotle. FGrH is 139 F 56; Little. 1/10/17-19; Pluto, Alex. 68.1 and following; Arr., Anab. 7.1.1-6; Ind. 43.8-10. 30 Högemann 1985, especially 62 et seq., 120 et seq. 31 Arr., Anab. 7.19.6-20.10; Ind. 43.8-10.

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their conquest, emphasizing this explicitly and with reference to the scientific outlook of this military Elenchus (Ind. 43.10). But the big business around Arabia shouldn't be the end either. That the stakes were higher, after all the exploration of the world in preparation for its conquest, is shown by the aforementioned expedition to explore the Caspian Sea, undertaken at the same time as the Arabian campaign. This is enough to show that what is said in various places in connection with the voyages in the Persian Gulf is plausible.32 Due to Alexander's early death immediately before his planned departure for Arabia, this can only be speculative to be discussed. about his final plans. In the north, as the expedition of Heraclides in the Caspian Sea shows, a demarcation of the borders of the empire at the ends of the earth was planned after removing the uncertainties. In this way, a specific problem of the Persian Empire, namely the confrontation with the nomadic horsemen in this region, could be addressed at the same time as in the case of Arabia. The south could also be brought under control, first geographically by circumnavigating Africa, then in a concrete military-political sense by encircling the great power Carthage from the west. For there was no doubt that after a successful conquest of Arabia, the king's restless eyes would turn to other areas and frontiers of the world. And it goes without saying that this glimpse of the Scythians and Carthage, which had long been on the Greek horizon, would come as a threat, not least. The only question was where his first step would take him. On this question we cannot say much more than Arrianus, who ended a similar discussion of Alexander's possible objectives by saying: "I for one cannot say with certainty what sort of plans Alexander had in mind, and it is not the Purpose that I can say". just speculate, but one thing I think I can say, that none of Alexander's plans was small and insignificant, and that no matter what he had already conquered, he would not have calmly stopped doing it, even if he had had Europe to add Asia and the British Isles to Europe, but he would always have looked far beyond for something unknown, in competition with himself, if no other rival were to default” (Anab. 7.1.4, translated by P.A. Brunt 1983). This interpretation, which was already widespread in antiquity, as a paraphrase of his inexhaustible thirst for research, his pothos - Curtius says in the same context that Alexander "embraced the infinite in his spirit" (animo infinita complexus, 10.1.17). - practically applies to the Good brand. However, it needs to be complemented and modified by an emphasis on rationality and planning. In this 32 Curt. 1/10/17-19; Pluto, Alex. 68.1 and following; Arr., Anab. 5.26.1 and following; 7.1.2.

The "Revolution" of Alexander the Great

Thus, an Alexander becomes visible who is unequivocally inscribed in the tradition of oriental royalty, in which the exploration of the world merges with the idea of governing it. One thinks above all of the aforementioned trip of Scylax under Darius I, but also of the expeditions of Pharaoh Neco and the great king Xerxes to explore Africa (Hdt. 4.42ff.). However, Alexander is not simply an imitation. He has achieved it in his own way and has repeatedly and decisively strengthened it through his elemental impulses of discovery and conquest to the ends of the world. By exploring it, he conquered it, and the conquest was the concrete exploration. Alexander had not fundamentally changed the Greek view of the world. He was mentally focused on the whole. But after his campaigns, infinitely more was learned about many details. Many of those charged with exploring and studying the world presented their findings in various treatises. Alexander's official records could be used as a source. Participants in the actions, historians and biographers recounted the events from his perspective. There was a lot of stuff. Entire generations of geographers have had enough of working on them. A very prominent person in this profession, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, used the many details already in the 3rd century to give the Oikoumene a new shape and, in particular, to base the idea of Asia on solid long-term research. The combination of theory and practice achieved by Alexander, which was completely new within Greek geography, also revolutionized the theoretical view of the world in this way.

CHAPTER 6

Geographical Description and Historical Narrative in the Alexander Expedition Tradition Veronica Bucciantini Alexander the Great's Asiatic Expedition not only updated geographic knowledge going back at least to Aristotle, but also created the result of a veritable "revolution" in the layout of the world, on its new frontiers seized and conquered.1 We can reconstruct this “revolution” largely thanks to the fragments of the first generation of Alexander historians, who were at the same time the king's hetairoi, and tried to explain the new prospect geographic on the basis of knowledge of the existing world, the explanation of the unknown through the known. The essay will not repeat here the theoretical approach of Alejandro's historians, but it will highlight some of those geographical descriptions that offer a privileged vantage point through which the historical events experienced by the protagonists can also be understood. Through geography it is possible to better understand the accounts of what really happened and probably the different goals behind the stories told by those who joined Alexander's great effort. Unfortunately, only a few fragments2 of this rich production survive, through a selection that, on the one hand, limits our knowledge but, on the other, allows us to better capture the peculiarities of different works, since these fragments show us what was taken into account, in antiquity, the most important and most peculiar passages of the work to which they belong. I will consider here some fragments from Nearchus of Crete (FGrHist 133), Onesicritus of Astypalaea (FGrHist 134), Ptolemy son of Lagus (FGrHist 138) and Aristobulus of Cassandreia (FGrHist 139) related to Indian hydrography and are important for several reasons. First, because attention to hydrography, obviously, is a common element of the works examined.

1 Gehrke 2009, 25-31; Gehrke 2011, 52–65; Gehrke en este libro. 2 Zambrini 2007, 210-220.

Geographical description and historical narrative

Importance of rivers, which serve as major pathways and waterways for trade, as well as natural boundaries and privileged places for offerings.3 Indian hydrography in particular played a prominent role from November 326 BC, and then towards the mouth of the Indus. A second important reason is that rivers, together with mountains, were used by Eratosthenes to delimit the Sphragids,4 and received special attention within scientific geography that attempted to represent the Oikoumene geometrically (for example, Hipparchus5 argued against the description linear flow of rivers by Eratosthenes). From a passage in Arrian's Anabasis (6.14.4-5) it is seen how closely and carefully Alexander sought the knowledge of the Indian rivers: "When he had settled these matters." . . and he sailed a short distance on the Hydraotes; but where the Hydraotes joined the Acessines, as there the name of Acessines takes precedence over Hydraotes, he too sailed through the Acessines until he reached their rendezvous with the Indus. These four great navigable rivers pour into the Indus, although not all retain their original names; the Hydaspes flows into Acesines, and the mouth of all its stream takes the name of Acesines; then the Acesines meets the Hydraotes again and retains its own name, absorbing this tributary; then it absorbs the hypasis and retains its own name until it empties into the Indus; after this confluence it loses its name to the Indus.”6 The description is full of details, but differs from Megasthenes7's account that the Hydraotes enter the Killers after receiving the waters of the Hyphasis: so it does not flow directly into the hydraotes.8 See Figure 6.1. One might reasonably conclude that Arrian had turned to a source other than megaposition for this passage; a source, however, derived from the historians mentioned above. From this account it appears that Alexander and his entourage noted down and wrote down a great deal of information about India. 3 The sacrifices on the banks of the rivers are made by Nearco in the Indus (Arr., Ind. 21.2) and by Alexander on the banks of the Istros (Arr., Anab. 1.4.5), the Acesines (Arr., Anab. 5.29). 5), the Indus (Arr., Anab. 5.3.6; 5.8.2) and in open waters far from the mouth of the Indus (Arr., Ind. 20.10). See Bucciantini 2009. 4 F F III B, 6–12 Berger. For the divisions on Eratosthenes' map, see Prontera 1996a, 41–45; Prontera 1997, 50-54. 5 See FF 19–22 Pollas. 6 Trans. Brunt 1983. 7 FGrHist 715 F9a = Arr., Ind. 4.8. 8 Ptolemy has a different hydrographic view: see Geog. 7.1.27. For the Megasthenes passage problem see Tomaschek 1862, 1896; Kiessling 1914, 230-236; Kartunen 1989, 117.

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FIGURE 6.1 Map illustrating Alexander's campaigns in India (Bunbury 1879).

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This information, which marked a milestone in later lore, was the result of autopsy investigations and data collected from Native Americans. References to local informants and Indian members of Alexander's army are given by Arrian9, who estimates that among his 120,000 men at the start of Alexander's expedition were a large number of Indian auxiliaries with extensive knowledge of the country10. the geographical element in the works of the first generation of Alexander historians, I will therefore begin with Nearchus of Crete11, designated by Alexander 'Navarch' on the banks of the Hydaspes and in September 325 BC the mouth of the Indus at Susa, where he spent the spring of 324 B.C. Chr. arrived after an adventurous coastal voyage. At the end of his expedition, Nearchus wrote a travelogue that is preserved in the royal archives of Babylon: we know this from the second part of Arrian's Indiké (17:6-42:10).12 Among Nearchus's fragments, the comparison between the Nile and Indus is of particular importance: the Navarca explains13 that the currents of the Acesines River were, in Alexander's opinion, the sources of the Nile for the presence of crocodiles and the so-called Egyptian bean; the king would not have changed his mind until he knew that the Indus emptied into the sea. Also relevant is a passage from Strabo14 where we read that Nearchus explained the longstanding issue of the Nile flooding by observing Indian rivers that overflow in summer due to rain. 9 District, Ind. 19.5. 10 See also Arr., Anab. 6.1.5-6; Pluto, Alex. 66.5; Little. 8.5.4. 11 On Nearchus, see Pearson 1960, 112–149; Schwek 1962, 4-97; Badian 1975, 147-170; Pedech 1984, 159-214; With 1988, 241-260; Bucciantini 2002; Albaladejo Vivero 2005, 97-130; Gadaleta 2008, 63-94; Bucciantini 2009b; Heckel 2006, 171-173; Whitby 2012; Bucciantini 2013; Leroy 2014, 41-55; Bucciantini (coming soon). 12 In this essay, Nearchus information on rivers and streams on the coasts of Pakistan and Iran (the mouth of the Arabis Ind. 22.8, the raging river Tomerus Ind. 24.1, the mouth of the Anamis Ind. 33.2, the raging river Areon Ind. 38.7, Sitacus River Ind. 38.8, Rapid River Padargus Ind. 39.2, River Granis Ind. 39.3, Rapid River Rogonis Ind. Pasitigris Ind 42.5). In fact, they are special pieces of information, useful for the precise description of the territory, but not particularly significant for the general structure of Nearchus's work. 13 Arr., Anab. 6.1.2-5. See Sisti-Zambrini 2004, 518-519. The idea that the Indus is the upper part of the Nile seems to be expressed in Aristotle's Liber De Inundatione Nili (6–7), where it is attributed to Artaxerxes: see Bosworth 1993b, 413–417; Schneider 2004, 27-29. 14 Strab. 15.1.25 = FGrHist 133 F 20. See Biffi 2005, 177–178.

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In fact, there were many aspects that could suggest an Indo-Nile identification for the Greeks: the fauna, the floods and not least the physical appearance of the Indians, who resembled Egyptian Hippocratic medicine,16 the similar climatic conditions and the similar environmental conditions. consequences and attributes to fauna in remote areas. It is a rational approach that looks for a useful explanation for e.g. for example, to unravel the mystery of the Nile, whose floods had hitherto not been satisfactorily explained.17 The Indian experience, in its breadth and specificity, seems to offer Nearchus some possibilities for explaining the Nile phenomenon: We are not surprised that the different descriptions of the Indus by Nearchus, Onesicritus, and Aristobulus18 focus on the delta of the great river: "At Patalene, it is said, one comes at once to the land of Musicanus." . . but lastly to Patalene, a country formed by the Indus, which branches into two estuaries. Now Aristobulus says that these mouths are a thousand stades apart, but Nearchus adds eight hundred; and Onesikrit estimates each of the two sides of the enclosed island, which is triangular in shape, at two thousand, and the breadth of the river, where it branches into the estuaries, at about two hundred; and he calls the island Delta and says that it is equal in size to the Delta of Egypt, a statement that is not true. Because the Egyptian delta is said to have a base of thirteen hundred stadia, although each of the two sides is shorter than the base. In Patalene there is a remarkable town, Patala, which gives its name to the island. Oriental), which retained the name Indus.

15th street 01/15/13; Arr., Ind. 6.9. See Dihle 1962a, 99-100; Schneider 2004, 88-112; 16 See Brown 1949, 96–98; Cartoons 1997, 121–128; Zambrini 1982, 109-114; Schneider 2004, 300-304; Biffi 2005, 161. On the influence of Hippocrates' On Air, Water and Places on Greek ethnography Jouanna 1996, 58–60. 17 Arr., Indiana 6:7-8; Bosworth 1993b, 418-424; Schneider 2004, 44-45; see Biffi 2000, 142-143. 18 FGrHist 133 F18 = FGrHist 134 F26 = FGrHist 139 F48 = Strab. 15.1.33. 19 Trans. Jones 1930. 20 For modern identifications of Patala (Tatta - Bahmanabad - Nasarpur - Hyderabad) see Kervran 1995, 283-286 and Biffi 2000, 118-1

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The comparison with the Nile delta shows the importance of the river in the description of Asia, since the Nile was a cornerstone in the description of Libya; but it also allows us to understand how the Alexander historian approached the "Indus" phenomenon, which p. The Indus, the ocean coast, the mouth of the Tigris and its final ascent - all these waters form a "waterline", so to speak, which is the backbone of the Nearch expedition and narrative. This account, of course, was not limited to maritime experiences, but when later commentators and scholars quoted and referred to Nearch's book, they found the passages on navigation to be a distinctive feature of his work. However, it is clear that Nearchus's book must have contained mentions of Alexander's Asian expedition21, as evidenced by fragments whose content focuses on various moments of the expedition and navigation through rivers and oceans. This lost work preserved facts prior22 to ocean navigation, and perhaps even contemporaneous:23 It was, in effect, a genuine history of Alexander, in which geographic and hydrographic information play a considerable role, not limited to the annotations made during the navigation. Nearchus's name was automatically linked to his periplous and this may have led ancient scholars to pay more attention to navigation, leaving very different information about Indian geography, but one that other Alexander historians have focused on. One can see the kind of choices made by tradition by comparing the Nearchus fragments with the fragments of the other Hetairoi historians learned from Anab. 6.13.4–5 (= FGrHist 133 F2) that Alexander was irritated by those who accused him of fighting at the head of his army and therefore risking his life, until a navigator pointed out that this was the suffering those would have to endure. who strive for great feats. Arrian also writes to Nearchus the detailed account of the suicide of the Indian Calanus (Anab. 7,3–6 = FGrHist 133 F4) and according to Strabo (Strab. 15,1,5–6 = FGrHist 133 F3) the same Admiral explains the motives. that prompted the king to undertake the return journey from India through the Gedrosia desert. 22 See the preparations and descent from the upper Indus to the mouth: Ind. 18–21.6; anab. 6.2.2-3; 6.4.1; 6.18.2-21.2. 23 See Arr., Anab. 6.24.2-25.6. See also Strasburger and Zambrini, who argue that Nearchus was the source of the account of the difficulties. For the problem of the genesis of Nearco's report and its possible literary processing after Alexander's death, see Bucciantini 2014.

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from Alexander: first Onesikrit24 of Astypalea, who joined Nearchus's expedition as helmsman of the royal ship in the Indian rivers party and then -with Nearchus- they went to Susa, where both were rewarded by the king with a gold crown.25 In The 39 Onesicritic Fragments contain geographical and hydrographic information: we learn from Strabo26 that Onesikrit spoke of an abundance of minerals in Carmania27 and mentioned a river with golden straws. We can see in one such passage a penchant for the fabulous, and herein lies the main difference between Onesikrit and Nearchus, who constantly corrected the traditional fictional view of the Orient, such as that of Ctesias of Cnidus.28 Onesikrit's claims about the golden river , apparently corroborated by a passage in Pliny29 about Hyctanis, a river in Carmania, are without precedent in Nearchus. This has led Brown30 to believe that Nearchus provided a description of Carmania without details. The scant remains do not allow for further comparison, but one might note that the Onesicrit fragments quoted by Strabo highlight a tendency toward the fabulous and grandiose found in the original Onesicrit work. Onesicritus is also responsible for information on the Indus floods without land winds and on the nature of the swampy coast of India, which at the mouths of the rivers was the result of alluvial deposits, tides and winds. The surviving fragments of the Astipaleo show the interest aroused by the great Indian river, the main route of the Macedonian conquest and also a central element in the geoclimatic configuration of India and in the Greek knowledge of the country. There are references to other great rivers: we know from another passage by Strabo31 that after Onesikrit the Tigris emptied into a swampy lagoon, while the Euphrates emptied into the same Tigris lagoon, then left and finally emptied into the sea.

24 Berve 1926, 288–290, note 583; Pearson 1960, 83-111; Strasbourg 1939, 460–467; Brown 1949; Pedech 1984, 71-157; Arora 2005, 35-102; Winiarczyk 2011, 73-102; Muller 2011, 45-66. 25 Arr., Anab. 7.5.5-6 = FGrHist 134 T6. 26 Strab. 2.15.14 = FGrHist 134 F 32 And Onesicritus says of a river in the Karman that it bears nuggets of gold; and of bronze there is metal, and silver, and copper, and milk; there are two mountains, one masculine, the other pure. 27 FGrHist 134 Comm. 479. 28 FGrHist 688. 29 Plin., HN 6.96–100 =FGrHist 134 F 28 30 Braun 1949, 119–120. 31 Strab. 15.3.5 = FGrHist 134 F 33.

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Nearchus, on the other hand, believed that both the Tigris and the Euphrates flowed into the same lagoon; This means that, apart from the complex topographical issues, the Onesikrit geographic information was similar, if not identical, to that discussed by Nearchus. Furthermore, other Astypaleian fragments confirm this analogy (FGrHist 134 F9–10–26–27), probably as a result of shared maritime experience. If, like Nearchus, Onesikritus also wrote a travelogue, which he probably did, we can safely assume that tradition, under the circumstances, eviscerated the information that marked a difference between the Astypalian and the Cretan egg narrative, creating not only different profiles, but also different peculiarities in the works of the two historians. The problem of the content and therefore of the genre of the work clearly arises in Onesikrit32, to whom Diogenes Laertius (6.84) attributes the education of Alexander. The Onesikrit fragments never seem to deal with a topic like Alexander's upbringing: Jacoby, followed by Lesky,33 surmised that How Alexander was educated was some kind of incipit that might correctly open the discussion of another topic, and then he was wrong. according to historiographical tradition for the title of a work. Ptolemy and Aristobulus of Cassandreia34 were also interested in hydrographic problems in their Alexander works: The latter joined the expedition to Asia as an architect or engineer (F9 and F51). We do not know either the title or the internal structure of his work, which was probably written in old age: a great variety of subjects and interests, such as geography, ethnography, toponymy, botany, and hydrography, seems to be a distinctive feature of this work. .

32 The supposed existence of a Onesikrit travel journal may also be a useful element in resolving the problem of dating his literary work, considered by some scholars to predate Nearchus' account. This idea is based on a passage from Anabasis (6.2.3), where Arrian accuses Onesicritus of lying in his work by defining himself as a non-pilot -as Nearchus defines him in a passage from Indiké (18.9)- but as Admiral of Alexander's Ship: The Navarca would have then redefined the role of Onesicritus a posteriori. See Pedech 1984, 164. Otherwise, the possible existence of two contemporary logbooks, one by Nearchus and one by Onesicritus, might eliminate the problem of Navarchus' knowledge of Onesicritus's self-definition. See Bucciantini (coming soon). 33 Cfr. FGrHist 134 Com. 468; Lesky 1962, 946 and 992, no. 185. 34 Berve 1926, 64–66, note 121; Pearson 1960, 150-187; Pedech 1984, 331–405; Heckel 2006, 46.

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A passage by Strabo35 about the Ochus and the Oxus, rivers of Hyrcania36 used as trade routes, mentions that for Aristobulus the Oxus was the largest river among those he had seen in Asia, apart from the Indian rivers: the information is also attributed to Eratosthenes, who probably received them from Alexander's historians.37 Strabo38, receiving the details from Aristobulus and Ptolemy -historians who are considered trustworthy- refers in this case to Aristobulus39 that a river of Sogdiana, called Polytimetus by the Macedonians, in the desert disappears, as happened to the river Arios, which crossed the land of the Arians: "Aristobulus names the river that runs through Sogdiana Politimeto, a name imposed by the Macedonians (as they name many other imposed places and gave new names to some and minor change in spelling of others' names); and watering the earth, it flows into the desert and sandy land and sinks into the sand, like the Arius that flows through the land of the Arians.”40 35 Strab. 11.7.3 = FGrHist 139 F20 Hyrcania is crossed by the Ochus and Oxus rivers up to their mouths in the sea; and these, the Ochus also flows through Nesaea, but some say that the Ochus empties into the Oxus. Aristobulus affirms that the Oxus is the largest of the rivers that he has seen in Asia other than those of India. And he goes on to say that it is navigable (also Eratosthenes says that he takes this statement from Patrocles) and that large quantities of Indian merchandise are brought into the Hyrcanian sea and from there transported by that sea to Albania and taken to the Cyrus river. and through the next region to the Euxino. The ochus is not mentioned at all by the ancient writers. Translation Jones 1928. 36 Aristobulus returns to the problem of the Caspian and Hyrcanian seas in FGrHist 139 F 54= Arr., Anab. 7.16.1. 37 The connection to the Alexandrian geographer can also be found in a parallel passage from Anabasis Anab. 3.30.7 = FGrHist 139 F 25 “From there he advanced to the Tanais River. Also the sources of this Tanais, which Aristobulus says are called by another name, Jaxartes, after the Thealen, spring on Mount Caucasus; and this river also empties into the Hyrcanian Sea". 4.6.6 = FGrHist 139 F 28b "He crossed all the land in the waters of the Politimetos river; Exactly where the stream disappears, there is nothing but desert: the stream, though it carries much water, disappears into the sand. Other rivers, though great and constant, they disappear there in the same way; the Epardus that flows through the land of Mardian, the Areius that gives its name to the land of Areia, and the Etymandrus that flows through the land of Euergetae, All these rivers are so great that none is inferior to the Peneius, the river of Thessaly, which flows through Tempe and then empties into the sea, the Polytimetus being incomparably larger than the river Peneios." Trans. Brunt 1976. 40 Trad. Jones 1928.

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The Cassandreian historian is the only source for river sedimentation: he does not explain why, but tries to give readers an understanding of eastern geography by comparing the size of Asiatic rivers to the size of a Thessalian river.41 Strabo42 also recounts se He referred to information on the Tigris and Euphrates and on the channeling and maintenance works that the river has to carry out to regulate the floods and the course of the river. According to Aristobulus, Strabo cites Alexander's arrangements for safe and easy river navigation, as well as maritime connections with the Arabian Peninsula ("Aristobulus says that as he was going up the river, Alexander inspected the ship and cleaned the company's canals who carried him). accompanied, he also closed mouths and made them open to the others"). The passage can be compared with another of the Anabasis (7.7.7) attributed by Brunt43 to Aristobulus, by Briant44 to Nearchus, concerning the destruction of the Tigris Falls, a measure taken by Alexander to improve communication in the country.If we add to this information the relative distance between the two arms of the Indus (15.1.33), there is a body of hydrographic information transmitted by Aristobulus who rivals any other Alexander historian.One of the reasons for this particular attention to the hydrographic element can be traced to Aristobulus's interest in works of in engineering and the strategic aspect of the exploitation of natural elements: the story of Aristobulo, in all probability, favored those elements that influenced strategic decisions. of the king and that certain successes and victories. This interpretation, which establishes a correspondence between the personality and interests of the author and the nature of the information selected, can also be used to account for the lack of information on hydrography in the fragments of Ptolemy son of Lagus,45 who came from Eordeia46 and belonged, to explain, to a parallel branch of the Macedonian royal family; he belonged to the hetairoi

41 It is also worth noting that the attribution of a Macedonian name to the river is an example of a Greek translation of Iranian onomastics; then a Graeca interpretatio. 42 Strab. 16.1.9–11 = FGrHist 139 F 56. 43 Brunt 1983, 223. 44 Briant 1986, 12. 45 Berve 1926, 329–335, no. 668; With 1959, 2467-2484; Pedech 1984, 215–222; Tataki 1998, 200, note 10; Heckel 2006, 235–238. 46 Papazoglou 1988, 166–169.

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and became 337 B.C. banished by Philip and later became one of the king's bodyguards. After Alexander's death, Ptolemy became king of Egypt and wrote, probably in his old age, a history of Alexander,47 which, together with the work of Aristobulus, constitutes a principal source for Arrian's Anabasis. In his long account of the capture of Bessus,48 Arrian tells us that Alexander crossed the river Oxus, and when messengers reported that the satrap had been captured by the Spitamenes and Dataphernes, the king slowed down the pursuit until Ptolemy himself, distrusting the Spitamenes, He captured Kiss. Lagus's son took him to Alexander: the news of the difficulty of crossing the Oxus comes from Aristobulus, while Ptolemy's story focuses on the satrap's conquest without adding geographical data. We can assume that Ptolemy's work was not related to geography and especially hydrography. Consider another passage from Anabasis (5.21–24)49 where Alexander marches against King Porus and destroys Sangala, with limited information on the major rivers of the Indus plain: a) b) c)

anab. 5/21/450 Alexander reached the Hidraotes River, another Indian river, as wide as the Acesines, but not as fast current. anab. 5/21/651 Alexander crossed the Hidraotes without the difficulties caused by the Acesines. anab. 5.22.3 The king reached a city called Pimprama on the second day after leaving the Hydraotes river.

Another passage from the Anabasis52 reports that Ptolemy, describing Alexander’s difficulties in crossing the Acesines where the current was particularly strong, only mentions the greatness of this river among all Indian rivers (Anab. 5.20.8: Αὐτὸς δὲ ὂς ἐπὶ .τὸ; Ακεσίνιν Ptolemy of Lagus wrote: "He himself went towards the Acesines. The river Acesines is the only river in India whose magnitude has been described by Ptolemy, son of Lagus –24, 50 Anab 5.21.4 In this Greek Alexander reaches the Hydra River, but the Indus River, the river is no less than Akesino, but the bitterness of the river is less 51 Anab.5.21.6 crossed the Hydra River, crossed the river Akesinus not with difficulty 52 Arr., Anab.5.20.8–9 = FGrHist 138 F 22. 53 Trans. Brunt

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Therefore, Arrian himself emphasizes the lack of hydrographic descriptions in Ptolemy, who instead fully described attacks, sieges and conquests of new territories. In conclusion, from these brief data on the treatment of hydrographic aspects (or lack thereof) by Alexander's first generation of historians, we can conclude that the filter of tradition not only does not avoid pointing out the characteristics of the various stories, but also helps to better describe the diverse personalities of those who inserted geographical descriptions into works intended to tell their own story of Alexander. The different distances of the authors analyzed from the facts and motivations of the genesis of the work from a time still close to the event, which are not fully taken into account here, do not seem to affect the clarity of the new geographical reality. . The Indo-Nile comparison is an example of how the expanded body of knowledge reviews and proposes solutions to a longstanding question. Such a comparison is a major theme, but other themes may be noted, such as the influence of unknown rivers, the consequences of unknown oceanic waters, where firstly the culture of the individual historian peeks through and secondly the entrance through which is discovered. the historian used the known data. establish to understand the unknown. These paths were completely different: the rationality of Nearchus, the taste for the fabulous in Onesicritus, Aristobulus and his military style, the pragmatism of Ptolemy: these stories share a common element, namely that the authors are fully aware that they are a expedition. that he was destined to change history.54

54 Mittag 2010, 25–37 has argued that India's ancient geographic knowledge, enhanced by Alexander's expedition, will remain inextricably linked and remain largely unchanged throughout the remaining centuries of the ancient world.

Part 2 Geography between science and politics

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A. Geographical Sciences

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CHAPTER 7

Some academic approximations: Eudoxus of Cnidos and Dicearchus of Messene Michele R. Cataudella From the disk to the sphere: this could be a condensed summary of the journey of Greek geographical thought from its origins to its 'scientific' change, with all the binding formulas that inevitably sacrificing the complexity of a matter of efficiency of synthesis. In fact, the disk is not strictly limited to the origins, nor is the sphere fully identified with a "scientific" approach: however, on it we see traces of an iter at the moment when the oikoumene, the continents, the ocean, the seas, must find a place and position in a newly created “container”, a container that reflects the phenomena that everyone observes: day, night, seasons, the sky, the cosmos. The solid figure brings with it new problems and new tools, such as geometry in the first place, also linked to the need to delineate and then measure the spherical surface. Then astronomy: the observation of the celestial vault is presented in a new light and gives a new impetus to research and experimentation; reinforces the idea that the earth is part of a cosmos and that the geography of the earth is part of it. In summary: The perspective of the spherical conception of the earth is opposed to the "flat" conception; the elementary conception of the latter gradually gives way to reflection on a series of interrelated factors, in the elaboration of which it seems justified to note the presence of a proper trace of the scientific character. In fact, some of these factors were, in a fragmentary and perhaps accidental way, at the origin of the formation of a spherical image. It is evident that the times and means of this process are not definable by the nature of the process itself; In any case, the truth is that Eudoxo de Cnidos represents a decisive moment for it; and it is equally true that an essential moment in Dikaearch's further development is represented when, among other things, we consider his Eutheia in the perspective of a happy "grid".

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Eudox of Knidos

He was a scientist with many interests and certainly occupies an important position in the history of science. He lived 52 years, approximately in the first half of the fourth century. The chronological indications are given approximately, and not because we lack precise dates, but on the contrary because there is a lot of information and they do not agree: and in fact the tradition, which has different origins in its nature and quality, knows three dates for its apogee, staggered over more than half a century,2 423-2, 391-0 and 368-5. The latter agrees better with other information about his biography, including the important trip to Egypt, which took place when Pharaoh Nectanebo reigned from 382 to 364, and Agesilaus, king of Sparta, who died in 361, introduced him to Eudoxus. His mentors were above all Archytas and Plato, two points of reference of great importance if we consider the premises and instruments of his teaching in various fields, and Plato's role was certainly decisive, beyond tradition - recalled in Diogenes Laertius ( 8a, 87 ff.) - on the discord between teacher and student).4 Just a few comments on his merits as a scientist in disciplines other than geography: In the field of geometry, the fifth book is an important source of information and in part of the sixth book of Euclid's Elements. . Let us think of the theory of relations between pairs of magnitudes (analogous, Plut., Mc. 14.59-60), of the ὁμογενῆ μεγέθη, of the relations between incommensurable magnitudes and between commensurable magnitudes (Eucl., Elem. 10.1),5 to the definition of the “golden ratio” (Elem. 6.3).6 Astronomy is perhaps the most important area of his scientific thought. Created or used observation points near Heliopolis (Strab. 1 Diog. Laert. 8.86 and Suda, s. v. Eudoxos. 2 Collection and examination of all information on Eudoxo's biography in Hultsch 1907, 930-50 and in Lasserre 1966, 139 -43 More recent contributions in Schneider 2000, 203 – 302, Kramer 2004, 56 – 66. 3 See in particular Diod.Sic.1.96.2 (= T 16 L.) and Strab.17.1.29-30 (= TT 12 and 13 L.).129-49); Repellini 1993, I, 2, 305-43, with bible; the contribution of K. von Fritz 1988, 64-67 is seminal, with special attention to the role of Eudoxus in the history of the discipline and in the genesis of the "Exhaustion Method" (Hasse and Scholz's "Epsilontica"), Premise of a completely new stereometry.6 On this topic see Lasserre 1966, 161–72, with bibli.; see also Kouremenos 1996, 55-85.

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17.1.29-30) and Knidos, from where he could see the star Canopus, which was not visible from a higher latitude (Strab. 2.5.14).7 He probably used a diopter.8 Vitruvius (De arch. 9.8.1 dicitur . . . dicunt) knew of a discovery made by Eudoxo: it was an instrument known as aracne, whose operation is known by Ptolemy, Theon of Alexandria and Juan Philoponus; Progenitor of the Organon of Hipparchus,10 though not the same;11 the origin of the name is uncertain.12 he Wrote13 the Phenomena and the Enoptron; we know the first from Aratus14; probably this work was written in his maturity, although a definite chronological value cannot be given to the well-known Cnidio senex of Avienus (Arat. 2.53), translator of Arato, among others. It is difficult to discern the difference in intention in the composition of the phenomena and 7 See comment in Lasserre 1966, 195; I wrote about Strabo's text in Cataudella 2013, 47-57. 8 See below; for the development of this instrument, see Hultsch 1903, 1073–79, s.v. dioptra and Drachmann 1935, 1287-1290, sv dioptra 3. This was an instrument for measuring the distance of distant bodies, consisting of an upwardly adjustable shaft like a flat ruler, from which observation was made; information on usage can be found in Gem., Isag.1.4; 5.11; 12 Apr 9 Data and reconstruction in Neugebauer 1949, 240–56; extensive discussion and bibliography in Lasserre 1966, 158–60. 10 Sines., Ad Paeon. 5. 11 For the relationship between Eudoxus-Arachne and the stereographic projection, see Neugebauer 1949, 240–56. 12 See Tannerei 1930, 49–60. 13 In Arat. and Eud. phaen 1.2.2 (Manicio 1894), 8; see also Maula, Mattila, and Kasanen 1975–6, 225–57. 14 A good source for learning more about Eudoxus' thought, if it is true that Aratos really followed Eudoxus to the letter (Hipparch., In Arat. et Eud. phaen. 1. 2. 1–2 and 8 [Manitius 1894]. see also Maula, Mattila, and Kasanen 1975–6, 225–57. This could be enough to affirm that Arato's story reproduces that of Eudoxo with its own characteristics, as Cicero recalls (Rep. 1.22: descriptionem sumptam ab Eudoxo multis annis post non astrologiae scientia sed poetica quadam empower versibus Aratum extulisse). Certainly we cannot know how authentic the tradition of "Aratus' Globes" is; In this context, it is worth noting the extensive collection of material from Thiele 1898; Interesting information can be found in a Byzantine author, Leontius Mechanicus (Maass 1898, 561-7); His work λεοντίου μεχανικοῦ περὶ κασκευῆς ἀρατείας σφαίρα presumably reflects the culture of the leontius period, and therefore the obvious preference for the doctrines of Hippochus and Ptolemy , but at the same time, but at the same time, but to the measures of HippoChus, but at the same time of the vitus, but at the same time of the vitus, but at the same time of the vitus, but at the same time of the vitus, but at the same time of the vitus, but at the same time of the vitus, but at the same time of the vitus of the vitus of the vitus, but at the houses of things, but at the same time of the vitus of their vitus, but to the lodgings of the vitus of his vitus, but to the lodgings of things. by Arato and indirectly by Eudoxus. See also Szabó-Maula 1982.

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the enoptron, since the two works could appear as copies of each other.15 There is a difference, however, with respect to the ratio of the longest day to the shortest night, when the ratio is 12:7 in the Phenomena and 5: 3 in the enoptron.16 Subjects of uncertain evaluation are missing but not17 (for example, FF 67 and 68; 108, 111, 112a and 112b L.).18 Of the other works on astronomy we remember the Peri aphanismon heliakon ;19 there are no indications about the date of origin of the Peritachon, in all probability later than the geometric studies, since it presupposes them in the construction of the system of spheres, with which Eudoxo "saves the phenomenon". Do not believe that from F 63b L. and from the comparison in the comparative (Enoptron φαίνεται δὲ.. κ ἥ ἥ ἥλιος.

15 Hipparchus, who was familiar with both works (1.2.1 = f 4 L.), says that, with some exceptions, both agree completely (σύμφωνα κατὰ πάντα σχ & dgr; δν ἀλλήλοις ἀλὴν vores &αν). 16 Hipparchus. 1.3.9. I follow the text that has come to us in assigning the two proportions to the two Eudoxian works, which I think is preferable to inverting it, at the expense of a "severe" intervention in the text, such as the elimination of von Maass' proposal. expression ἐν τῷ ἐπιγραφομένῳ Ἐνόπτρῳ in F 68 L. (so that the fragment passes from the enoptron to the phenomenon). 17 See Lasserre 1966, 193, for discussion. 18 In fact, the fact that Eudoxus in the Phaen. ἀπλατέες used, such as is understood in the version of Aratus (F 62 L.) and πλατέες in the enoptron (FF 63a e 63b L.), and the latter therefore represents a more recent moment (cf. Lasserre 1966, 193). ), is a non-documentable hypothesis, since neither adjective occurs in any text of Eudoxus, not even in that of Hipparchus, who seems to know only one opinion of Eudoxus on this matter. On the other hand, why should Aratus have followed a doctrine of phenomena and not that of Enoptron, if the priority had been phenomena and that of Enoptron the most up-to-date edition of Eudoxian thought? (And Aratus, writing around a century after Eudoxus, must have known both works). 19 See Lasserre 1966, 212–1 20 Ver bibl. infra note 29. 21 In other words, the comparison in the comparative ἀδηλοτέραν (F 63b L., and comment by Lasserre 1966, 193) can certainly be understood in more or less the same sense as Aristotle (Metaph. 12.8.1073b 17 [= D 6 L.] compare the level of the moon with the comparison between the level of the moon and the level of the moon.

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of the enoptron, as related by Hipparchus, and as such might require a broader formulation (which is worthwhile).22 Oktaeteris's work can also be situated in the context of astronomy, the work of this ancient tradition attributed to Eudoxus, but that of Eratosthenes is not considered authentic;23 according to Censorinus (De die nat. 18.4) the author could have been Dositheus. A clue to the time of origin seems to be related to the fact that the name Eudoxus is sometimes associated with the Egyptians (for example, Gem., Isa. 8: 20-23), which may indicate his stay in Egypt when he was young. 24 In fact, the eight-year cycle must have served to “unite” the lunar calendar with the solar calendar or the lunar month –and therefore the year of 354 days– with the solar year; but it cannot be assured with certainty if the first intuition in this sense in Greece dates from Eudoxus (therefore, from an Egyptian inspiration); It is very likely that Eratosthenes in particular understood the limitations of this view, as we learn from Geminus (especially Isa. 8:20-4 and 42-60), who follows Eratosthenes but provides good information on various views. Ultimately, it seems likely that his work in this area was largely a diffusion of Egyptian teachings, as he might have done with the Dog Dialogues (Diog. Laert. 8.89 = T 7 = F 374 L.); the Egyptian experience also suggested the use of the parapegma, a kind of calendar carved in stone.25 22 The chronological sequence assumed by Lasserre (1966, 193) -phenomena, peritachon, enoptron in this order- can be confusing: z Then it can be surprising that Hipparchus does not mention the Eudoxian text of the Phenomena, but according to Aratus's "translation" he agreed with it and against Attalus and only quoted the Enoptron text; It may be surprising that Hipparchus translates the idea expressed in this last work in an extremely laconic and unreflective way, and that the polemic is directed against Attalus (δοκεῖ . . . ὁ Ἄτταλος ἀγνοεῖν) and ignores Eudoxus. All the conclusions here seem precarious: on the one hand, it could be concluded that Eudoxus had not written anything about them in the Phenomena, and that he therefore had written about them in the Enoptron; instead, it could be deduced that the subject was only touched on in the Enoptron because it was dealt with in detail elsewhere. For the data on Aratus see, for example, the extensive collection and discussion in Maass 19552 and Ludwig 1965, 26-39. 23 Ach.Tat.,Intr.Arat. 19.47 Maass = F 132 L. 24 See especially Diog. Laert. 8.86 = T7L.; see also Dugand 1985, 103-1027. 25 Tannery 1912, 236–99 is still helpful on this topic; for the Milesian model, see, for example, Dicks 1970, 84-86. Through the Geminus calendar we can evidently delineate the scope and nature of the relationship between Eudoxus and his predecessors Democritus and Euctemon in the construction of the calendar. Rehm's contributions in 1913, 1941 and 1949, 1295–1366 remain fundamental.

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Among the works on astronomy we cannot fail to mention the so-called Ars Eudoxi or Didascalia caelestis by Leptines26, a work written between 193 and 165 BC. but certainly not written by the scientist from Cnidus.27 The thought of the astronomer Eudoxus must have had great resonance if Callippus and Aristotle were among his followers, although they introduced important changes; Eudoxo's thought arose from the need to answer Plato's question about whether there was a way to "save the phenomena" (διασωθῆναι τὰ φαινόμενα) or to give a reason for the irregularity of planetary movements as they appear to us, for What Combination of circular, uniform and regular movements. His answer is found in the theory of the so-called homocentric spheres, exposed in the work Peritachon, which we know from Aristotle's brief but concise account28 and, above all, from Simplicio's more detailed description in his commentary on Aristotle. second book of Cael. (121-124 liters). Phenomena and the enoptron on the one hand, and the peritachon on the other, regardless of relative chronology issues, are the poles of eudoxical inquiry due to the need for To imagine; Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli30, among others, has tried it, making use of seven theorems of elementary geometry, taking care to use tools not yet known, such as spherical trigonometry and analytic geometry.

26 Didascalie céleste de Leptines is the title given by Letronne when preparing the first edition of the papyrus, completed due to his death by Brunet de Presle 1865, 25–76, and later republished by Blass in 1887 (Blass 1997, 79–101); see also Neugebauer 1975, I, 686–88. 27 Eudoxus is probably not the direct source of the Saitic calendar (P. Hibeh I. 27. 19-54), but we can find in it elements in common with the Ars Eudoxi. For the text, see FGrHist 665 F 180 and commentary by Lasserre 1966, 214–19. 28 See D 6 L. and the translation with clear comment by Heath 19572, 194-202, and infra no. 32. Extensive information on the influence of Eudoxo, for example, in Gardies 1989. 29 Cf. on this term Mittelstraß 1962 ; Lloyd 1978, 202-22; Lasserre 1966, 182, 270. 30 Cf. for example Dreyer 1906, 90 s., and especially Neugebauer 1953, 225 s.; look at the contributions of Wright 1973–74, 165–172 from different points of view; Riddell 1979, 1-19; Maula 1974; Hetherington 1996, 271-89; Heal 2000, 55-73; new studies on the theory of homocentric spheres by Bowen-Goldstein 1983, 330-40 and Yavetz 1998, 221-78.

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in the days of Eudoxus; but obviously these are only hypotheses. His reconstruction is already classic, although reservations and criticisms were not lacking.31 Eudoxus, the geographer, associates himself with this broad and articulate perspective. As such, he was introduced by Polybius (quoted by Strabo) and by Strabo (9.1.1; 10.3.5); he was the author of a Ges periods that seems to have covered the entire oikoumene.32 The main features of his geographical thought can be identified, as the available information suggests, in a conception of the earth that moves from the spherical conception (p eg B. σφαιροειδής, related to the moon in Ars Eudox.12, is extended to the earth by analogy with phenomena depending on the lack of proper light, καὶ ὅπερ γίνεται ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς); Oikoumene-shaped twice as wide; when measuring the circumference of the earth it is 400,000 stadia.33 Eudoxus knew the Antoikoi, who according to Gemino (Isag.16.1) "are those who live in the southern part of the same hemisphere", unlike the Antipodes, who are all be found in the southern zone of the opposite hemisphere (ἄντοικοι δὲ οἱ ἐν τῇ νοτίῳ ζώνῃ ὑπὸ τὸ αὐτὸ ἡμισφαίριον κατοικοῦντες, ἀντίποδες δὲ οἱ ἐν τῇ νοτίῳ ζώνῃ ἐν ἑτέρῳ ἡμισφαιρίῳ κατοικοῦντες). His idea of the Antoikoi suggests a notion of hemispheres close to that developed by Nicagoras in relation to the origins of the Nile floods; Eudoxo thinks about the change of the seasons and their juxtaposition, but he goes further when he thinks about the origin of the floods as a result of the collision of opposite climatic factors: heat and cold. Aristotle outlines an analogous thought at this level; the ambiguous term antiperistasis actually seems to allude to the climatic collision as well as to the succession of seasons from which the characteristic phenomena of the opposite hemispheres derive.34 Instead, Herz offers a trigonometric demonstration, 1887, 20–1, cited by Heath 19572, 203-5; see Loria 1925, 199–204; extensive information in Lasserre 1966, 203–204; but see also Neugebauer 19572; recent reading, p. B. in North 1994, 143-54 and Heglmeier 1996, 51-71. 32 As regards the themes dealt with in this work, there is probably nothing decisive that allows us to extract Strabo's statement (10. 3. 5 περὶ κτίσεων, συγγενειῶν, μεταναστάσεων . eus. refer to both. refer to both. Eudous. . ): author of the Hellenic Histories (περὶ τῶν ῾Ελληνικῶν), whose author is not Eudoxus of Cnidus, the author of the Histories is actually Eudoxus of Rhodes (see Diog. Laert. 8,90; Etym. Magn. s.v. Ἀδρίας), who should therefore enjoy greater prestige as a writer περὶ κτίσεων, συγγενειῶν, μεταναστάσεων. 33 Arist., Cael. 2.14.297b-298a: Although not explicitly attributed to Eudoxus, the context seems to leave no doubt about it (cf. Tannery 1893, 110-121). 34 An important document is the De inund. Nili (Aristotelian or pseudo-Aristotelian), see, for example, Bonneau 1971, 1–33; and now Jakobi-Luppe 2000, 15-18; for the meaning

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Considering the 2:1 ratio between length and width and the width of the warm zone, double the Oikoumene (for example, Arist. F 26 Rose), the result is a geometric figure whose southern side is formed by the equator (the Oikoumene plus the northern half of the warm zone); if we imagine in this figure an ideal line connecting the Nile and the Tanais, we can only see the schema35 of the eudoxian oikoumene, distributed symmetrically between the eastern and western parts with respect to the already mentioned “meridian”36 approximately, three books (I- III) deal with Asia and three with Europe (IV-VI), the seventh with the islands. The description seems to begin with the coast of northeast Asia (Book I), moving on to Egypt and presumably Ethiopia (Book II), and then to South Asia (Arabia, India, Persia, and Mesopotamia) in the third book. we have no offers; we start again with the European east coast, Thrace, Macedonia, the Chalkis peninsula, etc. (Book IV), part of Greece, Thessaly, Boeotia, etc. (presumably the subject of the fifth book of which no citations have come down to us) to the Peloponnese, southern Italy and finally to Libya (Book VI). This in terms of an approximate consideration, although we cannot rule out other hypotheses in the context of the period. In truth, the route followed by the author does not seem like an itinerary; in fact, we can see that two adjacent areas are the subject of the first and fourth books, with which the exhibitions on Asia and Europe begin respectively: this seems to indicate that the exhibition is conceived in terms of the two continents. The starting point in both directions thus appears to be a boundary line of antiperistasis, see in particular Arist., Mete. 348b 2 ἀλλ 'ἐπειδὴ ὁρῶμεν ὅτι γίγνεται ἀντιπερίστασις τῷ θερμῷ ψαὶ ψυχρῷ ἀλλήλοι be it that describes a form of description of the relative relationship of relative relative of the relative of the relative of the relative. see Burnikel 1974, 161-167. 35 It cannot be confirmed with certainty whether Eudoxus made a "geographical map"; schema is the word that Strabo uses (9. 1. 2) to indicate one of Eudoxus' powers (σχημάτων ἐμπείρου), which may be a clue, as well as the expression εἴ τις νοήσειεν used to quote Eudoxus in the same beginning Strabo's passage; for the Strabonian “filter” see Engels 1998, 63–114: 73–76. It must have a meaning that geminus (Jesag. 16,3) speaks of ἐν πίναξι γράφοντες, speaking of those who represent the earth for approximately double wide as wide as wide using rectangular plates (διπλάσιον ἐστιν ὡς ἔγγα πλάτους. δι 'ἣν αἰτίαν οἱ κατὰ λόγον γράφοντες τὰς γεim. ααφίας ἐν πίναξι γράφουσι παραήήcicle). With a different look Lasserre 1966, 239-40. 36 Origin and structure of this figure especially in Lasserre 1966, 240-1 and already in Gisinger 1967, 17.

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the truth following exactly the line of a meridian; Now, if this was the idea in the mind of Eudoxus and the Nilo-Tanais lineage was the distinctive characteristic, the question arises whether the genesis of Eudoxian’s vision will ever be traceable. The combination of FF 350 and 306 L. suggests a clue: we think of the Eutheia of the F 350, which for us has, or actually has, a NW-SE direction, from the Ceraunian Mountains to Cape Sounion; this is a line which cannot easily be other than a section of a parallel premise (ante litteram, so to speak) of the Eutheia of Dicearchus and later developments. In fact, the display of an S and one on the right or left of the eutheia (f 350 L., ἐν δεξ ὲ ἀπολείgal ὴν πελοπatter ὸ ὸ ὸ ὸ ὸ ὸ ὸick ὸ ( ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν ἐν. En realidad, sea NE y SW, parece que Strabo no habría fallado en especificar exactamente lo que ha hecho en otra parte (un ejemplo [2.4.5]: ὁ Δὲ τάναϊς ῥεῖ ἀπὸ θερινῆς ἀνατολῆς · ἐλατοῦτα ° ¿κα ° σ σ. τῆς ἰσημερινῆς, con el que se indica el curso del Tanais en dirección NE-SW, es that is, from the θερινὴ ἀνατολή, und mit den paralelon Formen as a wedge marking the difference of longitude between Europe and the sum of Africa and Asia). but a slightly curved line; Conceived as a straight line, it cannot fail to assume a general course which tends to coincide with the Columns of Hercules on the line of the eastern extremity, Cape So union. Finally, the connection with the climates: seems quite obvious by its mention as a specific eudoxic material in relation to eutheia, so that in eutheia itself we can still identify the outstanding features of a section of the parallel series.37 Of the sphere a the tabula: the Correction seems to be an indicator of a 'mapping' operation. It implies a counterclockwise rotation, which is reflected in the general geometry of the European continent; Thus, if the hypothesis has any basis, any line - ideal or real - in a NE-SW direction assumes a N-S direction, following a correction like that of Eutheia. In other words, an ideal NE-SW line of progression, forming a right angle with Eutheia at Cape Sounion, beginning in the Cearunian Mountains, after "correction" assumes the N-S direction of the meridians. 37 Lasserre 1966, 259–60 opts instead for an orientation in the direction of the meridian combined with the dichotomy according to the ratio width : length = 1 : 2; see also Prontera 2011, 149-63.

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This seems to be the case set forth in F 306 L., if we understand it correctly:38 and where the promontory of Sarpedon, which is actually SW oriented, is instead S (πρὸς εὐρόνοτον) oriented to is counterclockwise movement , more or less analogous to the line beginning in the Ceraunian Mountains; So if the latter represents the parallel, the line following the direction of the promontory enables us to discern the trace of a meridian. It is a meridian which probably runs through Cnidos, the land of Eudoxus, following apparently the course of the Nile; But, above all, if this is the case, this is the meridian along which the edge between Europe and Asia runs, it withdraws explicitly through the straight line between abidus and sestus (ἄκρα γὰρ ἔκειται πρς εὐρόνον.άττanteν, στante). I don't want to do anything. It is therefore evident that the Tanais is an integral part of it towards the N, and for much of the tradition it is, in fact, the Tanais which marks the boundary between Europe and Asia. Could it then be the emergence of a Nile-Tanais meridian which actually finds a natural integration, obvious if the premises are well founded: the Tanais when it drains counterclockwise at the NE point of the Maeotic Sea after the 'correction', is It is oriented more towards the N and therefore corresponds more closely to the meridian and its dividing function between Europe and Asia. Three aspects of this representation stand out: the double orientation of the F 306 L., in the first part O-E (from the Thracian Chersonese) and in the second part E-O (towards the west), such as appears to major features; the partnership of Egypt with Asia; the association of Libya with Europe. These are important elements, though they cannot be interpreted easily and unequivocally: In any case, I would not think of an Eastern or Western origin for the latter two for propaganda reasons (although, for example, the Persian conquest of Egypt from the perspective of the others two). two continents in the geopolitical view of the African arena).39 In any case, the “cut” of the Periods suggests a view of the oikoumene based on a dividing line in the direction of the meridians:40 a meridian if a parallel in the Eutheia which can be identified

38 In the same direction, in a broader perspective, see Cataudella 2009, 53-59. 39 We learn, for example, from Anon., Geogr.Esp. 2 (RCD I 495): The mints of ancient Libya and Europe were one. 40 See the clear profile in Mazzarino 1959, 85-101; any propaganda motive in relation to the opposition of the voices in Görgemanns 2000, 405-420.

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F 350 as a segment of what will be the characteristic line of the Dicaearchus account.41 The key to Eudoxian thought seems to lie in how it seems to be taking shape at this point: a Nilo-Tanais line, most likely through Cnidus runs, homeland of Eudoxus; from his point of view, it is therefore the Cnidos meridian that determines a division into two parts in terms of meridians: one from Europe, the other from Asia. It is a contrast that seems to be related to the vision of a Greek from Caria: a Europe that almost reflects Asia, since the first three books are dedicated to it and the next three to Europe; but that is not all, since this 'Cnidus meridian' is connected with the Nile, this allows us to discern the constant presence of an Egyptian inspiration, in keeping with the early formation of the Cnidus scientist.42 So, if he is the point of view turned towards Lower Egypt, the right side represents the west and the left the east, as can be seen;43 therefore, if Knidos is the point of observation in the same meridian, for him the right side is identified with the west and east, and the left with the east. And so to his right is the Mediterranean, the sea ἡ παρ' ἡμῶν, the sea of the Greeks, h3w-nbw.t after the Egyptians themselves,44 and as Europe is to the right of the meridian, so again we are a sign for the ideal equation Europe = have Mediterranean. But this is an orientation that can assume its own revelatory value precisely in its Egyptian context: indeed, the orientation of the Egyptians was such that we could know with certainty the thoughts of Eudoxus (a mention of Hyrcania in F 344 L.); The fact that, situated between Herodotus and Aristotle, he could only consider the Caspian Sea "closed" seems a rather hasty conclusion. We may not be able to completely ignore some traces of the Preodotean experience (essentially Hekataios) in the conception of the oikoumene, for which we have evidence in Ephorus (FGrHist 70 F 30). But Aristotle's criticism (Met. 362b 10 γελοίως γράφουσι) is far-reaching against those who have represented the earth in its ges periodoi in circular form. On the other hand, if there really was a Persian-inspired element in Eudoxus' thought (let us not forget his youthful studies in Egypt), then there could be influence from factors beyond the point of view of Herodotus and Aristotle, propaganda interests of the Achaemenids. monarchy, analogous to what we believe to belong to Alexander's propaganda for an "open" Caspian Sea, with the aim illustrated by Polykleitos of Larissa (FGrHist 128 F 7); but we have no direct testimony to that effect. 42 See, for example, Préaux 1968–72, 347–61; Goyon 1974, 135-47. 43 The largest collection of material can be found in Sethe 1922, 197–242; see now García Zamacona 2012, 185-94. 44 See, for example, Vercoutter 1956, 127–57; Devils 1979, 34; Iversen 1987, 54-9.

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founded on an oriental point of view, so that the left represents the south, the right the north: the former denotes the birth of the Nile, the latter its disappearance into the sea. This gives as a result an obscure symbolism (αἰνίττονται) negative in relation to the right, in the sense that the north coincides with the sea, the Mediterranean, representing the "death" (τελευτὴν καὶ φθορὰν) of the Nile; and therefore the sea is the object of hatred, to the extent that hatred is expressed in Egyptian with the ideogram of the fish, symbol of the sea. The concept in the Greek kingdom seems to have been clearly expressed by Plutarch (Quaest. Conv. 8.8.2, 729 b) ἐν τοῖς δεξιοῖς φθειρόμενοaster αἰνίἰ &; ἰ & these ἰ & those αἰ & these ἰ & ἰἰ & antes αἰνίἰ & stoige ῇθ & antes ἰἰ ῇ ῇ ῇ & 21 κ & ν ό ό und y 21 κ τ ἰ μὶθ & sto antes· & sto antes αἰ before ἰ & 21 ὶθ &υυ & 21 ῇθ &υυ & 21 ό & iges. The choice of Eudoxus between the two orientations corresponds to his division in the direction of the meridians and is a "European" choice versus the eastern outlook of the Egyptians, harbingers of hatred of the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean Sea of Eudoxus is the sea of Europe, the "Sea of the Greeks" to the Egyptians such as it was to be presented from the point of view of a Greek on the border between the two continents. Ultimately, this representation is the putative message of the geographer Eudoxus, the foreshadowing of a parallel and a meridian that would thrive over the centuries and that Dicaearch (F 110 W. ) already knew half a century later when he drew the line from the Columns of Hercules to Imaus: but traces of this can also be seen, for example in Aristotle, in his representation of Oikoumene as being greater in length than width in the ratio 5:3, from the Columns of Hercules to Imaus and of Ethiopia to the Maeotic Swamp (Mete. 362b 24), essentially a scheme analogous to that of Eudoxus, before Dicearchus and Eratosthenes. But it is a message that also has an ideal, if not political, value in the vision of the Mediterranean as an expression of West identified with Europe and its unity vis-a-vis Asia, thought of as a unified expression of East, of which Egypt is the outpost: the direct reference point of Eudoxos. 2

Dikaearchos de Messene

Dicaearch, a man of the era of Aristotle and Alexander the Great, followed the basic approach to geography of Eudoxus, a protagonist of science in the first half of the century, but at the same time asserted his own personal perspective on the central issues of the debate. He probably a Sicilian from Messene: his knowledge of Sicilian words and the social customs of this region is well documented (FF 94-97 W.) and thus confirms his origin. There is significant evidence of a dating from the second half of the 4th century and the beginning of the 3rd century; he was a student of Aristotle who died

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in 322-321 and was a contemporary of Aristoxenus: we can conclude that Dicaearchus probably lived beyond the end of the fourth century. the meridian from Syene to Lysimachia is disputed by him, since Lysimachia was founded in the year 309.46 A more precise definition of the chronological terms would result if the designation as reges47 was assumed to be the promoter of his activity as an altimeter - as the adoption also seems likely. from the title basileus of the Diadochi, around 305.48 He wrote a Bios Hellas, perhaps a history of man from the beginnings to his time,49 he also wrote politeiai. Of particular interest is the Tripolitikos, probably a dialogue perhaps inspired by a polemic with Anaximenes' Trikaranos.50 It can be identified as the work that inspired the anonymous Byzantine author of the Peri politikes that we read about in Photius (cod. 37). 51 45 Data and discussion on Aristoxenus especially in Wehrli 19672, 43–6; ID. 1968, 527-8; Smethurst 1952, 224-32. 46 See, for example, Diod.Sic.20.29; To break. 1.9.9. 47 F 105 W. 48 See Diode.Sic.20.53.2–5; Plut., dem. fifteen; Wehrli 19672, 43, thinks of Ptolemy, Cassander, and Demetrius of Phalerum; however, the text of the Suda contains a clarification that cannot be left without meaning, in the sense that the title of the work that we read there is Katametreseis ton en P e l ponnn e s oi oron, which could limit the identification of the Reges and, consequently, lower the value of chronology. terms. In this case, Reges would probably be identifiable with Cassander and Demetrius Poliorcetes. The chronological term would then be associated with the struggle between the two for supremacy in Greece at the end of the century, and could go up to 302 when the new League of Corinth was reestablished and Demetrius Poliorcetes was declared hegemon of Greece. with the related title basileus, as the plutarchical notes show (Dem. 25. 5 e Prae. ger. reip. 823c-d). A description of these issues can be found in Will 19792, 1, 74-83; see also Landucci Gattinoni 2000, 211-25; the statements of Keyser 2001, 364-5 must be observed. 49 Discussion and bibliography in Wehrli 19672, 56–64; ID. 1968, 526-34; Ax 2000, 337-69. See also Martini 1903, 548-63 and Momigliano's bibliography and observations 1974, 73-77. 50 Cf. Martini 1903, 550-2; Wehrli 19672, 64–74; ID. 1983, 535-39; in particular Mazzarino 1966, 1, 384-88. 51 For an interpretation of the thought expressed in the anonymous dialogue on peripolitikes read by Photius, see Fotiou 1981, 533–47. Mai's lineage follows Pertusi 1968, 1–23. See also Mazzucchi 1978, 237-47. On the subject of "mixed constitutions" see Schubert 1995, 225-35 and Lintott 1997, 70-85 among the most recent. Extensive treatment of this particular material in Aalders 1968, 72-74. I wrote about Petrus Patricius in Cataudella 2003, 391-447 (431-7).

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He also wrote Bioi or Lives of the Philosophers, a genre created by Dicearco together with his friend and classmate Aristoxenus, and he also wrote a Trophoniou katabasis52 and also on the soul, on the end of men, on the Bios Praktikos in contrast to the theorists, etc.; his dominant traits of originality of thought and autonomy in his judgments are evident in his polemics with Plato (over Phaedrus), with Aristotle, his mentor, and with Theophrastus, while on the other hand he exerted considerable influence on Polybius and Cicero, even to Adjectives like doctissimus (Varr., Rust. 1.2.16) and historikotatos (Cic., Att. 2.2). He was more a geographer than an astronomer, unlike Eudoxus, and wrote a Periodos ges;53 towards Eudoxus of Cnidus he demonstrated his independence, although the scarcity of surviving fragments -of one figure or another- does not allow any significant observation to be made. . He was a supporter of the spherical nature of the earth, as was Eudoxo, but that does not mean that the first depended on the second, since in Aristotle (Cael. 2. 297a, 8. 298 a) this notion was his mentor, y precede aún más a algunos de los Palaioi que eran adherentes de la forma esférica después de Agathemeros (1.1 παλαιοὶ τὴν οἰκουμένην ἔγραφον στρογγύλην), Heodsi de Even, Cratesi a Homero y quizás el primero en ser reconocido a Homero,5 55 52 Cf. F 20 W. That this text - presumably a dialogue - was inspired by hostility to the priests of Trophonius was an opinion of Müller 1820, 150; see in any case Wehrli 1967, 46-8 and the extensive material collected by Radke 1939, 678-95; Zeller-Mondolfo 1966, 467-71 and 484-7 remains essential. 53 It cannot be determined with certainty whether the tabulae mentioned by Cicero are works of geographical representation and to which text they belong (the hypothesis of a play on words – going back to Boot and Watson, quoted from Wehrli 1967, 48 – seems unlikely since the context does not allow us to imagine such a thing). In fact, Dicearchus is likely the author of the tablets, and not just because of Diog's testimony. Laert. 5.51 (τοὺς πίνακας, ἐν οἷς ἱ γῆς περίοδοί εἰσιν, by Theophrastus' testamentary arrangement, which was also part of the nature of his geographical conception, which was inevitably part of a representation (Vd. See W. 10 10). Prontera 2001, 1961–64 54 For which reference is made to Mette 1936, VIII–XX and to the most recent edition Broggiato 2001 (see in particular the abstract, LI–LV and commentary, 284–86) 55 A la Palaioi one could also count Parmenides (eg, F 44 D.-K. 19547), who lived between the 6th and 5th centuries BC have been clarified by comparison with the famous Platonic passage (Phd. 97 D), in the that

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As for the form of ecumenism, he stated that the length was one and a half times the width, while Eudoxus believed that the former was twice the width (Agathem. 1:2); That Dicaearch's measurement could be inspired by that of Democritus (F 15 D.-K. 19547, II, 145) is news that does not pose any particular difficulty just because Democritus believed that the earth was flat (Arist., Cael. 2 294b13): Obviously, the shape of the oikoumene was a different problem than the spherical nature of the earth, and it is equally evident that Dicaearchus distanced himself from Eudoxus on this point. A measurement of the Earth's meridian by Dicaearcos would certainly be significant if we could attribute to him what Cleomedes writes (1.5.47)56, in fact, we could believe that if the central "meridian" had a round oikoumene after the Transition of the circular to oblong underwent a change in the direction of the parallels.57 The dimensions of the oikoumene would be consistent given the ratio 2:3, if the total length 30,000 stadia (15,000 × 2 with respect to the "center") implies a width than 20,000 stadia, which coincides with the distance between Syene and Lysimachia (20,000 stadia, according to the statement quoted by Cleomedes): nothing would be better if this distance could be considered equivalent to the width of the Oikoumene. Undoubtedly, these are measures that do not correspond exactly to reality, but they also seem to represent data that require specific consideration less of the real measures -at least then outside of an effective possibility of calculation- than of the proportional relationship between them. 58 Obviously, the Question is open, but an indicative value seems indisputable anyway.59 This term is compared to a flat representation (ἡ γῆ πλατεῖα). See Untersteiner 1958, 92–6 and Tarán 1965, 296–8 56 See Berger 1880, 173–4; ID. 1903, 368-76; Roller 2010, 143. 57 or, indic: If, if we say, the "center" was 10,000 furlongs from the Pillars of Hercules (FF 109, 110 and above all F 111 W. στήλας ἀπὸ τῆς πελονήσου στα) and approximately 0 stages it must have been of equal length in the 2:3 oblong figure, this implied the consequent displacement of the 'center' that would coincide approximately with the Syene-Lysimachia meridian on the line from the Pillars of Hercules to the Imaus. But nothing gives us certainty, and in any case it is -of course- completely approximate measurements. 59 As to the width of the Oikoumene, there seems to be no doubt that the distance from the Pillars of Hercules to the Peloponnese can be equated with the distance from the Pillars of Hercules to Delphi, to the Inn (F 109 W.); other dimensions are assumed, for example, by Aristotle (Mete. 362b), from Ethiopia to the extreme

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The measure of the meridian was apparently 30 myriads, 300,000 stadia, 15 times the distance of 20,000 stadia between Syene and Lysimachia, and 5 times the same distance was apparently the measure of the diameter, or 100,000 stadia. Aristotle (Cael. 2. 298a) knew that the meridian measured 400,000 stages, which was attributed to "scientists" who could have included Eudoxus. Both are wrong, as we know, but the first is pretty close to the measure of Eratosthenes 60. Kleomedes's text, in its juxtaposition of the cosmos and the globe, seems unequivocal as to the meridian measure: I have the world. . . If the earth is twenty-five myriads at a time: 250,000 stadia, almost equivalent to the calculation of Eratosthenes (Clom. 7/1/49)61 based on the ratio 1:50:62, this would undoubtedly be an important aspect of the work of Dikaearch. In truth, if there is a trace in the perspective of the cosmos already in Eudoxo63, it seems that in Dicaearco we can somehow see revealing signs of an organic system in which the measurements of the cosmos and the measurements of ecumenism reflect a unified Conception reflected: The measurement of the arc between the constellations of Cancer and Draco and the relative normal ones on the terrestrial plane recall the 20,000 stades of the distance between Syene and Lysimachia in the relative meridian (1/15 of the regions of Scythia and Eratosthenes (II C, 2nd ; III A, 39 Berger; cf. now Roller 2010, 271-3), from Meroe to Boristhenes However, we cannot forget the circumstance to which Aristotle himself draws attention in the same place when he points out that, unlike of longitude, knowledge of the latitude of the Oikoumene is limited to the habitable regions beyond which the regions lie, due to cold in the north and hot in the south d uninhabited see also FGrHist 646 F1; Macrob., In Somn. 2.8.3-4. After all, Lysimachia formed the northern limit of the meridian arc, and Dicearchus revealed his ignorance of the northern regions, as Strabo says (2.4.2). 60 Archimedes (Aren. 2. 136, Mugler) gives the same date, 300,000 stadia, but without saying who the author was. Discussion of the data in Wehrli 19672, 77–9. 61 See Bowen and Todd 2004, 81. For the eratosthenic measurement of 252,000 stages, see Vitr., De arch. one; Plin., HN 2.247; street 2.5.7; 2.5.34; Theon, Deutil. Math. 124, 10-12; Galen., Inst. Protocol. 12.2. 62 However, the connection between these two measures is quite eluding us: in any case, the fact that the latter is so small that it represents only one point compared to the former justifies some reservations. 63 See, for example, Strab. 2.5.14.

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the meridian of the earth), if we have observed well, it agrees with the measurement of the longitude of the ecumene on the basis of the ratio 2:3.64 In any case, Cleomedes' statement is essential, although the attribution of the Dicaearchus grid is only possible, perhaps even probable.65 A basic idea -the axis of his geographical conception- was a kind of diaphragm (F 110 W.), namely, the identification of an ideal line, a straight line in the geometric sense of the word, from the Pillars of Hercules to Mount Imaus (probably Hindu Kush); the geometric value of this line fits well with the geometric figures constructed for the measurements of the Mediterranean and with the terminology of the discipline (tome, eutheia, [if my correction of F 107 W. is justified]).66 On the ideas of Dicaearchus it is mentioned somehow in later speculation; among other things, he authored a text, Katametreseis ton en Peloponnesoi oron (T 1 W.), which is probably related to his actual measurements of mountain heights (FF 105, 106, 107 W.). We think of Eratosthenes who, like him, was interested in and followed the topographical survey of the mountains (F 107 W.) and obtained analogous results apparently independent of the use of diopters67 The image of Dicaearchus as an innovative scientist is drawn, although with his evident Debts to previous speculation: Eudoxus himself, despite the deviations, and Aristotle his mentor, and all the work emanating from Ionian speculation. And, of course, he was a forerunner: just think of Eratosthenes, with whom the discipline of geography reached its highest stage before Ptolemy. 64 Even if an intuition of this type could not have escaped Eudoxus, obviously it will be necessary to wait a few more decades for a more complete vision (see Cleom. 1.5.57). See profile of Geus 2004, 11-26. 65 Berger himself expresses some uncertainty, 1903, 371-2, although he supports the attribution to Dicaearchus; finally, the measurement of 300,000 stadia given by Archimedes in the quoted passage seems to be related to the same climate, although Archimedes was not yet born or had just been born when the measurement was made, and the use of the perfect πεπειραμένων cannot be without meaning (Lysimachia became Founded in 309, destroyed in 281, this is the premise of the Syene-Lysimachia survey in the time of Diceearchus). 66 References to a certain historical significance of this aspect of geographical speculation in particular can be found in Herodotus (2.16; 4.36), Arist., Mete. 2.362b 1; street 2.1.32. Extensive information and discussion in Berger 1903, 379-82. 67 In any case, one speaks of a discovery (εὑρηκέναι φασίν); for the use of diopters in this case, see the remarks of Keyser 2001, 353–361, but this text leaves room for some doubt.

CHAPTER 8

The 'invention' of geography: Eratosthenes of Cyrene Serena Bianchetti We owe the 'invention' of a profession to Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who first coined the terms geographer and geography for the field of science that existed at the time of Ptolemy III Ptolemy IV. 1 Defined by Eratosthenes himself as a "geographer", Eratosthenes replaced the figure of the philosopher-researcher (who had previously explored the "world system") with that of the scientist, tout court, whose specificity lies not so much in the content as in the research method. one

The Life of Eratosthenes

The times and places reveal the personality and work of Eratosthenes, a descendant of the cultural humus that engendered what could be described as the greatest scientific revolution of antiquity. Cyrene, Athens and Alexandria were the places where Eratosthenes first learned and later developed the activities of him. He spent his life in a social network that included his compatriot and poet Callimachus and Magas, half-brother of Ptolemy Philadelphus, at a time when Cyrene, Alexandria, and other centers under Hellenistic rule were firmly linked and had thus contributed to a cultural elite. international. which gave impetus to the acceleration of scientific research.2 Eratosthenes moved to Athens from his hometown of Cyrene to study the teachings of Zeno of Citium, whom Strabo referred to as "our Zeno" (1.2.34) defined the geographer of the empire promoted Stoicism, apparently despised (1.2.2) by Eratosthenes, more interested in the teachings of Ariston of Chios, Arcesilaus, Apelles, 1 Γεωγράφος appears in Strab. 1.1.16; 1.1.19; 2.5.2; 2.5.4; 2.5.34 in passages reminiscent of Eratosthenes. For the inventor of the term γεωγραφία in Eratosthenes, see Aujac 2001, 65–66. 2Bianchetti 2014.

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and Bion. It should be noted that Ariston and Arcesilaus, then students of Zeno, had renounced stoicism: Ariston adhered to cynicism and Arcesilaus to a Platonic ideal. An ideal reflected in the founding of the New Academy, which lasted from 268 to 241 BC. BC was directed by Arcesilao, he was highly criticized. Eratosthenes' adherence to the two previous philosophers, who according to Strabo were the teachers who "deviated" from Stoicism, and therefore received little credit, is key to understanding Strabo's critical attitude towards Eratosthenes. In fact, Strabo emphatically emphasized how shallow Eratosthenes was in studying him. Derogatory names such as "Second Plato", "New Plato", "Pentathlos" or "Beta" 3 show how Eratosthenes' own contemporaries belittled him and reacted to his original but complex personality. Despite this, he founded a veritable "school of excellence" in Alexandria, where different methods were relevant to different areas of science. His polymath ventured into different fields such as poetry, grammar, astronomy, mathematics and geometry. But his inability to excel in any of these areas and his close association with Platonic inquiry may explain the difficulties his contemporaries, as well as subsequent generations, had in fully evaluating Eratosthenes' innovative work. On the one hand, he effectively relied on Platonic philosophy to understand the "world system" and, on the other, he worked on the differentiation of knowledge that was the basis of modern science. This "revolution" occurred at the time of his stay in Alexandria, which may have been in 246 BC. The dates of Eratosthenes' life are uncertain, possibly because modern historians try to add up all the evidence that has come down to us. Only those in the Suda, the Byzantine lexicon, seem to offer purely historical information: The Motto (s.v. Ἐρατοσθένηs) confirms that Eratosthenes was called by Ptolemy III. Euergetes was asked to go to Alexandria, where he lived until the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes. It is also said that he was “born in 3 Suda, s.v. Ἐρατοσθένηs; Brand. Her., E. Per. Men. 2 (GGM I 565). See Prell 1957/58, 133–143 on the nicknames of Pythagoras (Gamma) and Apollonius of Perge (Epsilon); Manna 1986, 37-44; Geus 2002, 31-41. 4 Strab. 2.1.41 Accuse Eratosthenes of being a mathematician in geography and a geographer in mathematics.

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126a Ol. (276-272) and died at the age of 80”. The statements of the Suda agree to a great extent with other testimonies that also mention Eratosthenes as contemporaries of Callimachus,5 Apollonius Rhodio, Euphorion, Timarco,6 Philochorus,7 Archimedes8. On the contrary, the data seems to be at odds with that provided by Strab. 1.2.2, who states that Eratosthenes γνώριμοs9 was in Athens with Zeno, who died in 262 when Eratosthenes was 14 years old; that is, at an early age for discipleship. To reconcile the different elements, Jacoby10 suggested correcting the text of the Suda (ρκς 'instead of ρκα´) to set 296 as the year of his birth. But the correction may not be necessary. Since the date of Zeno's death is uncertain, one can agree with the testimony of Diogenes Laertius11, who fixed the date at 130a Ol. (260-256) and thus abandons the assumption that Eratosthenes, Aged 20, he killed the ancient philosopher in 256 B.C. in Athens. Thus, Eratosthenes' formative years in Athens, which would have allowed him to meet Stratus Lampsacus, the 'physicist', are followed by his full commitment to the prestigious institutions of Alexandria, such as the Royal Library and the Museum. . In these two research centers, texts and valuables were preserved through systematic cataloging and data transmission. Philology and geography were two disciplines that shared the same method, and the philologist and geographer Eratosthenes demonstrated (by correcting a text or a map) how the best edition could be achieved: in philology by diortosis to restore the text (Homer, first) close to the original, and also in geography with an updated map.12

5 Tzetzes, prol. p. 43:10 (= Xic Koster); p. 32.13 (= Xia II Koster); p. 23.1 (= Xia Koster). 6 Suda, sv. Ἀπολλώνιος. 7 Suda, sv. Φιλόχορος. For the biographical dates of Philochorus (340–262/1) see FGrHist 328. 8 Procl., Comm.in prim. Eucl. Elements, p. 68:19-20 Friedlein, where Euclid is considered older than Eratosthenes and Archimedes (ca. 287-212 BC). See also Vitr. 1.1.17. 9 Strabo's expression is "a simple boutade" for Thalamas 1921, 32-34, which translated means: "He who met those who had been Zeno's successors in Athens said nothing about Zeno himself." 10 FGrHist 241 Com. 740. See also Fraser 1972a, 175; 1972b, II: 489 ff.; Knaack 1907, 358 ff. thought 284 v. BC; Blomqvist 1992, 54 thought 285. 11 Diog. Laert. 7.10. Dorandi 1991, 26 et seq. for the death of Zeno in 262/1. See Dicks 1981, 388. Aujac 2001, 9; Geus, 2002, 9–15 for dates between 276/5 and 195/4 12 Jakob 1996, 901 ff.

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Works of Eratosthenes

As a philologist, Eratosthenes focused primarily on Homer.13 However, his interest turned to chronographs in works such as Olimpionikai and Chronographiai. In this last work, according to Clement of Alexandria14, Eratosthenes is said to have covered the period from the Trojan War (1184/3) to the death of Alexander (324/3), divided into ten periods with different historical and literary details. between the chronographic entries15 (however, it is not certain if the intermediate dates were created to synchronize with the Olympic years). Of interest here, however, are the writings on geography, which may also be related to those on astronomy and mathematics, particularly Platonicus,16 which contained definitions and interpretations of music and mathematics aimed at understanding Plato's work. Eutokius of Ascalon17, in his commentary on Archimedes' On the sphere and cylinder, refers to how in his work Eratosthenes explained the construction of the mesolabe (μεσόλαβον) to calculate “means” (μεσόγραφα). The Suda Lexicon testifies that Eratosthenes probably wrote in prose Ἀστρονομίαν ἢ Καταστη ρισμούs about the ascension to the celestial sphere and the transformation of various mythological or non-mythological persons into stars.18 2.1 Measuring the Earth There is a testimony from Garza of Alexandria ( dl 65 . C.) in the treatise titled Dioptra, and further testimony from Macrobius ( fl. 400 AD) in the commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis,19 where we learn that Eratosthenes wrote a work specifically to measure the earth (Περὶ τῆs ἀναμετρήσεωs τῆs γῆs). The existence of this work was often questioned, 13 Cf. Bagordo 1998, FF 3-8; 21-23. 14 clamp. Alex, electricity. 1.21.138.1-3 (= FGrHist 241F1a); Harpocrates. sv Εὐήνος; Dion. Hello 1.74.2 on this Niese 1888, 93 ss.; Geus 2002, 309-332. For the influence of Eratsthenes' chronology on Apollodorus, see De Fidio 2002, 279. 15 Geus 2002, 317 versus Knaack 1907, 382; Jacoby (FGrHist 241 com.707); Bickerman 1963, 76 for Eratosthenes "the rearranger" of all ancient chronology. 16 Cf. Fraser 1972b, I: 419; II: 592. 17 Eutocius, In arch. circle weak. p. 88. 17-23. See Hultsch 1910, 1214-1217; Heida 1921, 540; Fraser 1972b, I: 411-412. 18 Le Boeuffle 1965, 275–294; Bartalucci 1984, 283-300. On the creation of the work: Martín 1956, 58-62; Pàmias and Geus 2007, 24–34. 19 Garza, Dioptr. 35; Macrob., in summer. 1.20.9; see Galen. INSTANT RECORD 12.2 et seq.; Knacker 1907, 364; Thalamas 1921, 76; Geus 2002, 223-259.

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but the fact that Strabo20 was ignorant of Eratosthenes's complex procedure may show how independent the geography of Alexandria was compared to his other works mentioned above. Even Strabo seems to allude to Eratosthenes when he says (2.5.4) that "the surveyor measures the distance from the equator to the pole, which is the fourth part of the circumference of the earth", a measure that can be extracted from a partial figure. Even if Eratosthenes' procedure were exactly the opposite, deriving partial numbers from the total, Strabo's testimony shows the competence and skill of a geographer-surveyor who should have appealed to Eratosthenes in any case. The procedure for his measurement of the circumference of the earth (250,000 stadia, which he rounded to 252,000 perhaps for convenience)21 is reported by Cleomedes (7/1/94-100), a contemporary of Ptolemy, and is based on a practical method of approximate measurements based on it are intended to obtain a theoretical result. With reference to this theoretical measurement of the meridian -fixed at 252,000 stages- we can understand more about the stages of Eratosthenes, about which modern historians have debated so much. The Stade should measure -at least in a theoretical line- 1/252,000: The Stade was measured at 157.5 m, according to Hultsch, on the basis of a Plinian passage22 and according to the latest teaching,23 which also indicates that the measure of Eratosthenes is not far from the real one (39,690 km compared to the mean meridian of 40,000 km). Eratosthenes' statements about the circumference of the earth turned out to be very far from both Aristotle, who supposed 400,000 stades,24 and 20 Aujac 2001, 54, n.39. 21 Seidel 1789; Bernard 1822; Berger 1880. See also Thalamas 1921, 163; Dragoni 1979, 211-212. Finally, Geus 2002, 234 establishes that the two measures can be related to (250,000 stadia) On the measure of the Earth and (252,000) to Geography. 22 Plin., HN 12.53: schoenus patet Eratosthenis ratione stadia XL, hoc est p.V. See Hultsch 18822, 60-63; Mullenhof 1890, 259-296; tannery 1893, 108; Aujac 1966, 176-179; 2001, 56-57; Fraser 1972b, II: 599, note 312; Dutka 1993-1994, 63-64. 23 Tupikova and Geus 2013, 21, who stated that this measure is only indirectly documented in ancient sources. For one stage = 148.5 or 148.8 m = 1/10 of a Roman mile, see Lehmann-Haupt 1929, 1952–1960, who suggested the existence of seven different stages in ancient Greece; Prell 1956-1957, 549-563; Fisher 1975, 152-167. For a step = 158.57 m, see H. von Mžik 1933, 105–112; for 168 M., Thalamas 1921, 159; for 166.7 m., Gulbekian 1987, 362–363; for 177.4 M., Reymond 1924, 82; for 177.6 m., Niessen 1903, 241; January 1993, 20-21; for 185 M. Dreyer 1914, 353; Pollas 1960, 42-46; Pothecary 1995, 49-67. Contrary to the observation of Manna 1986, 41-42, which takes the position of 185.5 m. common in Egypt and therefore used by Eratosthenes, see Tupikova and Geus 2013, 21 on the prevalence of Greek rather than Egyptian sources in geography. 24 Cal. 2.14.298a.

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one known by Archimedes,25 perhaps based on Dichaarco, who reached 300,000 furlongs. Therefore, these results may have stimulated Eratosthenes to continue his investigations to find a new solution to an old problem composed by Arenario), the words of the scientist from Syracuse would have revealed that the topography of the earth had been a much discussed problem and that Eratosthenes had found an innovative solution related to his method, albeit without much luck given the predominance of a different measure in the later tradition, ie Posidonius27 and Ptolemy. 2.2 Geography28 It is plausible that Eratosthenes settled after 225 BC. BC, after completing the education of the young Philopator and receiving the indispensable material support from the king of Egypt, he dedicated himself to the topography of the globe, that is, he began to work as a geographer29 and began to draw a map of the inhabited world. It is difficult for us to appreciate how important the political factor was in the work of Eratosthenes. "Survey of the Earth" and "Drawing of a map of the Oikoumene" were the two main nodes of the "Organization of Space" devised and carried out in Alexandria within the framework of the Lagid Judgment dispute. Here the rulers claimed Alexander's legacy and gained recognition by spreading his ideology far beyond the borders of Egypt.

25 ares. 2.1. 26 Fraser 1970, 188–189. Berger's Hypothesis 1880, 107; 19032, 370, taken from Dreyer 19532, 174, is skeptically analyzed by Wehrli 19672, 77 and questioned by Geus 2002, 226 note 89 due to the lack of information in the fragments that have come down to us. 27 pos. F 202 EK = Cleom. 10/1/50–52; see also Ptol., Geog. 7, May 12: Aujac 1969b, note 143; 1993, 127-133. 28 References to the geographic fragments of Eratosthenes are attributed to Berger in 1880. 29 For a study of the winds derived from the testimony of Ach. Tat., Univ. 33.2 = Eratosth. F III A, 41 Berger: "Eratosthenes was also interested in the winds", cf. Geus 2002, 253-256. For the relationship between Eratosthenes and Timosthenes, whose twelve-rayed wind rose centered on Rhodes may be the basis of the Eratosthenic view of the Mediterranean, see Prontera 2013, 207–217. 30 Bianchetti 2014, 35–48.

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FIGURE 8.1 Eratosthenes world map: a reconstruction based on Aujac 2001 (courtesy of C.T.H.S.).

Opinion, through his references to the sovereigns,31 who had generously supported his task of reconnaissance of the territory in Egypt. This is also confirmed by his lexicon. For example, in geography, the inhabited world is compared to a chlamydia, which also had the shape of Alexandria on the map.32 To then divide the extent of Asia into sections, the scientist uses the term33 σφραγίς, literally a 'seal'. ' or a cadastral parcel derived from the lexicon of the Ptolemaic administration. We can also see a Ptolemaic perspective in the decision not to divide the inhabited world into continents: the ancient problem of the border between Libya and Asia (already discussed at length by Herodotus34 in reference to the geographical location of Egypt, which would end up being divided into two parts, when they were separated by a fixed limit along the course of the Nile) presented a particularly difficult problem in the context of the Syrian wars. Eratosthenes' silence on a geographical question with political implications 31 Mart.Cap. 6.598 = Eratosth. F II B, 41 Berger: per menseres regios Ptolomaei. For the nilometer and land control of Egypt, see Bonneau 1964. 32 Diod. sic 17.52.3.; street 17.1.8-10; Plin., HN 5.62; Plut., Alc. 26.8. See Preaux 1968, 176-187. 33 Thalamas 1921, 159; Geus 2004, 20 et seq.; Marcotte 2005, 149-155. See also the terms μέρη, μερίδες, πλινθία, which appear in Strabo: Berger 1880, 223; Geus 2007, 115. 34 Hdt. 2.15-16. See Lloyd 1989, 246-247.

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therefore, it could indicate an inevitable decision in your role as royal librarian. Finally, even his adherence to a vision of the Mediterranean which, in measuring routes and centralizing Rhodes, mirrored that of Timosthenes35, the admiral under Ptolemy II, might indicate that he was somehow influenced by royal interests. Taking into account the rich legacy of empirical knowledge preserved in the funds and texts of the Royal Library, as well as the results of astronomical science and the geometric method of Platonic derivation, Eratosthenes began to define the terrestrial sphere by first looking at the celestial sphere. . He then delineated the space on the sphere occupied by the inhabited world to determine how the portion of the sphere containing the oikoumene could be designed on a flat surface. To study the terrestrial sphere, conceived as homocentric to the celestial sphere according to the theory of Eudoxo de Cnido, the definition of the ecliptic was fundamental, that is, the inclination of the zodiac to the equatorial plane. Oenopides of Chios (c. mid-5th century BC) had already found 24 degrees for this angle, which corresponded to one side of fifteen sides inscribed in the circumference of the earth, and was therefore calculated as 360: 15 = 24°. Eratosthenes' procedure is different since it is based on the angular measurement of the distance between the two tropics, calculated as 11/83, that is, 47°42'40", according to Theon of Alexandria, a follower of Eratosthenes, or perhaps more probably 47°30'. Dividing this measurement by two gives the tilt of the ecliptic, expressed in degrees as 23° 50' (±30').Modern scholars are almost in agreement that this result is more attributable to Eratosthenes than to any of his successors, such as Hipparchus and Ptolemy, who also accepted it.In fact, Ptolemy used a division of the circle into 360 parts and there would have been no benefit in resorting to a fraction like the one in question.36 The astronomical method that guided the Eratosthenes' geographical research was also used in the research of Pytheas, who sailed in the second half of the fourth century BC from his hometown of Massalia to Thule, giving us an accurate measure of Massalia's latitude, and from that city he measured the latit You hear of the various places he went to during his exploration, which probably went as far as the arctic zone or thereabouts.

35 Prontera 2013, 207–217. 36 Fischer 1975, 152–167.

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From this panorama Eratosthenes extracted two important elements: (1) the latitude of Massalia (43°N), essential for the drawing of the Mediterranean Sea, and (2) the definition of the Arctic Circle (66°N), essential for the calculation of the amplitude of the essential is the world. The astronomical definition of the Arctic Circle by Thule37 forms an important crossroads of geographic knowledge. Until then, this circle was considered variable in relation to the point of observation. Aristotle, who apparently was unaware of Pytheas' research or at least did not take it into account38, argued again in Meteorologica with a perspective that refers to the horizon of Rhodes and thus determines the polar circle valid for the Greeks with 54°N , that is, in Herene's latitude. The decision to believe Pytheas's data, which had shown credibility under the Spharopoiia laws already theorized by Eudoxus, represented a turning point in method and merit, and from this resulted the development of the first "scientific" map of the world. The transition from the celestial to the terrestrial sphere —marked by the polar circles, the tropics, and the equator— is evident in a passage from Geminus,39 who, although not directly quoted, seems to translate Eratosthenes: “After measuring the maximum circumference of the earth with respect to the celestial meridian and set the measure at 252,000 stadia with a diameter of 84,000 stadia, the meridian is divided into 60 parts, each section called the sixtieth, which contains 4,200 stadia, because if 252,000 stadia are divided times 60, one sixtieth is 4,200 furlongs. The distances between the zones were determined as follows: two glacial areas, each occupying 6/60 or 5200 stadia; two temperate zones, each 5/60 wide or 21,000 stadia; The hot zone is 8/60 wide, so from the equator to the tropics, of each of the two parts, there are 4/60 or 16,800 stadia. There are 25,200 stades from the polar circle, which is below the celestial circle, to the polar circle on earth; from the terrestrial Arctic Circle, which is below the celestial Arctic Circle, to the terrestrial Tropic, which is below the celestial Summer Circle, there are 21,000 stadia; From the summer tropics to the terrestrial equator, there are 16,800 stadia below the celestial equator.” From the laws of the sphere we can even deduce the possible habitability of the region south of the equator. On this subject, Eratosthenes proposes apparently different solutions both in Hermes and in Geography: in fact, in the poem about the five zones, already theorized by Parmenides, the torrid zone is mentioned as uninhabited (Ach. Tat., Univ. 29 = F II A, 3). 37 Bianchetti 1998, 42–43. 38 Bianchetti 1998, 28–29. 39 Is. 16. 6-9. See Aujac 1975, 150.

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they have changed their minds on geography, which Strabo commented by saying: "For Eratosthenes, the area south of the equator is temperate" (Estrab. 2.3.2 = F II A, 5). Modern scholars have attempted to resolve this contradiction by raising the possibility that Hermes preceded geography.40 In my opinion, Eratosthenes' setting in Hermes seems to be the same as in geography. The reasons for the apparent contrast go back to the statement of Strabo, who seems to distort the thought of Eratosthenes to criticize Polybius and Posidonius. Both had effectively divided the zone traversed by the equator into two, and then assumed three zones for each hemisphere. Strabo, therefore, points to Eratosthenes to reject the idea of a temperate zone below the equator that Posidonius and Polybius would have taken from the Alexandrians. What it does not show, however, is that Eratosthenes had six zones in mind: he simply divided the earth into two hemispheres with similar characteristics, but without the equator having the additional function of dividing the hot zone in two. What is very important here is the quality of the source delivering the testimonial. This is one of the basic problems in the reconstruction of Eratosthenes' geographical thought. His work has come down to us in a fragmentary state and is essentially Strabo's. An example of Strabo's misunderstanding of Eratosthenes's conception comes in all likelihood from the passages relating to Book 1 of the Geography. Strabo accused Eratosthenes of being too critical of Homer. Instead, Strabo, a follower of Crates and the Pergamum school, attributed all knowledge (including geography) to Homer. Actually, Eratosthenes' criticism was directed not so much against Homer's poems (on which the philologist's diorthesis was interpreted to obtain a better text), but against that pseudoscientific vein that considered Homer's poems as a kind of encyclopedia, and useful for everyone's needs. Although many considered Homer the father of all sciences and referred to his verses to demonstrate the poet's polymath, it was Eratosthenes who compared his own scientific conception of geography with that of Homer's tales. For the Alexandrian, Homer may not have been aware of remote places like the island of Aeolus or the promontory of the Sirens, while for Strabo, Homer may have conceived of Odysseus's Exokeanisms.41 In Strabo's critique we can see, at least in part, his inability to understand the significance of Eratosthenes' research. This fact is noted in

40 Geus 2002, 122–128. 41 On Strabo's “Defense of Homer”, see Biraschi 2002, 151–161.

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Referring to the theories of both Strato de Lampsacus42 and Xanthus de Lydia43 about changes in land and sea levels. In particular, Xanthus, who had seen the prolonged drought under Artaxerxes and Little Shells in the Armenian, Matiene, and Lower Phrygian areas, concluded that the sea must have been much larger in earlier times (1.3.4). Strato then hypothesized that the force of the water had caused great changes in the earth's crust, since both the Black Sea and the Mediterranean had been lakes. Its conformation then changed: the rupture of the Mediterranean Sea was caused by the violent rupture of the rivers at the Pillars of Hercules, and the pressure of the river water flowing into the Black Sea caused the rupture of the Pontus Euxinus. These theories were shared by Eratosthenes but criticized by Strabo, who disagreed with Eratosthenes' reasoning about the water currents caused by the difference in sea water levels on either side. It was the study of the currents in the Strait of Messina, which reversed direction twice in 24 hours, which led Eratosthenes to relate this reversal to the gravitational pull of the moon, as Pytheas had already done in his tidal hypothesis. oceanic. These themes—namely, the analysis of oceanic motions and their consequences—connected Pytheas, Dichaarchus (who studied the tides in the Strait of Messina), and Eratosthenes, and easily explain why Strabo was so critical of all three geographers.44 Nonetheless, it is Strabo's testimony was invaluable for his general reconstruction of the map of Alexandria. In fact, the Amaseian geographer agreed with the framework and loudly defended Eratosthenes against the attack of Hipparchus, who fought him on a geometric basis. Strabo commented on the drawing of areas, which was problematic from the Augustan point of view (see, for example, the British Isles), maintaining the general structure of the map, and conveyed a reconstruction, if somewhat unreliable, of the geography of Eratosthenes. Surprisingly, it is Eratosthenes' text that for the first time actually communicates with his map, thus offering a scientific description of the entire inhabited world along with its contours. It is probable that, following a history of geographical thought contained in Book I and an analysis of physical geography in Book II, Eratosthenes laid the mathematical and astronomical foundations that would have been teachers of Ptolemy II and then successor of Theophrastus in 42 as guides to the Peripatus: Wehrli 1950; Aujac 1966, 224-228; 2001, 73-79; Sharples 2011, 14-17. 43 Contemporary of Herodotus and author of Lydiaca (FGrHist 765). See Aujac 1966, 223-224; 2001, 74-76. 44 1.3.12 = Poseidon. F 215 EK; see M 79 = FGrHist 746 F6b.

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he consented to inscribe the inhabited world in one of the two upper rooms of the terrestrial sphere. The reasoning reported by Strabo45 clearly goes back to Eratosthenes (although the scientist is not explicitly cited), particularly because of the reference to specific elements (see the shape of the terrestrial hemisphere, which resembles an artichoke without the Arctic ice cap, and the shape of the inhabited world similar to the Macedonian cloak of Chlamys)46 that allowed to delimit the space to install the oikoumene. Book III basically focused on the map. In other words, it was a question of transferring to a flat surface the quarter of the globe in which the inhabited world was inscribed: the system was based on the determination of two Cartesian axes, one of which was drawn from the parallel identified by Dicearco was 47, and the other of the meridian measured by Eratosthenes himself, which crossed the reference parallel in Rhodes. The Greek coat-oikoumene rested on these two axes. The outlines of these have been sketched, partly as a result of the collected documentation, partly by inference; this can also be seen in the northeast and southwestern areas where data (see below) was sparse. A combination of data drawn from periploi experience and terrestrial travel with a geometric division of space guided the drawing of the lines, which intersected perpendicularly. In fact, the map was drawn using an orthogonal projection. Nine parallels emerge from Eratosthenes' description: the first, going from the south, crossed the land of Cinnamon and Taprobane (Sri Lanka), and the others, going north, crossed Meroë, Syene, Alexandria, Rhodes, Massalia-Hellespont, Borysthenes, Hierne and finally Thule, in the far north. According to Honigmann48, the concept of parallel was already linked to the concept of climate by Eratosthenes himself, that is, a band of latitude that did not show significant variations in celestial phenomena. The idea of this 400 stadia wide strip could even be traced back to Eudoxus who theorized seven major climates (Meroe, Syene, Lower Egypt, Rhodes, Hellespont, the Pontus area, and finally the Borysthenes estuary). Contrary to this hypothesis, Dicks49 suggested that it may have been Hipparchus who first theorized the astronomical concept of climate. 45 reais 2.5.6 = Erat. F II B, 27. 46 Strab. 17.1.8; Pluto, Alex. 26.8; Plin., HN 5. 62; see diode. sic 17.52.3. For the cape, see Tarbell 1906, 283–289. 47 Research. FF 109–111 W. 48 Honigmann 1929, 18–21. 49 Pollas 1955, 248-255; 1956, 243-247; 1960, 154-164. See also Berger 1880, 191–192; Thalamas 1921, 239ff.

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the systematic definition of climates, identified by an arithmetic division of 1° = 700 stadia from the equator to the pole, was discovered by Hipparchus, but our sources also explicitly relate climates to Eratosthenes: in particular, Ps.Scymnus cites Eratosthenes50 for both climates and schemes. Even Strabo, who often cites Eratosthenes and the klimata51 in the context of Hipparchus' arguments, seems to be faithful to Eratosthenes' claims when he (Strabo) speaks of a latitude of 400 stadia (2.1.35) which differs from the of 700 Stages of the Hipparchus Matrix. So the fact that this passage mentions the respective parallels of Rhodes and Athens (clearly derived from Eratosthenes) and immediately afterwards mentions 'evaluation of climates' is an argument for Eratosthenes possibly distinguishing the two terms: (1) parallels denotes the parallel of place and (2) climate denote the line of latitude, that is, the space between two parallels. As for the measurement of the Oikoumene, the longitude (μῆ͂κοs) was calculated by Eratosthenes in individual sections of the reference parallel and estimated to be a little less than 78,000 stadia (77,800 to be precise),52 while the latitude (πλάτοs) was estimated in 38,000 furlongs: the latter coped with the 252,000 furlongs of the meridian, less than a quarter.53 As for longitude, Strabo drew criticism, especially in relation to the numbers used to achieve a 2:1 relationship between longitude and width. The Mediterranean route, from the Pillars of Hercules to Pelusium, gave rise to a series of sections (Pillars of Hercules - Carthage, Carthage - Canopus, Canopus - Pelusium = 23,000 stadia) that intersected with routes possibly already described by Timósthenes. Instead, the Pelusian-Euphrates segment (5,000 stadia) followed an ancient trade route: the total distance from the Pillars of Hercules to the Euphrates was therefore 28,000 stadia, calculated on a line parallel to the Dicearchus diaphragm. In the latter, the length of the land section was calculated from Issus along the Taurus to the eastern end of the ridge and to the eastern end of the Oikoumene. As a parallel, the Euphrates-Nile line (= 5,000 furlongs: Strab. 1.4.5 = F II C, 18) was equated with the Rhodes-Issus line: the reasoning matching 50 Ps.Scymn.150 ff. Eratosthenes is also mentioned in v. 412 on the Illica peninsula: Marcotte 2000, ad loc. 51 2.1.20 with the controversy between Hipparchus and Eratosthenes, which was disputed over the climatic conditions, a sign that the Alexandrians had touched the dispute. See also Strab. 2.5.34 = FΙΙΒ, 16; street 11.12.5 = F III A, 23. 52 Strab. 1.4.5 = F II C, 18. 53 Cf. Strab. 2.5.14.

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Evidently, measuring unknown segments against known segments, viewed as parallel, has helped to overcome the difficulties associated with areas where information is lacking. As already mentioned above, the western part of the map, that is, the Mediterranean area, was not as large as the Asian area known since the time of the great expedition of Alexander. In any case, the Mediterranean continued to be the best documented stretch, bounded by two parallels and two meridians that intersected perpendicularly, giving “our sea” a rectangular shape. The east (short) side of this figure was formed by the meridian of Issus and Amisus; and the western one by the meridian of the Pillars of Hercules, traditional limit between "our sea" and the ocean. However, the definition of the eastern side was disputed by Strabo, who controversially stated that the easternmost point of Dioscuria must be at Pontus Euxinus and not at Issus (2.5.25). Of the other two meridians that then crossed the Mediterranean Sea of Eratosthenes, the one that passed through Alexandria, Rhodes and the mouth of the Borysthenes was the reference parallel, which was clearly built on the aforementioned centrality of Egypt, which served as a connection center. terrestrial. and maritime routes apply. Instead, the Carthage meridian, on which the Straits of Messina and Rome54 also meet, is clearly stretched, and the reasons for this can be conjectured: the Pillars of Hercules - Strait of Messina section was taken to be the same as the Pillars of Hercules of Carthage. of Hercules - stretches (8,000 stadia) with the consequent alignment of Carthage and the Strait of Messina. The presence of Rome in this meridian could be explained by the fact that the route of the columns to the coast of Lazio through the Strait of Bonifacio could have seemed analogous to the section of the Pillars of Hercules - Strait of Messina. In addition, we must consider the important role that Rome played during the period in which the conflict with Carthage revealed a polarity that was destined to become a fundamental axis in the history of the Mediterranean. This axis was transformed by Eratosthenes, a spectator of the first two Punic wars, by stretching the alignment of the two centers to the meridian of the Strait of Messina55 -a notion later superseded by another idea of the Italian peninsula, which was created by him, Polybius matured, and later by Strabo.56 Regarding the method, the orientations mentioned above suggest that the historical-political importance of some centers could have influenced 54 Estrab. 2.1.40 = F III A, 40. See Fraser 1972b, I:769 for a detailed discussion of Alexandrian knowledge of Rome in the third century BCE. 55 Bianchetti 2013a, 293–314. 56 Prontera 1993, 387 et seq.; 1996b, 335-341.

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Choice of meridians and parallels: although they are not distinguished by regular spacing, they underline points of important historical-political interest on the map. Opposite the parallel of Carthage, Alexandria, Pelusium is the parallel of Massalia, which was placed on the long side of the rectangle, that is, the Mediterranean. Strabo's critique57, who accused Eratosthenes of not having mentioned Dioscuria as the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, shows the emphasis that Eratosthenes placed on the historical component: "our sea" and the Euxinus Pontus were considered by Eratosthenes as a continuous sea , the Issus instead of Dioscurias for the role of Issus in the history of the Mediterranean. As already mentioned, the eastern part of the map was much longer than the western one and was crossed by the Taurus mountain range that separated North and South Asia.58 It is clear that the function attributed to the mountain range was a straight line. imaginary that ran along the reference parallel of Dicearchus, contradicting the real geography. In fact, according to Eratosthenes, the bull was 3,000 stades wide59 and its western reach was north of Issus and the Lycian and Pamphylian coasts. The information received from Alexander's historians about the areas reached by Alexander's expedition had produced a wealth of data that enriched not only historical accounts (see Polybius and Arrianus) but also geographical investigations, such as those of Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, and Strabo, even with different ones. points of view In geography there are also traces of a hodological conception of space, which must have been present in the historical accounts of Alejandro's companions,60 with a predominance of a geometric conception of space. The tension towards a general representation of Oikoumene may explain the special division of the Asian areas. In addition to the two meridians of Rhodes and Issos, which delimited Anatolia, on the map of Eratosthenes we find the meridian that crosses the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf (see below), as well as the one that overlaps the course of the Indus, reaching the two the eastern end of Taurus and the southern end of India. The drawing of the outer contours of the Oikoumene, but without autooptic description (except for the section from the mouth of the Indus to the Persian Gulf explored by Nearchus), was drawn theoretically and analogously,61 57 Strab. 1.3.2 = F III B, 93. See Berger 1880, 339-340. 58 For the function of the diaphragm in bulls see Prontera 2000, 99-107. 59 Strab. 2.1.37 = F III A, 16. See Bianchetti 2015 (forthcoming). 60 Prontera 2012a, 129–134; 2012b, 202-203. 61 Bianchetti 2012b, 155–171.

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respecting the proportions of an oikoumene that extended north of the equator to the Arctic Circle. The geometric method, which converted the course of mountains, rivers, and coastlines into lines, made it possible to draw figures called sphragids62 —“seals,” Egyptian cadastral packets, or wax seals from a ring used for stamping.63 The first of these sections - and a kind of model - was India. Its rhomboid shape had sides outlined by the southern and eastern seas, as well as the Taurus mountain range and the Indus River. The shape, which came from both Alexander's historians and Megasthenes (who relied heavily on local sources),64 maintained the proportions dictated by the basic structure of the map: the southern tip of India was forcibly turned to the east for this purpose and was thought to be at the same latitude as the southern tip of Libya. It is therefore clear that Libya's latitude north of the equator has created the unreal analogy between east and west that is essential for the creation of a complete map, on which large unknown areas are drawn by symmetry and analogy together. with the known areas The second section was Ariana, bounded by the Indus to the east, the Taurus to the north, and the seas to the south, and to the west by a line running from the Caspian Gates to the foothills of Carmania, reaching the extreme east. of the Persian Gulf. The coast of Ariana was drawn from the account of Nearchus, commissioned by Alessander to sail from the mouth of the Indus to Babylonia.65 The text transmitted by Arrian in the Indiké was in fact an important source for Eratosthenes, who appears in this section of Asia to have built the eastern part of your map. If we hypothesize66 that the precise knowledge of the Persian Gulf goes back to Nearchus, and hence the first definition of it as such (with the consequent possibility of assuming the configuration of the Arabian Peninsula where Alexander sent his discoverers), then we can understand the importance of this information, including for the contour of the meridian drawn by Eratosthenes from the Persian Gulf through the Caspian Gates to the "northernmost point" of the Asiatic coast.67

62 Thalamas 1921, 159; Geus 2004, 20ff; Marcotte 2005, 149–155. 63 See also the terms μέρη, μερίδες, πλινθία in Strabo: Berger 1880, 223; Geus 2007a, 115. 64 Bianchetti 2013b, 77–86. See also Zambrini 1985, 781-833. 65 On Nearchus, see Zambrini 2007, 210–220. See also Bucciantini in this volume. 66 Bianchetti 2009a, 17–29. street 67. 11.11.7. See Bianchetti 2012b, 155–171.

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According to Eratosthenes, the Caspian Sea – described by the explorer Patrocles68 as an open sea in the name of Seleucus Nicator – corresponded to the Persian Gulf. When deciding whether it was an open sea or not, therefore, contrary to the Herodotian tradition of Persian origin,69 the analogy that the scholar attributed to the location of the two gulfs, one to the south and one to the north of the Taurus, may have played an important role. crucial role. From Patrocles' statement of a possible navigation from India to the Caspian Sea, Eratosthenes derived the probability of delineating the coastline by joining the mouth of the Caspian Gulf with the eastern end of the Taurus Line along the 36th parallel. testimony, again criticized by Strabo, who favored the representation of Apollodorus of Artemite (11.6.4 = FGrHist 779 F 3c), the geographical area that included the Taurus, the Caspian Gulf and the Asian coast was compared to the blade of a knife of kitchen room. This type of comparison was necessary to draw an almost unknown stretch of coastline, which fit well with Eratosthenes' method, which, as has already been said, relied on real objects (artichokes, mantles, etc.) to describe spaces that otherwise they would not be easy to imagine. The importance of the Caspian Sea, Caspian Gates and Persian Gulf meridian is also evident from the function of the tract south of the Taurus in defining the west side of the third Sphragis, the south side of which followed the east coast of the Persian Gulf ( measured along the Royal Road from Babylon to Carmania via Susa), while the western side overlapped the course of the Euphrates and the northern side the chain of bulls. Finally, for the fourth Sphragis we can reconstruct the western side, marked by a line running from Tapsacos (near Raqqa) to Pelusium, crossing an important communication route connecting Syria and Egypt. The northern half of the map, at least as far as Europe was concerned, was divided by Eratosthenes into three promontories jutting south into the Mediterranean:71 The first promontory was the Peloponnese; the second, Italy; and the third Liguria. These three promontories comprised the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian gulfs. This geographical area of Europe was also a subject on which Strabo harshly criticized Eratosthenes. Instead, for Strabo, the Peloponnesian promontory consisted of a series of smaller capes. 68 On Patrocles (FGrHist 712) see Bunbury 1879, 573; Neumann, 1884, 165-185; Berger 1880, 94 fine; 19032, 72; Gisinger 1949, 2263-2273; Cary and Warmington 1929, 151-152; Henning 1936, 182-186; Gomez Espelosin 2000, 220; Aujac 2001, 185. 69 Daffinà 1968, 363 ff.; Bianchetti 2012b, 155 and following 70 Strab. 2.1.17 = F II A, 10. 71 Strab. 2.1.40 = F III B, 97.

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In conclusion, regarding the work of Eratosthenes and his lack of success, we can see how much he was criticized by Hipparchus who tried to dismantle the geometry of the Alexandrian map. However, Eratosthenes was also attacked by those who did not accept his measurement of the circumference of the earth (Posidonius and Ptolemy) and by historians and geographers (for example, Polybius and Strabo) who saw geography as a tool for world government. But despite harsh criticism, Eratosthenes' map creation was probably retained in both Agrippa's and Ptolemy's maps. With the last geographer of antiquity the scientific revolution ended and the western world would forget the great achievements achieved by Eratosthenes in Alexandria.

CHAPTER 9

Advances in Science: Astronomy and Hipparch Klaus Geus Introduction Geography in modern times is a term that encompasses several sub-disciplines such as ecology, human geography, economic history, volcanology, etc., all related to "space" or environment". In ancient times, the definition of geography was much more restricted. Geography intended to create a map of Oikoumene, a geographer was basically a cartographer. The famous scholar Ptolemy defined geography in the first sentence of his Geographical Handbook (Geographical Handbook 1.1.1) as "the imitation of mapping out the entire known part of the earth, including things generally connected with it." Unlike chorography, geography uses "pure lines and labels to show the positions of places and general configurations" (Geog. 1.1.5). Therefore, according to Ptolemy, a geographer needs a μέθοδος μαθεματική, skills and competencies in mathematical sciences, especially astronomy, to fulfill his task of making a map of Oikoumene. In view of this close connection between geography and astronomy, it is no coincidence that almost all of the ancient "geographers" (in the strictest sense of the term) also distinguished themselves as astronomers and mathematicians: among them Anaximander, Eudoxus, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, Poseidonius and Ptolemy the most famous. In addition to certain topics such as degrees of latitude, meridians, polar circles, etc., ancient geography also adopted some methods from astronomy, such as determining the size of the earth or the distances between heaven and earth.1 Geographers mention Anaximander, Eudoxus, Hipparchus, Poseidonius and Ptolemy even built instruments to measure, observe and calculate such as the gnomon, the sundials, the scaphe, the astrolabe or the terrestrial meteoroscope by observing "points", that is. h Stars culminating in the zenith. For a possible connection to Hipparchus, see Geus and Tupikova 2013. 2 See Lewis 2001.

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This type of 'astronomical' or 'cartographic' geography must be distinguished from the 'descriptive' geography practiced by authors such as Strabo, Pomponius Mela or Dionysus of Alexandria, often referred to in antiquity as 'chorography'3 (for example, Ptolemy, as we have just seen).4 Between geography and chorography (or between astronomical and descriptive, or between geography in the ancient and modern sense) there were not only differences in requirements such as some basic mathematical knowledge, but also in terms of of objectives, Content, method and implementation.5 Such differences are very difficult to define in detail for astronomical geography, since the "cartographic" works of Anaximander, Eudoxus, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus and Poseidon, which would shed some light on the matter , have been almost completely lost. . Some fragments and doxographic information survive, but the narrative and historical contexts are often absent. In addition, authors such as Strabo, Mela or Pliny, who transmitted most of the information on astronomical geography, had no mathematical training. As such, they have often misinterpreted and misrepresented the arguments and findings of their "astronomical" peers, or simply presented them as "distilled" from second-hand accounts. The case of Hipparchus is particularly controversial. His geographical treatise6 entitled Against the “Geography” of Eratosthenes, which has been preserved in almost 70 fragments, makes reference to another geographical work that is also only available in 3 See also the titles of the works of Pomponius Mela and Pappus of Alexandria. Recently, the term "chorography" has been variously interpreted as "regional geography" or "scenic geography". See for example. B. Marcotte 2007; 2011; Rathman 2013; Strictly 2013, 35; Simon 2014. 4 Strabo's geography is only an exception at first glance. Even Strabo could not deny that the geographer must have knowledge of astronomy and mathematics, although he tried to play it down. See Strabo. 2.1.41; see also 8.1.1 et al. 5 The fact that only Ptolemy's Geographical Manual has survived as the sole specimen of 'mathematical' or 'astronomical' geography suggests that we need a different categorization of ancient geographical literature. For this reason, the TOPOI group in Berlin has proposed the concept of "common sense geography", which divides the spatial literature into "naive", "canonical" and "fully justified" geography according to the degree of rationalization of the phenomena (see Dan , Geus and Guckelsberger 2014). For the purposes of this article, the traditional distinction will suffice. 6 In Dicks' authorized edition, a surviving fragment in the 'long version' of the Armenian 'Weltanschauung' (Ašxarhac'oyc', 1.5) of Mowses of Khoren (after Hewsen 1992: Ananias of Shirak), from Pappus ' Chorographia lacks oikoumenike. Hipparco appears there the famous lunar eclipse of Arbela 331 BC. have discussed. See Geus (forthcoming) and below, note 27. We should also rule out F 41 Dicks (= Ptol., Alm. 1.67.22) since Hipparchus does not comment on Eratosthenes' Geographica, but on his treatise On the Measure of the Earth here. . See Geus 2002, 245–6. Some fragments of Dicks are

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fragments To make matters worse, the vast majority of the fragments were transmitted by Strabo, who had no appreciation for astronomical geography in general or Hipparchus in particular.7 In the context of the problem described above, an unbiased assessment of Hipparchus' achievements in this The area of geography should not be based on assessments of ancient authors such as Strabo and Pliny, but should try to determine the objectives and methods of Hipparchus and situate his treatise in the historical development of this discipline. It is advisable to start with the life and work of Hipparco. one

Life and work of Hipparchus

We know almost nothing about the life of Hipparchus. His hometown of Nicaea in Bithynia was a cultural center in Hellenistic and Roman times and it was there that he possibly received his education. In this context, it is worth noting that two other Hellenistic scholars interested in mathematics and astronomy, Xenocrates (396-314 BCE) and Theodosius (late 2nd century BCE?), also came from from Bithynia. The observational data made by Hiparcos are for the years between 1628 and 126 B.C. attested. Therefore, we can assume a life between approximately 200 and 120 BC. Although Hipparchus made meteorological observations in his native Bithynia,9 his astronomical observations took place mainly on Rhodes,10 and, probably only in a transitional phase, on Alexandria.11 Since Rhodes was already the central point of geographical reference in his early works about Aratus, Hipparchus wandered from Nicaea to Rhodes as a youth. Hipparchus was quite a prolific writer, even creating a catalog of his own works ( Ἀναγραφὴ τῶν ἰδίων συνταγμάτων) towards the end of his life. We know of 15 titles: 12 dubious (for example, F 63). I'll try to show this in more detail in my commented edit in FGrHist V (Geus. coming soon). 7 Cf. Engels 1998; Clarke 1999, 197-210. 8 161 B.C. Chr. after Rehm 1913, 1666. 9 Ptol., Phas. 67.10 Heiberg (confirmed by Aelian., De anim. 7.8; see also CCAG V 1, p. 204.8), but cf. Rehm 1913, 1666. 10 Jones 2013, 3222. 11 Ptol., Alm. 3.1 p.m. 196. 12 I give a revised and expanded list of titles, essentially in accordance with the chronological order established by Dicks 1960, 15, with some modifications (see Rehm 1913 for careful analysis of sources).

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On the treaty of the ropes in a circle, in twelve books. Treaty of Simultaneous Uprisings. At the exit of the twelve signs of the zodiac. Commentary on the "Phainomena" of Aratus and Eudoxus. Against the "geography" of Eratosthenes.13 In objects that fall due to their weight. On the displacement of the points of the tropics and the equinox. About the length of the year, a book. Throughout the month. In the months and leap days. On the size and system of the fixed stars. On the movements of the moon in degrees of latitude. Parallax. On the sizes and distances of the sun and the moon. Catalog of his own works (Ἀαγραφὴ τῶν ἰδίων συνταγματάμα).14 Hipparchus also seems to have published other treatises on specific topics in astronomy (planetary theory? On solar eclipses and the seven climates?),15 meteorology (Parapegmata?), astrology, mathematics (number theory?) and optics, although we do not know the exact titles of the works. Given the specific themes and issues raised, one can imagine that the circulation of his books, with the possible exception of his commentary on the "phenomena" of Aratus and Eudoxus, was quite limited. Ptolemy seems to have had difficulty obtaining all of Hipparchus's works in Alexandria. One point deserves special mention: the Byzantine encyclopedia Suda dedicates an entire motto to Hipparchus, calling him a "philosopher", an honor that the same lexicon does not even grant to the mathematician Archimedes, and which shows that Hipparchus was not only considered a skilled astronomer in antiquity.

13 Estrab. 2.1.41 (abreviado en 1.1.2: To Eratosthenes). 14 Pto., Alm. 3,207.12. 15 Ptol., Alm. 9, 2 and 3; Aquiles, Isag. It is compatible. Misa 47.18.

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The main characteristics of his work are the scathing, sometimes pedantic criticism of his predecessors and the refusal to accept theories and hypotheses that are not based on mathematical principles and/or closely observed data. In this respect, Hipparchus can be described as a modern scientist by Karl Popper's standards. Most of his works deal with problems of astronomy. Among them is the only surviving commentary on Aratus's (ca. 310-245 BCE) astronomical didactic poem, the Phainomena. Hipparchus extensively discusses and criticizes the astronomical theories of this Hellenistic poet, who drew on an earlier work by Eudoxus of Cnidus (ca. 395-340 BC). Hipparchus corrected the geographical latitude of Athens (37°) and in particular the information from Aratos about the parts of the zodiac and about the constellations that rose and set at the same time ("paranatellonta"). He also published a catalog of fixed stars, which he prepared for the latitude of Rhodes (36°). Finally, the work was also accompanied by a repertoire of important individual stars, from which anyone can deduce the 24 (equatorial) hours of the day. The catalog of fixed stars in this commentary is not to be confused with another catalog of stars now lost but highly praised by ancient writers. In contrast to his predecessors Eudoxos and Eratothenes, Hipparchus was the first to express the position of the stars not in the traditional pictorial way, that is, relatively (for example: "The lion has a bright star on the left pawn"), but in an absolutely mathematical coordinate system. . The consensus is that this catalog consists of about 850 stars. It was only slightly smaller than the one we find later in Ptolemy's Almagest, which mentions 1022 stars. Ein weiteres astronomisches Werk, das die Verschiebung der tropischen und äquinoktialen Punkte (περὶ τῆς μεταπτώσεως τῶν τροπικῶν καὶ ἰσημερινῶν σημεῖ & σ & iges ῖων), enthielt Hipparchus, die wichtigste Erfindung, die wichtigste Erfindung, die wichtigste Erfindung, die wichtigste Erfindung, die wichtigste invention, the most important invention, the most important invention, the most important invention, the most important invention, the most important invention, the most important invention, considered. Hipparchus noted that not only does the earth revolve around its axis (or, in Hipparchus's case, the heavens revolve around the earth, since he adhered to the geocentric worldview), but the axis of the earth itself, as one rotation, gradually changes in peak orientation over millennia. Therefore, the apparent north pole of the firmament is in constant motion. The North Pole star, Polaris, has changed places several times and is now different from what it was in Greco-Roman times. Hipparco made this discovery in 128 BC. at the end of his life. Ptolemy tells us that Hipparchus found the precession of the equinoxes by checking the observations of the astronomer Timocharis (ca. 300 BC). This attests to the rigor of Hipparchus, who valued exact dates. In compiling his catalog of fixed stars, he even found a previously unknown star. Alexander von Humboldt identified it with a nova in the constellation

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Scorpio, also observed by Chinese astronomers. Hipparchus drew the correct conclusion from his discovery, which sounded revolutionary and heretical to old ears, namely that the fixed stars are not really fixed but change over time. Like his successor to Ptolemy, Hipparchus was interested in astrology, 16 particularly astrological geography. This branch of "science" related the twelve signs of the zodiac or the seven "planets" to specific regions or countries. Thus Hipparchus and the "ancient Egyptians" subordinated Babylonia, Thrace, Armenia, southwestern Arabia, Persia, Cappadocia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and the Red Sea to the zodiac sign of Aries Sagittarius (Τοξότης) with Crete, Sicily, Italy, and Iberia. 18 There is little reason why Hipparchus should reject these (and other) astrological bits. We cannot exclude that later astrologers tried to use Hipparchus's fame and authority for their own purposes and published their own ideas and works under his name. But as ancient tradition shows, the fact that Hipparchus was an astrologer is beyond doubt. 2 Geography It was not only his interest in astrological geography that led Hipparchus to concern himself with geography in the strictest sense. He strove to verify astronomical observations by accurately inspecting observation posts. Hipparchus was not interested in descriptive geography in Strabo's sense. As far as we know, he only aimed at astronomical geography. Wolfgang Hübner (2000, 97) even hypothesized that Hipparchus did not want to write a geographical treatise at all, but he felt compelled to do so when he dealt with the data and, in particular, with the errors and shortcomings of the predecessors. of the. And maybe he is here. We only know of a geographical work by Hipparchus entitled Against Eratosthenes, or more precisely Against the "Geography" of Eratosthenes. This treatise by the Alexandrian scholar was considered a standard work in the field of geography, just like Arato's Fenomena in the field of astronomy. 16 See, p. B. Sixth. Emp., Adv. Math. V.init.; Plin., HN 2.12. 17 Hephaestus, Apotelmus. 1.1.7. 18 Vettii Valentis Antiocheni anthologiarum libri novem, ed. David Pingree, Leipzig 1986, 394, app. III 41: Τοξότης . . . ὡς δὲ ἵπαρχος, κατὰ ὴῥ ῥχιν κρήτη, σικελία, κατὰ Δὲ τὰς πταλίαὰ & μ & μges κ & es κ & es κ & is ges.

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Any scholarly discussion of Hipparchus's time had to revolve around the premises and conclusions of Eratosthenes' work.19 Like Eratosthenes's geography, Hipparchus's "refutation" must be reconstructed from Strabo's statements in the theoretical books 1 and 2 of his work. The somewhat pedantic criticism that Strabo put into the mouth of Hipparchus may do justice to the general flow of his work. In fact, Hipparchus treated Aratus and Eudoxus in the same way. But the surviving fragments make it clear that Hipparchus did not intend to condemn everything Eratosthenes proposed or to replace Eratosthenes' geographic system with his own. Rather, Hipparchus' criticism was directed primarily at certain cartographic aspects of Eratosthenes' geography, and thus "only" at the main pillar of geography, cartography. Whenever Strabo lets Hipparchus say things that have nothing or nothing to do with cartography, 20 we can assume that Hipparchus was motivated by statements in his eratostic model or that Strabo's selection refers to precisely those passages. Like the work of his predecessor, Hipparchus's own treatise consisted of three books and showed great similarity in composition.21 Hipparchus's work was essentially a commentary on Eratosthenes from an astronomical point of view. This view is confirmed by Strabo (2.1.41 = proof. F Dicks): For Hipparchus, who did not write a geographical treatise, but critically questioned Eratosthenes' claims on his geography, it would have been appropriate for him to go into more detail. of the correction is In the first book, Hipparchus begins with the history of geographical research (γεωγραφικὴ ἐμπειρία)22 and, unlike Eratosthenes, begins with Homer. For this he received high praise from Strabo, which is somewhat undeserved from today's perspective.23 Hipparchus next argued against the vision of an all-encompassing ocean or "Atlantic sea" (as Eratosthenes called it) surrounding our oikoumene.24 In left in this context revives the old error of the two estuaries of the Danube

19 When Cicero had the idea of writing a Geographica, he wanted to emulate Eratosthenes as a model. Cfr. Cic., Att. 2.6. 20 For example, to Strab. 1.3.15 = F 9 Dicks, Advanced Historical Arguments of Hipparchus; see also Strab. 1.2.20 = F 3 crossings. 21 But see Rehm 1913, 1678. 22 Strab. 1.1.2 = F 1 Dicks: Not sure what to do. 23 Str. 1.1.2 = tails F1; 1.2.3 = F2-Dicks; 1.2.20 = F 3 crossings. 24 See Strab. 1.1.12 = F 11 tails.

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It emptied into both Pontus and the Mediterranean.25 This and other examples show that Hipparchus's knowledge of geography, or, in a more modern sense, of regional studies, was quite limited. In the first book he also addressed the question of whether other Oikoumenai can be found on the earth's surface besides the traditional three continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa ("Libya"). He seemed to argue that an "anti-oikoumene", that is, an oikoumene south of the equator, begins on the large island of Taprobane (Sri Lanka). Ultimately, Hipparchus rejected Eratosthenes' method of calculating the size of Oikoumene simply by adding known land segments. By contrast, Hipparchus required an astronomical determination of all locations to create an accurate map of the world. In principle, he asked that the latitudes be observed and calculated by measuring the heights of the gnomon and its shadow, or by determining the ratio between the longest and shortest day, or by measuring the culminating points of the fixed stars. It is difficult to determine to what extent Hipparchus himself realized his own theoretical claims. According to an account by Strabo26, Hipparchus endorsed the ancient measure of Pytheas of Massalia, who claimed that Byzantium and Massalia were at the same latitude, when in fact Byzantium is more than two and a half degrees south. Other errors, which we can hardly attribute to a meticulous observer like Hipparchus, lead us to believe that his famous table of latitudes was not compiled as a series of actual observations (neither by Hipparchus nor by another geographer): such a mission was certainly impossible in antiquity. , but rather a compilation and probability assessment of older observations. In any case, confidence in Hipparchus led later geographers, including Ptolemy, to accept his observational data, and thus the latitudes of important cities, without much reservation. For the determination of longitude, an insoluble problem due to the lack of synchronized clocks in antiquity, Hipparchus proposed using observations of lunar eclipses or occultations made in two different places whose mutual distance is known. The so-called meridian distance, that is, the degrees of longitude of the locations, can be calculated from the time difference between the two observations. As ingenious as Hipparchus's proposal was, the rarity of such observed (and recorded) phenomena made this method an exception in the history of cartography.27 The old lists of 25 Strab. 1.3.15 = F 10 crosses. 26 Strab. 1.4.4 = F53 Pullets; 2.5.8 = F 54 Pullets. 27 The famous lunar eclipse of September 20, 331 B.C. BC, observed at Arbela and at Carthage (cf. Ptol., Geog. 1.4.2; Plin., HN 2.180; Arr., Anab. 3.7.6), as a means of determining longitude, was attributed to Hipparchus of Pappus of Alexandria (see above no. 6).

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ἀντικέιμενοι τόποι, that is, the places that are located on the same meridian, were not determined by astronomical observations, but by estimates of travel and routes in a north-south direction. In the second book, Hipparchus subjected Eratosthenes' "seals" (σφραγίδες), essentially geometrical and simplified representations of larger regions and countries, to such harsh criticism that they erased almost all traces of them from our memory of geographical thought. Strabo was quick to defend Eratosthenes on several occasions, emphasizing that mathematics must be kept separate from geography. But he ignored the fact that Eratosthenes' seals were essentially geometric elements. In this respect, Hipparchus's criticism was justified. He verified each of the seals trigonometrically,28 constructing triangles with important points, the sides and positions of which Eratosthenes had determined from terrestrial distances.29 Hipparchus was particularly opposed to the initial eastward extension of the "Taurus," a long mountain range, as part of the so-called "diaphrams" in the columns of Heracles and continued through Sardinia, Sicily, Attica, etc. to East Asia.30 Hipparchus also criticized Eratosthenes' move to the south of India. Hipparchus overstepped on the last point, discarding Eratosthenes' younger and improved map for the older Ionian (Eudoxian?) maps of the world. with the Eratosthenes seal system as a conservative attitude in cartography. In the third and final book of his work, Hipparchus went into detail about Eratosthenes' famous land survey. As an astronomer, he accepted Eratosthenes' approach to determining the circumference of the earth.

28 Strabo's statement on Hipparchus' critique of "seals" points to the third and fourth seals, but as can be seen in a certain passage (2.1.40 = F 29 Dicks 2.1.41 = F 33 Dicks) he has them in them he also applied the other seals.29 Hipparchus is considered the founder of trigonometric astronomy.31 On these πίνακες ἀρχαῖοι see recently Prontera 2014 (with older secondary literature, especially Prontera 1997), which shows that Eratosthenes' modifications netto 32 Strab. 2.1.4 = F 11.1 thicknesses = F 14 thicknesses 2.1.21-2 = F 19 thicknesses;

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(250,000 or 252,000 stades), but he strongly criticized some instructions that he considered mathematically ambiguous or illogical (cf. FF 36, 36, 39 Dicks).33 However, his main objective in this book was the construction of a grid or network of land . Eratosthenes used only a handful of lines of latitude and meridians to draw the map of him, defined by major cities and Oikoumene landmarks. These latitudes and meridians were still drawn at irregular intervals. Now Hipparchus built a theoretical grid of parallels that went from 0 to 90° N, that is, from the equator to the north pole. He included some cities that he himself measured or whose coordinates he considered to be correct. According to Strabo, he even calculated the celestial phenomena that took place there. In addition to the already mentioned measurements with the gnomon or according to the length of the day, he provided data on the apparent συνανατολαί or συγκαταδύσεις and culminations of stars34 and the "eternally visible circle" (ἀεὶ φανερὸς κύ,λο, which is the circumference of the stars). . For his geographical tables, Hipparchus seems to have read directly from a globe, as he probably did for his catalog of fixed stars. Such a procedure does not require calculation and can be carried out easily and quickly. The center of his grid was, similar to Eratosthenes, Rhodes, more precisely Mount Atabyrios in the center of the island. Knowing only a limited number of astronomically determined locations, Hipparchus refused to draw a new map of Oikoumene. Although Hipparchus tried to be careful when adopting data from his predecessors, in some cases he fell for false information and errors. As mentioned above, he accepted the misidentification of Pytheas of Massilia and Byzantium as being at the same latitude.35 This change causes many connected sites to 'slide' to the north. As a result, India was placed too far north in the concept of Hipparchus. Here he followed the older maps of the Ionians instead of accepting the best of Eratosthenes.36 33 According to Pliny d Circumference of the earth, ie 278,000 (or 276,000). This is difficult to interpret. According to a modern point of view, Hipparchus tried to find a compromise between Eratosthenes' number and the "traditional" number of 300,000, according to another, Pliny confused two statements, namely that the circumference at the equator is 4 × 63,000 stades ( cf. Strab 2.5.7) and that the north-south extent of Oikoumene is 38,000 stadia. See Campbell 1936, 91. Both explanations are unsatisfactory. 34 Strab. 1.1.21 seems to belong in this context. 35 Cf. Bianchetti 1998, 160–2. 36 Shcheglov 2005 promoted the rehabilitation of Hipparchus in this sense. He is certainly correct in pointing out that Strabo very often misrepresented Hipparchus. But Hipparchus's advice

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Other examples of the use of incorrect dates refer to the latitude of Athens (here follows Hipparchus Eratosthenes, who underestimated the distance between Rhodes and Athens)37 and the already mentioned38 curious statement that the Danube flows into both Pontus and the Mediterranean Sea. . 3 Conclusion The evaluation of the achievements of Hipparcos raises some difficulties. The splendid praise given to Hipparchus in ancient and modern times can be amply confirmed, but needs nuance in the area of geography, which was clearly not Hipparchus' favorite subject. His demand for an abstract coordinate grid based on astronomical data was certainly new, but he himself could not satisfy it. Since Hipparchus did not have an immediate disciple or follower, either in astronomy or geography, the paths he paved were not traveled again until centuries later. It is becoming increasingly clear from recent research that Claudius Ptolemy relied on his brilliant scientist not only on his Almagest but also on his Geographical Manual. (also due to political circumstances) and mathematical geography did not find interest in other centers such as Rome. The anecdote is revealing that the Roman Emperor Marcus Antoninus (ruled AD 138-161) punished the people of Nicaea for forgetting their famous compatriot Hipparchus.40

discarding the younger Eratosthenes map and following the older maps, where India was placed even further north than on Eratosthenes' map, makes Shcheglov's argument moot. 37 cf.ff 18, 50 tails; see also Hipparchus, In Arat. 1. 4. 8, see Dicks 1960, 177. 38 See above 156-157. 39 See recently Shcheglov 2014, 79–81. 40 See Aur. Vict., DeCaes. 41.20; and Pekary 1993.

B. The idea of the furthest horizon in the Greek and Roman traditions

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CHAPTER 10

The Indian Ocean from Cnidus Agatharchides to Periplus Maris Erythraei Didier Marcotte 1

The Erythraean Sea and the South in Greek Geography and Ethnography

The name "Erythraean Sea" encompassed much more than what we know today as the Red Sea, denoting not only the gulf between the Egyptian and Arabian coasts, but also the area stretching from the Horn of Africa in the west to Cape Comorin. and the Bay of Bengal to the east. Even in its earliest recorded use in the classical period, it was clearly a general term, as it was also used to denote the gulfs that encircled the Arabian Peninsula and the Arabian Sea that separated that peninsula from the Malabar coast.1 Greek historians they recognized this sea therefore. space as a unit. This idea of unity is also confirmed by the titles of two geographical works: On the Eritrean Sea, a treatise by Agatharchides of Cnidos, in the 2nd century BC. 2, and Periplus Maris Erythraei, by an anonymous author who lived in the early decades of the principality's century.3 These two accounts differed considerably in both nature and purpose, the former being prepared by an official living in the Chancellery of Alexandria under Ptolemy VI. . Philometor (181–145 BC) and Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II (169–116 BC) The ocean could be considered as a single entity. –195 Translation and commentary by Woelk 1966 and Burstein 1989. Fragments are numbered after Müller A new critical edition by D. Marcotte and S. Micunco to be published soon in the Budé series 3 edition of Frisk 1927 and Casson 1989, translation and commentary de Huntingford 1980. On the journey see also the work compiled by Boussac, Salles and Yon 2012. 4 Testimony in FGrHist 86, biographical data discussed in Burstein 1989, 12-18, Marcotte 2001, 391-399 Casson 1989, 6 - 10. For the date see below n.

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The unity of the Mediterranean was evident to ancient historians very early, but the morphology of the Erythraean Sea and the diversity of cultures found on its shores made this conclusion less obvious. However, the unity of the Erythraean Sea seems to have been accepted as fact at the time of Persian rule. It was Darius who explored its coasts for the first time, and who is said to have entrusted this mission to Scylax de Caryanda, before embarking at the end of the 6th century BC. he undertook his Indian campaign. According to Herodotus (4.44), our only formal witness to this expedition, the Greek navigator set out from the mouth of the Indus and finally reached Egypt, after having circumnavigated the Arabian Peninsula, which had a direct influence on the sovereign's expansion policy. , particularly to the east; He also seems to have given the Achaemenid a better idea of how far his empire extended and how it all fit together. While the Persian Empire had a clearly continental destiny, the sea that washed the shores of its most remote satrapies clearly served not to separate but to unite the waters of the southern sea, thus defining the extent of the Achaemenid Empire. Conquered by the Great King, like Ethiopia, despite the campaigns that Cambyses II intended to undertake to the south of Egypt, these regions were, however, the confines of his hegemonic ambitions and the two southern borders of the known world. Of Scylax Herodotus concludes: “After [Scylax's] men had completed this voyage, Darius conquered the Indians and used the sea (echrato) in these regions. Thus it has been established that all of Asia, with the exception of the eastern part, resembles Libya." He did not elaborate on the similarities between Asia and Libya, but we can assume that the presence of "Ethiopians" is, for him, as it is for ethnographers, the most notable feature was. Here and there we find evidence of similarities between the fauna and even between the hydrography of the great rivers, but it was Alexander and his successors who drew attention to the similarities between the Indian and Nilotic worlds. In fact, his reasoned comparisons should form the basis of climatology, since the principles and methods of that science are traceable.

6 For the account of Herodotus, see Salles 1988, 79–86. 7 Briant 1996, 152-153, 191-192. 8 Thus in inscriptions from the Achaemenid period: eg Schmitt 2009, 98–99 (DHa); see also Karttunen 1989, 32-33; Schneider 2004, 376–378 and Chapter 11 below.

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museum scholars and their analyzes of the physical and human characteristics of the lands flanking the Erythraean Sea.9 It was precisely these two aspects that Agatharchides dealt with in his treatise, his stated aim being to include all the lands and peoples of the southern of Erythra to seize the inhabited world. This room, which he simply referred to as τὰ πρὸς μεσημβρίαν (F 64), 10 provided enough material for five books in which ethnography and natural history were closely intertwined. Most of what we know about this work comes from Diodorus and Strabo. In Book 3 of his Bibliotheca historica, Diodorus (3:11–48) quotes long passages from Agatharchids about the Ethiopian peoples and the lands of the upper Nile, the regions between the Nile and the sea, and the opposite shore of the Arabian Gulf. , which extends from the latitude of Arsinoe (F 80)11 to the region of the Bab al-Mandab strait (F 39: ta stena; 79). These pages, which often reflect a deep and sustained interest in the study of man and his environment, find a faithful echo in the Bibliotheca de Photius, where a complete codex (cod. 250) preserves extracts from books 1 and 5 of Agatharchides. .12 Together, Diodorus and Photius reveal the full scope of Cnidier's ambitious enterprise. He intended to describe in one fell swoop the ethnic components of the entire area between the Nile Corridor and the Indian subcontinent, adopting the comparative approach of Herodotus and attempting to illustrate the identifying features of the Mesembriae. On Eratosthenes' world map, this area roughly corresponded to the southeast quarter of Oikoumene. We can assume that the objective of the treaty was to present the Erythraean Sea as the physical feature around which all the regions of the southern world were organized and to use it as a pretext to study each of these regions in turn.13

9 Marcotte 1998. 10 Variant in F 110 (Phot., Bibli. 460 b 3–4): See also F 79 (Diod. Sic. 3.38.1): on the Red Sea beach and the Atlantic Ocean inclined towards the meridian. 11 See Arsinoe alias Cleopatra Cohen 2006, 308–309. 12 For a comparative study of the extracts by Diodorus and Photius, see Micunco 2008. 13 We can assume that the treatise On the Eritrean Sea served as a procataquence for Agatharchides' entire historical work (fragments of On Asia and On Europe in FGrHist 86 ), choice justified by the age of the southern population. See Marcotte 2001 followed by Ameling 2008 .

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Content and intention of On the Eritrean Sea by Agatharchids

In his Book 1, which has come down to us only through Photius and Strabo (F 1-20),14 Agatarchids describes the Erythraean Sea as a geographic and climatic space following the Alexandrian conception. The name of the sea gave rise to a comment on its etymology (F 1-6), which gave the author the opportunity to reject the mythological Aitia altogether and to oppose in principle any combination of mythographic writing and historical narrative (F 7). . Then the figure of the Ethiopian was introduced by a moralizing and admonishing speech delivered by an adviser to a young Ptolemy (F 12-18), inspired by Herodotus (see 3 below). We can assume that somewhere in Book 1 (see above on F 9; 19-20) the Ptolemies' interest in elephants and the campaigns they undertook against the Ethiopians were contrasted. A description of Ptolemais Theron, a seaside trading post or elephant hunting station, provided a pretext for discussing black populations living inland in the Arabian Gulf (F 84).15 Agatharchides originally intended to do an ethnography suitable for African Ethiopians. with three separate sections corresponding to three different geographical areas, according to the division adopted by Diodorus (3.11.4): (i) the Ethiopians living on the banks of the Nile and in the Meroe region,16 (ii) the mainland Ethiopians living in the deep south (Book 5, F 50–60), and (iii) the groups living in the area between the Nile and the Red Sea, particularly the Ichthyophagi and the Troglodytae (or Trogodytae). After an introductory comment on the historian Hegesias' use of pathos (F 21 = FGrHist 142 T 3 and F 6-17), the surviving fragments of Book 5 first describe the life of slaves in desert gold mines. from Nubian Dakka. across the road (F 23–29). Ichthyophages (or piscivores), a species of humans said to inhabit both sides of the Erythraean Sea,17 formed the subject of one of the longest (and most carefully nuanced) descriptions in Book 5 (F 31–49). , which covers the History takes the Reader from Carmania and Gedrosia (F 31) to the Arabian Gulf. For Agatharchides, Ichthyophages, and Troglodytae, the last peoples examined in Book V, 14 , there is an additional fragment in Plin., HN 7.206; see Strab. April 16, 2020 and photo, Bible 442 b 3–12 (F 5 Müller). 15 See Burstein 1989, 145 f. 1. For the location of Ptolemais Theron, see Cohen 2006, 341–343. 16 These Ethiopians were the first (we assume it was in book 2) and are therefore absent from Photius's version, but Photius nevertheless included in his collection (F 30) a brief description of their eating habits , which according to Diodorus (3.8.6), had apparently appended the description of Meroe in his On Asia (FGrHist 86 F 1). 17 For fish eaters in Greek literature and ethnography, see Longo 1987.

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they were excellent examples of paradoxical societies, but that didn't stop him from describing them with humanity, if not compassion. According to an excerpt provided only by Photius (F 49), the former were not at all affected by the Greek taste for superfluous things. They themselves wanted only the bare minimum, and because they needed little, they suffered little. While certainly not extolling the virtues of misery or deprivation, Agatharchides used piscivores as a pretext to portray a social and natural order in which asceticism was a good thing, adopting an argument probably indebted to Cynics or Epicurean doctrine. 18 This population group was also hostile to the concept of serfdom and had no written laws, but despite the lack of moral concepts (ennoiai, F 31; 40) they could display noble sentiments (eugnomonein, F 49). The description of Agatharchids seems to have been dictated by a well-defined ethical program and included a critique of civilizations governed by the laws of appropriation.19 Thus, we can interpret the tacit pact of mutual non-aggression between ichthyophages and seals (F 42 ) as implicit (in the sense of the apologist) represents the diametric opposite of real neighborly relations. The troglodytes (F 61-63), the southernmost coastal people, lived in a pastoral society and shared their wives and children in a lifestyle reminiscent of utopian literature. According to one of their customs, whoever could not follow the herds had to commit suicide by strangling himself or, if he felt unable, the first person to do it for him (F 63). . This nomimon, characterized by what Diodorus (3.33.7) called its "strange and haunting aspect", gave rise to a discussion of the contrast between the extreme north and the extreme south, both paradoxical places. The following comparison of the Scythians and the troglodytes (F 65) may have continued where the author of On Air, Water, and Places left off, that is, in a passage contrasting the Egyptians with the Scythians,20 but in he emphasizes the principle of man's universal adaptation to his environment and, unlike Hippocrates, he did not make moral judgments. The ethnography of Book 5 ended with a return to our Red Sea, clearly perceived as the axis of the southern world.21 Agatharchides first described the African coast from the Gulf of Suez (Arsinoe) to the Bab al-Mandab Strait. ( F 79–84), than the east coast, from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Sabeans 18 On the importance of Chreia in Greek ethnography Spoerri 1959, 144–148. 19 See Gabba 1974, note 31 below; Diehle 1994, 86-89. 20 Hippok., Aer. 12, 6-7; Juana 1996, 299-300. 21 For this description of the Red Sea, see Desanges 1999, 294–295.

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Kingdom (F 85-103). Books 2-4 no doubt also returned to this sea at regular intervals between their forays into the outlying regions, alternating centrifugal and centripetal motion. The Mesembria thus defined extended from the borders of India and Persia to those of Ethiopia and Libya, and included all the lands described by Herodotus (4:39-41) in relation to the kingdom of Darius bathed by the Erythrean Sea. This spatial freedom may have allowed the author to quickly mention Libya and describe Arabia. These detours were an expression of the author's refusal to use any perigetic method, while at the same time he could state in Diodorus 3.38.1 (F 79) that on his last return to the Arabian Gulf he had all the shores of the Eritrean sea. and even those to the south occupied parts of the so-called Atlantic Ocean.22 The two prologues to books 1 and 5 (in Photius alone) provide ample evidence of Agatharchides' aesthetic ambitions and show that he belonged to a long line of prose writers whose The The main proponents were Duris of Samos (FGrHist 76) and Philarchus of Athens (FGrHist 81), whose tragic bent was emphasized by Polybius's style, as Hegesias had done. facts. Photius understood this clearly and called the pages describing the fate of the slaves working in the gold mines of Wadi Allaqi “tragic drama” (F 24)24 an unsuitable vehicle for instruction. Consequently, much of the criticism of the myth in his lengthy foreword to the reader in Book 1 was based on the conceptual opposition made by museum scholars between didaskali and psychogogy. Historians, he asserted (Q 8), must verify their facts and investigate responsibly. In these chapters, Agatharchids, adopting the playful tone of the Paignion, used his myth criticism as an excuse to take his readers on a brief tour of ancient accounts of the origins of Libyan peoples, city-states, and lands. Asia and Europe.25 Agatharchides inevitably inherited the concepts of Hellenistic anthropology given the subject he raised. The story of the ichthyophages 22 See above no. 10. 23 See in this Walbank 1960. Filarco was quoted by Agatarchids in his On Asia, Book 7 (FGrHist 86 F 3). 24 See photo, Bible 447 B 37–39: ὑπερβολὴν οὖν οὐδενὶ τὸ πάθος δυστυχήματι καταλιπεῖν ῖν ῖν ῖν ῖν ῖν 25 cf. Marcotte 2001, 429; Santoni 2001.

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Social life and his indifference to "extra pleasures" also betray his knowledge of the Epicurean theses, although he did not automatically adhere to them: language, ethnographers and sociologists-historians in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. and epicurean traits26. In his famous dissertation on the main currents of ancient historiography, Hermann Strasburger introduced a dichotomy between "kinetic" history, which deals with military and political events, and "static" history, which deals with culture. . Thucydides exemplified the former and Herodotus the latter.27 Strasburger showed that the Herodotean model was neglected until Agatharchides, followed soon after by Posidonius.28 The two historians shared a common interest in the study of man in society and the animal in its natural habitat. , a tendency to focus less on a country's resources and more on their technical exploitation, and an openness to the natural sciences, particularly meteorology. In short, in their eyes, human history and natural history were the same.29 However, these similarities should not hide some fundamental differences, especially in the way they interpreted climatic eventualities. Whereas Agatharchides saw Synetheia ("habit, practice") as a counterbalance to environmental constraints (F 66),30 Posesidonius radicalized climate theory and used it to explain the physical properties of different places and the life forms of people. people who lived there. 31 Also the African policy of the Ptolemies has been criticized from time to time. Examples that come to mind are the laborers forced into slavery in the gold mines by a power called tyrannical (F 24: tyrannis) and the unfavorable regulations for elephant hunting that the Ptolemies wanted to impose on the population living in the interior of the country (f 56). Similarly, Aemili Gabba saw the description of the happy and prosperous Sabaean kingdom in southern Arabia as an attack on Roman imperialism (F 102). it was so far inland as to highlight the threat Rome posed to the smaller region of 26 Dihle 1962b, 216–217. 27 Strasburger 1966. 28 Since Reinhardt 1921, 22–24, Agatharchides has been considered one of the possible sources for Posidonius's description of the Turdetania mines in southern Spain (F 239 E K). 29 Strasburger 1966, 90. 30 The term appears in Diod. sic 3.34.6 (F 66), but also in 3.10.6 (after Agatharchides, On Asia, Book 2); see Cole 1967, 82. 31 Marcotte 1998, 272–274. 32 Gabba 1974, 638.

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Conditions. However, neither Photius nor Diodorus cites a single case in which the author openly condemned a hegemonic power, be it Roman or Ptolemaic. At most they offer us cold, realistic, and even moving descriptions, dictated by concern for Enargeia,33 all the more convincing because they are not explicitly polemical. To provide an excellent illustration of Agatharchides' determination not to emulate Hegesias's linguistic excesses, we must return to his note on the so-called "apathetic" fish-eaters (F 41): when Simmias, one of Ptolemy III's Philoi. Euergetes, sent by the king to the area of the Bab al-Mandab strait,34 verified that the natives were not afraid of strangers and were impervious to the tortures inflicted on them. In his analyzes of both the fish-eaters and the battered miners, Agatharchides showed a clear determination to give the drama of the common people the same historical dignity as the military exploits of the Ptolemies. The particular attention he paid to societies untouched by the movement of history reflected his desire to treat them in the Herodotean manner, what Domenico Musti calls the "homogenization" of historical discourse.35 According to this notion, any city, however large or small, and any people, whether victorious or defeated, could be the subject of a Logos.36 3

The historical context of the work of Agatharchides

By treating the southern regions as a climatic entity, Agatharchides wished to unite human history and the study of the physical environment, and there resided his originality. Throwing light on the motif of the work there are a series of extracts (F 12-18) from the opening chapters of Book 1, which describe a conversation between a prince and an anonymous dignitary of high rank at the court of Lagid, supposedly his tutor, . who is trying to catch him out of the convenience of an expedition against the Ethiopians and advocates military action. This tutor was very likely Aristomenes of Alyzia, and the addressee of his paraenesis was the young Ptolemy V Epiphanes, whose somatophylax was 203 and epitropes 201.37 In the collection of Photius, 33 See F 21, in Phot., bibl.447 to 35 – 35 . 36 (on Demosthenes): “but his account lacked clarity”). 34 On this official see PP 14628. 35 Musti 1996. 36 See above n .

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these excerpts are immediately followed by a reference to a campaign against the Ethiopians and a description of their weaponry (F 19). This passage from Agatharchides is very reminiscent of Herodotus describing a conference between Xerxes and his key advisers before the second Medical War (7.9). Sensing the reluctance of the young Persian king to embark on a war with the Greeks, whom he finds guilty of starting hostilities, Mardonius mockingly asks what he should fear from such diverse opponents, using the same rhetorical question that Agatharchides did.38 This scheme is particularly evident in Agatharchides' description of the weapons of the Ethiopians (F 19), where the technical vocabulary is clearly taken from another passage in Herodotus, in the same book (7.69) where the historian in his catalog of Xerxes' troops, describes the team of the Ethiopian contingent. The position of the extracts in Photius's Bibliotheca and the parallel with Herodotus's text clearly indicate that Agatharchides used a military description as the starting point for his ethnogeographical description of Ethiopia. As with Herodotus, a war serves as the introduction, followed by detailed descriptions of the country, its antiquities, and its dietary and social customs. If we assume that Aristomenes and the young Ptolemy V are in fact the protagonists of the opening speech in Book 1, we can also assume that the conflict they discuss is the protracted but ultimately successful struggle subsequently waged by Thebaid, whose twenty-year secession (206 -186 BC) had seriously weakened the power of the Lagids over their southern marches.39 Although we can identify the casus used by the Agatharchides, we still need to identify their underlying intention and make the connection between what was essentially a local campaign and the grandiose backdrop of the Erythraean Sea as defined by the author. Although we could here again evoke the nuances of Herodotus, what concerned him was the universal importance of regional conflicts, each of which led to a historical and geographical synthesis that further heightened their importance. If a similar intention lay behind Agatharchides' treatise, we must consider the royal conference and the Ethiopian expedition in geopolitical terms and place them in the context of the Ptolemies' relations with the peoples living on the Indian Ocean coast, and even with their own. maritime policy. The gradual conquest of the southern and eastern sea routes by the Hellenistic dynasty of Egypt began when the early Ptolemies used the advance of their armies up the Nile to explore the Red Sea coast. Events, Veisse 2004, 20–26. 40 For a chronology, see Desanges 1978, 243–305.

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Those of Ptolemy II (283-246 BC) and Ptolemy III. (246–221 BCE), hunters sent to the troglodyte coast provided big cats and elephants for Alexandria's zoos and also helped improve knowledge of the Ethiopian lands. Ptolemy III. he sent several of his Philoi to the strait of Bab al-Mandab, and their accounts undoubtedly influenced the geographical literature of the time.41 In the excerpts preserved by Diodorus, Agatharchides quotes at least two of them by name, Simmias (F 41) and Ariston (F 85), who writes that the king entrusted the latter with the mission of exploring the Arabian coast as far as the ocean, and this officer may also be the one mentioned in the Zeno papyri.42 It is impossible to know whether these emissaries traveled over the strait,43 but it is generally accepted that Cape Guardafui was reached by Ptolemy IV (221-203 BC) and the island of Socotra was colonized in the same period.44 The secession of the Thebaids marked the beginning of a long eclipse, in which it interrupted or at least hindered contacts between Alexandria and the Red Sea ports.45 In Upper Egypt, stretching from the region around Thebes to Coptos and Abydos, a full-fledged state arose, led by th Los leader is from the rebellion, first Haronnophris (205–199/8 BC). C.a. C.), then Chaonnophris (199/8–186 BC). This lasted until Ptolemy V launched the aforementioned expedition and in 186 B.C. he established an epistrategy governed from Thebes to ensure the political and military stability of the sector.46 Mid-2nd century B.C. In the fourth century B.C. In BC, the Epistrategos of Thebais also controlled the coastal area east of Koptos and the sea and caravan trade routes that crossed it.47 The Epistrategos' jurisdiction there was initially quite limited, because beyond the straits, those who lived around from Aden, controlled Arabs were the transshipment ports for all goods transported to and from India.48 This situation made Eudaimon Arabia, as Aden was called in ancient times, immensely prosperous, but was fueled by the famous voyages Maritimes of Eudoxus of Cyzicus in 118 and 116 BC. . and the teachings of this navigator were based on his personal experience with the monsoon winds.49 Reported by Strabo in his Theoretical Prolegomena (2.3.4-5), the navigator's adventure showed how traders could take advantage of it (F 79 ) consulted archives royals in Alexandria; see Peremans 1967, 452-455. 42 PCZ 59247 (March 1, 252 BC). For Ariston, see PP 16902. 43 Desanges 1978, 264, 276. 44 Desanges 1978, 302; Strauch 2012. 45 Desanges 1978, 281–282. 46 Thomas 1975. 47 OGIS 132. 48 Peripl. M. Eryth. 26. 49 Rouge 1988, 68-69; Falcon 2013.

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of the seasonal winds that blow between the Horn of Africa and the west coast of India, bypassing the bottleneck of Aden. He also meant, and this was the main reason for the geographer's account, that the Erythraean Sea could at last be scientifically mapped. /1/13 - ), Plinio (HN 6,100) and the Periplus Maris Erythraei (see below 5). From the ports of Myos Hormos and Berenice, ships would sail to Cana or Cape Syagrus and from there down the Favonius to the mouth of the Indus and the Patala region near Hyderabad. commerce, for a series of inscriptions apparently written between the end of the 2nd century and the middle of the 1st century BC. C. add the title "Commander (or supervisor) of the Indian and Eritrean seas." 52 The juxtaposition of the two names reflects the fact that the two place names refer to the same set (which the second could quite accurately describe). ). A closer look also confirms that a field of action previously limited to the western waters of the Erythraean Sea now extends to India. More importantly, it suggests that, going forward, Red Sea trade issues need to be addressed politically at the Indian Ocean level. All this refers us to the five books dedicated to the Erythraean Sea by Agatharchides. Written several decades before that area fell to the epistrategists of the Tebais, they already show that a conflict between the Greeks and their Ethiopian neighbors could (or rather should) be seen by historians and politicians in the broader context of relations between everyone. Southern States and Oikoumene Peoples.

50 See below 5. 51 For the history of Greco-Roman trade in the Indian Ocean, see generally Casson 1989, 11–44; DeRomanis 1996; especially in relation to archaeological data: October 2008; Sidebotham 2011. 52 For example, I. Philae I, 52 (OGIS 186) and 53 (May 14, 62 BC); see Thomas 1975, 71, 121-122.

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4 The Periplus Maris Erythraei and the advance of knowledge of the Indian Ocean For anyone studying the development of geographical knowledge between the end of the Roman Republic and the Antonine Dynasty, the Indian Ocean is undoubtedly the region where the greatest advances were achieved. It was the merchants who were responsible for this expansion of the known world in the early days of the principality.53 By the end of the Lagid period, they had aroused general suspicion, as we can see in Strabo's geography. For example, (15.1.4) he lamented the poor quality of the accounts of merchants attempting to sail to India from the Nile and Arabian Gulf. Despite this, he claimed in his Prolegomena (2.5.12) to have witnessed firsthand the rapid expansion of maritime communications between Myos Hormos and India when he accompanied Aelius Gallus's legions to Syene. The merchants' contribution to knowledge of the Indian Ocean was finally recognized several decades later, leading to a before-and-after distinction that Pliny was the first to make, at least as far as we know. This is most clearly expressed in the final words of his portrait of Taprobane (Sri Lanka) and the Indian peninsula (HN 6:56-83), which he describes as divided into two parts: the first "following the ancient authors" (HN 6.84: hactenus a priscis memorata), the second based on "more precise information" (diligentio notitia) about these lands, provided during Claudius's principate by a freedman of Annius Plocamus, a tax collector who worked around the mare Rubrum (HN 6:84-91). This navigator had been sailing near the coast of Arabia when he lost his way and landed on the west coast of Taprobane, where he spent more than six months at the royal court. Pliny the Elder, at the end of his description of India in Book 6, again refers to the change in his sources, where he treats the trade routes of Alexandria and the names of the ports and towns along the way. . He found that very few of these names appeared in the works of his predecessors (priors), which he attributed to a radical improvement in geographical knowledge (HN 6.105): "the names of persons, trading ports, or cities" which he cites has his description of the route from Alexandria to the Peraia of Taprobane in a chapter dealing specifically with trade with India (Book 6, Chapter 26) "are not found in any of their predecessors, from which it is evident that the geographical situation is in transition ". . However, we find in the previous list of names (HN 6.104-105) a series of place names or ethnonyms that actually for the first time in the Periplus Maris Erythraei (§53-56) between 40 and 70 B.C. they have the same order: 53 Cf. .the one examined by Dihle source corpus 1978; Sidebotham 1986.

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Muziris (Canadian), Caelobothras (Canadian), Naecyndon54 (Canadian), Becare (Canadian), Cottonara (Canadian). We find them below in a rather similar form in Ptolemy's Geography (7.1.8-9, 86). For that reason, Pliny’s explanations only make sense if we take the author of the Periplus, with its particularly rich nomenclature, out of the category of prisci or priores. These predecessors constituted a tradition that apparently ended with Juba of Mauritania, who heads the lists of foreign authorities (externi) in books 5 and 6 of Naturalis Historia (HN 1). Augustus had commissioned Juba to compile a vast and encyclopaedic compilation of all the knowledge that had accumulated from Alexandrian historians about the southern parts of the inhabited world.55 Published on the eve of Caius Caesar’s campaigns in the East in the year 2 º . . . . This compendium marked the culmination of a particular style of description of the southern region that was later discredited by the anonymous traders who expanded maritime traffic to India in the first decades of the empire (Plin., HN 6.96; cf. 6.88, 140, 140; 149 ) The transition marked by Pliny the Elder and embodied by the periplus brought with it the need to synthesize and thereby update or correct the corpus that emerged during the Augustan period. This was undoubtedly the intention of the Διόρθωσις τοῦ γεωγραφικοῦ πίνακος of Marino of Tyre. Claudius Ptolemy’s Prolegomena to Geography, our only source on Marinus, gives us an idea of how much space he devoted to discussing the accounts of travelers and traders of the most recent generation.56 Ptolemy himself consulted these sources when dealing with interpretations. dissatisfied was Marinus gab.57 When both authors cited Emporoi as their authorities (Ptol., Geog. 1.11.6–7), this was mainly due to the impact their accounts had on the accounts of the Indian Ocean by dividing it into both latitudes ( to Azania) and in longitude (to the South China Sea). Although these accounts had limited theoretical scope and were very unlikely to be backed by a structured view of the regions that make up the inhabited world, their compilation and systematization of the data they contained allowed Marinus and Ptolemy to compile enough details to be relative to they. make accurate maps.58 54 This form appears to be a gen. pl. of Nelcynda (with palaeographical error: ϵΛ > Αϵ). 55 FGrH is 275; see Roller 2003, 212–243. 56 Translation of the theoretical prolegomes in Berggren and Jones 2000. 57 Examples of disagreements over the Nile and Red Sea areas in Geus 2013. 58 For example, they used information from Maes' agents about land transport to China to expand the agreement and justify longitudinal oikoumene to the starting points of the Asiatic trade routes, in particular the Silk Road (Ptol., Geog. 1.11.7). For the construction of the maps of Africa, see Geus and Mittenhuber 2009.

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Undoubtedly, the Periplus was one of the works that caused this change. The only one of its kind and evidently the work of a professional sailor, the Periplus contains occasional references to the author's first-person experiences (§20). A characteristic that distinguishes the periplus from the other periploi that have come down to us is its purpose, since it not only contains detailed lists of the goods that are traded in each of the mentioned ports, but often describes the conditions under which they are traded. traded at the time of importation. or export.59 The author was clearly interested in the nature of the transactions (generally barter), the currencies used in some trading places (§47), and the import duties charged in others (§19). He also paid special attention to the people who practiced this trade, whether they were long-distance sailors or local go-betweens (§56), and examined the political situation of all the countries along the sea route, from Myos Hormos to Rhapta and so on. Leukē Kōmē (Right Bank of what is now the Red Sea) and, finally, the Ganges delta, paying particular attention to regional power relations. ancient geography that has survived. As its first translator, Ramusio, rightly observed, the style of the Periplus is not that of an imperial historiographer.61 Today the availability of papyrus documents allows us to make even finer comparisons, to study the morphology and syntax of the text, and even its lexicon. 62 It is already clear that the copyist cannot be blamed for the many errors in the text of the testis unicus, the Heidelberg manuscript, Palatinus gr.398 (9th century). For example, the scribe avoided placing accents on words of foreign origin, particularly those denoting trade goods. Furthermore, when passages of the model he was working on contained misreadings that he could not alter, he was careful to reproduce them exactly as they were, without a single accent or breath mark. The conservative approach that he adopted in transcribing these passages is undoubtedly the best guarantee of his reliability. One of the salient features of our text is the number of recovery attempts made in successive editions, triggered by broken constructions and other syntactic approaches. Some of the latter probably reflect the fact that its author intended it as an aide-mémoire (hypomnema). Evidence of this is the willingness of the periplographer to borrow from 59 Casson 1989, 15–43. 60 For an assessment of the sources on political relations between Rome, Arabia, and India, see Sidebotham 1986, 113–141; Casson 1989, 45-47; Fussmann 1991; Robin 1991. 61 See Milanesi 1979, 501–513 (Ramusio, Discorso sopra la navigation del Mar Rosso fino all'India orientale written by Arriano). 62 As Frisk did in 1927, 38–123.

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the different languages spoken around the Indian Ocean. The presence of so many foreign words makes the entire Periplus a hapax in our corpus and marks it out as a truly innovative work. Many of the place-names that appear there for the first time in Greek do not appear anywhere else, with the exception of Pliny. There is much use of foreign terms to describe the goods traded between the Arabian Gulf and the Ganges Delta, another novelty that not only reflects the purpose of the work, but also confirms the absolute innovation of the genre. Heavily peppered with imported technical jargon that might mean something only to local experts, the language of the Periplus was obviously intended to pass on knowledge familiar to people across the ocean. That this Periplus survived long enough to be included in the Heidelberg geographic corpus was partly because his statements were considered credible almost from the start and his way of describing the new spaces was exemplary. The fact that a significant part of its nomenclature appeared in the writings of Pliny and Ptolemy suggests that it made a very real contribution to knowledge of the geography of the Indian Ocean during the early Principate, which, given its fragmentary state in reality, our documentation keep doing. so. Ptolemy, for example, no doubt imitated the way hitherto largely unexplored areas were described, and especially the way coastlines were divided into distinct sections. In describing Azanias and describing the coast from Opone to the Pyralaoi archipelago (§15), the periplographer identified three separate stretches of coastline, apparently on the basis of their morphology: steep cliffs for the first (apokopa), where ships could only anchoring in estuaries ( ἀγκυροβόλια); a stretch of low sandy beaches (aigialoi) which in turn make landings difficult; and finally a more accessible coastline with estuaries and anchorages (hormoi). Ptolemy (4.7.11) later divided the coast of Azan in the same way as in the Periplus. Geographical considerations, though rare in Periplus, are present. They can be seen in the passage (§57) about the monsoon winds and how their discovery opened up a high seas route to India. The author portrays the pilot Hippalus in a crucial role, since “it was only by observing the position (thesis) of the ports and the shape (outline) of the sea that [he] discovered how to chart his course across the ocean. According to him, locally, at the same time that the seasonal winds that we call etesians blow from the ocean, in the Indian Ocean they seem to be called the Libonotos.” This passage contains two terms belonging to the cartographer's lexicon. . Thesis is a place that serves as a landmark -a function fulfilled here by emporiums with the most precise latitude coordinates- during

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the scheme is the figure determined by the geometric relationship between the theses.63 All that navigators needed to know then was the direction from which the regular and predictable monsoon winds ("etesian winds") blew. It is irrelevant to our discussion whether or not Hippalus was a hypostasis of Eudoxus of Cyzicus, whom Posidonius and Strabo (2.3.4-5) acknowledge as the first to exploit the monsoon winds. That he is cited here as the "inventor" and namesake of the southeast monsoon wind is strikingly reminiscent of the protoi heuretai, a literary genre that figured prominently in very early Greek historiography. Further evidence of the connection between the information from our Periplus and the information from Pliny's Indian chapter is that the encyclopedist was the second author to announce the existence of a Hippalus wind (HN 6.100), supposedly a local term for the Favonic wind blowing between Syagrus and patal. Given his position in Book 6, he must have taken this detail from one of the sources that reached Juba, that is, one of his non-historical informants.64 These informants also enabled him to establish the necessary correspondences between the Egyptian and Roman. calendars (as well as the voyage) to indicate the beginning and end of the voyage and, in particular, the most favorable times to sail from Egypt to India or vice versa.65 5 The Maris Erythraei voyage and the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean in the first century AD These The abundance of information about the coastal powers, describing the political and economic realities at any given time, means that the Periplus can be dated much more precisely than the other works in this genre, for example, we often rely on data archaeological or ethnographic information about the sites and the people who mention them. For example, his descriptions of the rulers of Arabia, their vassals, and their relationships with the populations living on the Azania coast often agree with South Arabian epigraphic sources. Frequently repeated in Roman sources, since the development of trade with Arabia and India was a conflictive internal policy, due to the risk that the fondness for the luxuries of the senatorial classes would fuel a flight of capital. 63 Chernia 1995, 994–995; Marcotte 2012a, 16. 64 See above in Plin., HN 6.96. 65 See the calendar reconstructed by Casson 1989, 289–291. 66 Robin 1991.

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It is in these terms that Pliny certainly described the trade with India in a famous final passage of his description of Taprobane (HN 6.101). According to him, it absorbed up to fifty million sesterces each year, a sum equivalent to half the "emergency fund" established by Tiberius to revitalize the Roman economy during the financial crisis of AD 33. Elsewhere (12.84) Pliny added that this fund itself corresponded to the amount spent each year on imported goods from Arabia, India, and China. , as both issues have been the subject of recent technical documents. Suffice it to say that the coastal markets of the Indian Ocean were, in some circles, regarded as one of the parameters of urban political life. Regarding Rome's foreign policy, Roman historiographers also record the first exchange of embassies with the Indian world at the beginning of the principality. Augustus himself had referred to them in his Res Gestae (31.1), emphasizing the novelty of it ("something never seen before"). His account agrees with that given by Strabo in his Description of India (15.1.4), where he points out the lack of direct contacts between Rome and the subcontinent and points out as the only one the arrival of a delegation sent by a king named Pandion. o Poros Event. This information, which Strabo obtained from Nicholas of Damascus (FGrHist 90 F 100), was confirmed by Cassius Dio (54.9.7-8), who also allows us to confirm the encounter at Samos in 20 BC. As Pliny suggests, the Voyage of the Freedman of Annius Plocamus marked a turning point in the development of enduring relations between the Mediterranean and the Indian subcontinent. Trade concerns appear to have dictated the exchange of emissaries on both sides. This is clearly confirmed on the Indian side by the Mahāvaṃsa, a poem written in Pali which tells the story of the Sinhalese and Dravidian kings of Sri Lanka from the time of Cyrus the Great to the Emperor Julian. According to this chronicle, King Bhātikābhaya, who ruled Taprobane in the time of Claudius, had a magnificent coral net made to decorate a shrine on the island. It is said that he ordered it from a faraway country across the sea called Romanukharaṭṭha, which means “Roman Empire” in the broadest sense. From the Arthaśāstra we know that the red coral, the most valuable coral in the Indian Ocean, was imported from Alexandria. Sidebotham 2011, 245-246. 68 Sources collected and discussed by De Romanis 1988, 5–58 (with additions in De Romanis and Tchernia 1997, 161–237); see also Faller 2000, 75–76; Sidebotham 2011, 238-239.

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Descriptions of this great arena of trade and diplomacy, to which we have access from both Eastern and Greco-Roman sources, indicate that the Indian Ocean functioned as a truly globalized system during the first two centuries AD.69 This perception of the ocean as a unit was inherited by Hellenistic historians and geographers, especially Agatharchides. However, the approach of these authors was mainly shaped by the form of representation inherited from classical ethnography, and peoples were often studied in relation to Mediterranean populations. In the Periplus Maris Erythraei, on the other hand, this maritime space drew its unity from the goods that were traded there. This notion resonated in the literature of the time, since Pliny's famous scale of material values (HN 37.204), in which the most famous luxuries and precious stones came from India and Arabia, implicitly confirmed that these merchandise, from the shell of turtle to pepper and incense, were the image of the Indian Ocean that the Greeks and Romans had helped shape, thus creating its identity in contemporary accounts.70 The author of the Periplus saw the ocean as a system of exchange, and this led him to talk Roman routes and contacts between the Mediterranean countries and the Eastern world to learn about the relationships that have been forged between the different countries in this area. For example, he describes the Ethiopian town of Rhapta as a tribute to the town of Mouza on the border with Mod. Yemen, and underscores the role that Arab pilots play in creating close ties between their country and the coast of Azania, through through their mastery of the local languages and their "marriages" with local women. He also mentions China's silk exports to the Indian port of Barygaza (in Gujarat, on the Gulf of Khambhat) via the continental route through Bactria and to Limyrikē (on the Malabar coast) via the Ganges valley. The idiosyncratic way in which China is described reflects a new approach to local realities and a willingness to avoid the models of literary tradition. For in the Periplus (§64-65) we find the name Thina (probably an accuser) for the first time in a discussion of silk production, stemming from that of the Qin dynasty that brought the unity of the Chinese world at the end of the third century. BC This place name refers loosely to a polis, characterized as megiste ('the greatest'), supposedly inland north of Chryse Chersonesos, from which erion serikon is exported (§64).71 The name Thin/Thina suggests a sibilant pronunciation towards the extracted tooth, may have reached the Greeks via Sanskrit. How the periplogram links this great city with 69 Beaujard 2012; Marcotte 2011, 18-21. 70 See Parker 2008, 147–202. 71 Casson 1989, 238–239.

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in the silk trade, it is easily confused with references to the city of Seres contained in late Greco-Roman sources, the earliest of which are the Augustan poets. Ptolemy referred to the metropolis of Thinai and the town of Sinai on several occasions, both in his Prolegomena and in the Geography itself, where he described the new routes leading inland from Chryse Chersonesos.73 He located his country at the far end of the Great Gulfs (Megas Kolpos), presumably the Gulf of Tonkin, and identified its northern neighbors as Seres by providing the map coordinates of Sera, the capital of Serike (7.3.1). While Periplo subtly switched to using Serikon as an "appellation of origin" and spoke of "serian skins", Ptolemy drew a rather clumsy and contrived distinction between Seres and Thinai/Sinai in order to reconcile literary tradition and gallery accounts. Between the Augustan period and the end of Antonine's rule, the traditional representation of the Indian Ocean adopted by the Persians, along with the name "Erythraean", was slowly but surely challenged.74 An examination of our Greek and Latin corpus reveals Decline in the number of occurrences of the name "Erythraean Sea" in the first centuries AD, and a commensurate increase in references to India, confirmed by Eastern sources.75 The "Indianization" of these references probably began in the late 20th century . faltering Hellenistic period, an early example of which is the title Epistrategos of Thebais.76 It then gained momentum, with the opening of routes to the Bay of Bengal, the Malacca Peninsula, and even beyond to the Indochina Peninsula or the island of Java. . 77 The expansion of this maritime space meant that India stopped marking any of its borders and instead became its center of gravity. At the same time, inspired by contacts with the trading posts and chanceries of the subcontinent, the Greco-Roman world became much more receptive to what was happening in India, and this receptivity was no longer mediated or dictated by Iranians, Persians, or Parthians. intermediaries An example of this change is the appearance of alternative versions of the name Indos from the first century AD Until then, the only form in use was Indos, an ancient adaptation of the Ionian dialect of Hindu, 72 For beings in classical sources, see Dihle 1984, 201-215. 73 Ptol., Geog. 7.3.6 (Thinai); 1.14.10; 1.17.5; 7.3; 7.5.2, 13 (Sinai). The latter form is clearly derived from the former, probably due to a paleographic error (ΘINAI > CINAI). 74 Marcotte 2010b, 22–24. 75 Salles 1994. 76 See above n.52. 77 So Winkler and Mittenhuber 2009, 303.

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the name by which the river and the lands bounded by its delta were known to the Persians.78 In Achaemenid-era inscriptions, the latter name refers to the south-eastern borders of the empire that Darius had pushed into Sindh.79 The Persian form again it was a translation of the name Sindhu, which the Indo-Aryans used to designate the Indus and its lower basin. It is the hydronym Sinthos that appears in Periplus Maris Erythraei (§38), where there is no trace of the classical name Indos.80 This form, which accurately translates the Indic phoneme -dh-, marks a clear break with the whole of the Greek literary tradition. -Roman, as well as many other characteristics of this work. It also symbolizes the dominance of Indian references over the Persian model. Thus, he was not only in contact with the local speakers, but ascribed the highest authority to them, presumably because that was the form used by his target audience. Pliny the Elder (HN 6.71) had also recorded the form Sindus in the same period, which he explicitly attributed to the Indians. Apparently, things were a bit more complex in the case of Ptolemy. As so often in his description of the southeastern quarter of the Oikoumene, it was evidently torn between his attachment to the geographers and historians who had gone before him and his knowledge of the new information brought back by sailors and merchants. There he recorded the neuter form Sinthon (Geog. 7.1.2), a possible inheritance from the Periplus, but he used it only to denote one of the Indus arms. As we have already seen with the names Thinai and Seres, it seems as if he was trying to perpetuate not just two competing terms but two competing traditions: a long-standing tradition sanctified by Hellenistic scholarship and a fledgling one that he discussed in the Prolegomena. of the. . Ptolemy's dilemma over the Indus twin names illustrates the difficulty of substituting a new vision for a model that serves a foundational tradition that has existed since the time of Darius and Alexander. However, like Marinus, he was well aware of the geopolitical changes in the Indian Ocean. In the picture he painted of it in Book 7, the Indian subcontinent was latitudinally "flattened", mainly due to the absence of the Deccan Plateau, while Taprobane was correspondingly inflated.81 These distorted dimensions, which contrast sharply with the description accurate The Indian coast on the Periplus did not prevent Ptolemy from placing the subcontinent in the center of his map. In his work, the name Indikon pela78 De Aesch., Suppl. 284 ab. 79 Schmitt 2009, 98–99 (DHa 2), 102 (DNa 3), 118 (DPe 2). 80 Dihle 1978, 557. 81 Ptol., Geog. 8, Asia, 12. Pinax; see Winkler and Mittenhuber 2009, 301–302.

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gos or "Indian Sea" was no longer restricted to the Sea of Oman as was the case in Periplo (§57), but replaced the name Erythra thalassa and was described as extending from the shores of Africa to the shores extending from Kattigara, in the south of Thinai land. In the longitudinal direction, it therefore occupied the space that the Periplus still allocated to the Erythraean Sea, from the Red Sea to the Bay of Bengal.

Chapter 11

Pierre Schneider Praecipue India Aethiopumque tractus miraculis scatent (“India and parts of Ethiopia especially abound in miracles” – Plin., HN 7.21; trans. H. Rackham) In 1681, the famous German orientalist Job Ludolf published his Historia Aethiopica nominum diversitas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Haud Exiguam Peppery Confusion. This is probably the first occurrence of a term coined by Ludolf to define a phenomenon that sometimes causes problems for classicists and historians because it can complicate our understanding of ancient texts: the confusion of India and Ethiopia are (…), was sent by his mother to India via Ethiopia with many treasures” (Plut., Ant. 81:2; trans. B. Perrin); but we do not know where to find this "India": in eastern Africa or in India proper? The spice called κιννάμωμον/cinnamomum remains partly a mystery because ancient documents are unclear: according to Herodotus (3.107) it was obtained in Arabia, while other authorities locate it in Ethiopia (Strab. 2.1.13) or India (Theophr. , Hist. Taf. .4.4 .14). The accounts of Semiramis’s exploits are marked by continual confusion: did the queen have Indians (Ampelius, Liber memorialis 11.3), Ethiopians (Diod. Sic. 3.3.1) or both (Diod. Sic. 2.16.1-2); . . . . )? In fact, confusion was not studied seriously until the 19th century. In particular, Schwanbeck, the editor of Megasthenes' Indica,

1 Ludolf 1681, Liber I Ch.1. 2 For example, Goldenberg 2003, 211; Snowden 1970, 11; Desanges 1978, 230 f.74; Fiaccadori 1983, 303 note 33; Mayerson 1993, 170. The “confusion” between India and Ethiopia survived into the Middle Ages (Wittkower 1942; Richard 1952).

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he was the first to list the data transmitted to India about “Libya” (= Ethiopia) and vice versa after examining Greek and Latin literature. He also offered the first real explanations for this "astonishing confusion" (mira quaedam confusio).3 Schwanbeck - as some scholars still do4 - related this phenomenon to gaps and inaccuracies in Greco-Roman knowledge. In reality, as will be explained after a brief description of the confusion between India and Ethiopia (Section 1), this vast and diverse phenomenon is not fundamentally a matter of ignorance or error, but rather reflects how it was perceived by the Greco-Romans. Southern and eastern borders of Oikoumene (section 2). There are many reasons why there have been constant tendencies to draw parallels between India and Ethiopia, the most important of which are presented in Section 3.1.

Description of the "confusion"

1.1 The problems A full inventory of the "confusion" would obviously be beyond the scope of this paper. However, the following example is enough to give you an idea of their number and variety. Let us first look at the question of spatial divisions and designations, ie the presence of Ethiopians in the East and the expansion of India in East Africa. In the Odyssey (Od. 1,23-24) Homer praises "the Ethiopians who live in two parts, the most distant people, some where Hyperion stands and others where he rises". We cannot clearly identify these Αἰθιοπῆες ("fiery faces") nor determine to what extent they were royal peoples, especially with regard to the "Eastern Ethiopians".5 It has rightly been doubted since antiquity (Strab. 2.3.8) that Homer knew India. On the other hand, the notion that the eastern end of the oikoumene was occupied by "burnt faces" was undoubtedly anchored by the poet among the Greeks. For this reason, in the 5th century B.C. After the expansion of the Greek geographic horizon, some "Ethiopian" tribes were almost naturally colonized by the Greeks to the east. Thus, the Persian nomos 17 included the "Ethiopians of Asia" (a Baluchi tribe?), who "did not differ in appearance from the rest,6 only in speech and hair" (Hdt. 3.94; 7.70; trans. Godley). Herodotus 3 Schwanbeck 1846, 2. 4 eg Arora, 1982, 131; Taboada 1988, 135-47; French 1994, 144, 147; Sidebotham 1986, 41. 5 The Ethiopians bordering Egypt were probably acquainted with Homer (eg, Od. 4:81-85). 6 The Ethiopians of Nubia.

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(3.101) pointed out a strange tribe of Indians who “walk openly like cattle” and “are all black-skinned like Ethiopians” (τὸ χρῶμα φορέουσι ὅμοιον πάντες καὶ παάοήήσήϹ). In the Roman Empire, Pomponius Mela (3:67) compared the South Indians with Ethiopians; Ptolemy (Geog. 7.3.1) reported that a tribe of Ichthyophagi Aithiopes lived somewhere in Transgangian India, etc. On the contrary, the name "India" was used for some parts of East Africa. If this "confusion" is already evident in the work of Ctesias at the beginning of the fourth century B.C. a.C. cannot be clearly established.7 This phenomenon is undeniably documented in the period when maritime trade with India increased steadily following the exploration of the Red Sea by the Ptolemies and, above all, the annexation of Egypt by Rome (30 BC). Several testimonies from the 1st and 2nd centuries d. C. clearly indicate that certain areas of eastern Africa were called "India" (for example, Pliny [infra, p. 190]; Plut., Ant. 81.2; Ael., NA 12.32; 16.33; Hyg. , Fab. 133). ). Such representations of space, which then also included southern Arabia, are increasingly documented from the third century onwards. Thus, Constantius was eulogized in the late 3rd century AD for the subjugation of the Ethiopians (= Nubians) and the "Indians" (= Blemmyer)8 (Pan. Lat. 5.5); Eusebius (Vit. Konst. 4.7.1) asserted that Constantine the Great received Ethiopian, blemmyan and "Indian" (= Ḥimyaritic) ambassadors; Rufinus of Aquileia tells how the "Indian" (= Axumite) king accepted Christianity (Hist. Eccl. 1:9-10). Many "confusions" between India and Ethiopia also appear in texts dealing with or alluding to countries, peoples, animals, plants, etc., of which I will give some significant examples. For example, let us begin with rivers, which play an important role in the representation of countries: as early as the fifth century B.C. In the year 300 BC the Nile - a river also belonging to Egypt and Ethiopia - and the Indus were connected, since both harbored crocodiles (Hdt. 4.44). The comparison went further when Alexander and his friends discovered India and observed the flooding of the Punjab rivers due to monsoon rains: they strongly emphasized the parallel with the Nile stretching across the Egyptian plains each summer (for example, Strab. 15.1 .13 = Eratosth III B , 12 Berger; 16 = Nearchus FGrHist 133 F 17; 18 = Aristobulus FGrHist 139 F 35). To cite another example, from a Greco-Roman perspective, India and Ethiopia received a great deal of solar heat thanks to their location on the Oikoumene. Of course, Alexander and his colleagues noted that the atmosphere in India was wetter than in Ethiopia (for example, Strab. 15.1.24), which might explain why, unlike the Ethiopians, 7 Schneider 2004, 308–16 . . . . 8 A nomadic Nubian tribe.

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the Indians have straight hair (eg, Arr., Ind. 6.9). In reality, however, the basic idea that both India and Ethiopia had exceptionally hot climates, as evidenced by the skin color of their inhabitants (infra, p. 201), was not belied by such details. Other "confusions" referred to the νομοί (customs, way of life) of the peoples. Thus, when the Greeks explored Gedrosia9 and the Red Sea10, they came across tribes whose livelihood was fish (ichthyophages). Such reports led some authorities to conclude that the entire Erythraean Sea, an area shared by India, Arabia, and Ethiopia, was occupied by piscivores (eg, Strab. 2.2.3 = Posidonius F 13 Theiler).11 A Large numbers of "Confusions" between India and Ethiopia refer to animals, the most iconic of which are, of course, elephants. The Greeks knew from the beginning that they lived in Libya (=Africa) and India (Hdt. 3.114; Diod. Sic. 2.16.2–4 = Ctesias FGrHist 688 F 1b§16–19). Ethiopian elephants became particularly famous when Ptolemy II and his successors captured them and trained them for war (eg, OGIS 54). Although Indian elephants have been assumed to be larger and stronger than African ones (eg Polyb. 5.84), the two species have never been distinguished, implying that elephants have been considered common in India and Ethiopia. In addition to this famous creature, other animals contributed to the connection between India and Ethiopia: parrots, "Indian" bulls, boa constrictors, tigers, cynocephalians, etc. Some notable plants from a Mediterranean point of view have been attributed to India or Ethiopia or even both countries (eg, the giant reed [= bamboo]: Tzetz., Chil. 7.731–733 = Ctesias FGrHist 688 F 45c; Heliod ., Aeth. 10.4.6; Strab. 17.3.5). In fact, most of the 'confusion' is related to imported spices and aromas for Mediterranean consumption. This situation is a disturbing subject for those who study the oriental trades of Greece and Rome, such as S. Sidebotham: “Diodorus Siculus, Virgil, Propertius, Ovid, Strabo, Pliny, Seneca, Statius, Athenaeus and others were wrong as to the origins of some of the products imported from the Orient, especially incense, spices and ebony”. Among the most important errors and confusions the author cites those related to myrrh (Plin., HN 12.71), zingiberi – ginger? – (Plin., HN 12.28), cinnamon – cinnamon? – (Stat., Silv. 4.5.30–32; 5.3.42–43).12 This sample would not be representative if it omitted the παράδοξα or mirabilia (miracles) present in almost all descriptions of the oikoumene: such features equally contributed to the characterization of the peoples 9 Nearchus in 325 a. 10 For the purpose of hunting elephants in the 3rd century B.C. 11 Poseidon considered all groups of ichthyophages as characteristic peoples of the “tropical zones”. 12 Sidebotham 1986, 39-41.

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and countries. However, it is important to distinguish between two types of παράδοξα: on the one hand, natural phenomena which are observed (from the Greek: ὄψις, αὐτοψία) and can be explained in the most rational way possible; on the other hand, rumors (for example, Strab. 17.2.1) and partly imaginative reports. As to the first category, in addition to those mentioned above (summer growths of the Nile, giant rushes, fish-eaters, etc.), there are, for example, the mangroves of the Erythean Sea (Strab. 16.3.6-7 = Eratosth). . III B, 39 Berger) or the “disposed trees” (= cotton: e.g. Verg., G. 2.120; Hdt. 3.106). The second category includes a number of special breeds and animals. Take, for example, the Pygmies mentioned by Homer (Il. 3.4-6): Ctesias (FGrHist 688 F 45 §21-24) locates them in India; Aristotle (Hist. an. 8.12.597a) reports that they lived near the source of the Nile; according to Philostratus (VA 6.1) lived both in India and Ethiopia. There are also the Scyapods, who protect themselves from the scorching sun with their enormous foot (eg. Ctesias FGrHist 688 F 51a; Philostr., V A 6.25), the dog-headed ones (Gell., NA 9.4.9; Plin. HN 6.195; Philostr. V A 6.1), etc. the phoenix bird (for example, Ach. Tat., Leucippe et Clitophon 3.25; Lucian, Navig. 44), etc.; To conclude this brief review, mention the Pantarba (a stone that attracts gemstones: Ctesias FGrHist 688 F 45§6; Heliod. , Aeth. 8.11.2) or the Indo-Ethiopian fountain that leads people to tell the truth (for example , Dio Chrys., Or. 35.22; Diod. Sic. 2.14.4 = Ctesias FGrHist 688 F 1b) . Now that I hope the reader has a reasonable overview of this vast phenomenon, let us examine it from a diachronic perspective. 1.2 A brief history of the "confusion" between India and Ethiopia The numerous gaps in the Greek and Latin evidence do not allow us to construct a precise history of the "confusion". Nevertheless, it remains possible to capture the main developments of this antiquated phenomenon which, as we shall see, constantly assumed new forms and never diminished. As Schwanbeck rightly observed, the “double” Ethiopia of the Odyssey marks the beginning of the “confusion” in Homer’s geographical framework, from which India was absent. However, once the res indicae was part of Greek knowledge, viz. in the sixth century B.C. BC – the phenomenon emerges clearly. For example, the Sciapods native to Scylax in India (Tzetz., Chil. 7.621–629 = FGrHist 709 F 7b) are said to have lived in Ethiopia by Hecataeus (Steph. Byz. sv Σκιάποδες = FGrHist 1 F 327). As the Herodotus passages quoted above show, by the middle of the fifth century the foundations of the phenomenon, namely, h a number of main issues (skin colour, Eastern Ethiopians,

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mals) – had been set. India and Ethiopia were also tragically connected (Aesch., Supp. 283-286; also PV. 808-809), which proves that such a conception of space was already quite widespread. In the early 4th century, Ctesias no doubt took "confusion" a step further: e.g. B. pygmies are native to India [above, p. 188]; the Martichoras is reported from India (Arist., Hist. an. 2.1.501a24b1 = Ctesias FGrHist 688 F 45dα) and also from Ethiopia (Plin., HN 8.75 = Ctesias FGrHist 688 F 45dδ). Because of such texts, Ctesias has been accused more than once of writing fairy tales. In my opinion, he was just contributing to a trend that preceded him. Alexander's expedition to Asia was undoubtedly a turning point: knowledge of the inhabited world expanded dramatically. Several novel parallels emerge between India and Ethiopia, supported by observation (ὄψις) and rationally argued. In fact, Alexander's companions methodically drew parallels between India and Ethiopia, connected with Egypt. They highlighted the similarities between the two areas, which they found more striking than their differences, especially with regard to climate (ἀήρ [eg Strab. 15.1.13 = Onesicritus FGrHist 134 F 7]) and summer flooding of rivers. The Indian monsoon rains led the Macedonians to conclude that the Nile floods were also caused by the summer rains, which was the answer to an important geographical problem (Strab. 15.1.19 = Aristobulus FGrHist 139 F 35). Despite their different levels of humidity,13 India and Ethiopia/Egypt basically shared the same ἀήρ: therefore these lands were extraordinarily fertile and home to dark-skinned people, remarkable animals, and wondrous plants. From the time of Alexander to the 2nd century B.C. More and more was known about the towns and places on the eastern and southern edges of Oikoumene. Interestingly, this growing knowledge led to new parallels between India and Ethiopia each time the Greek Romans discovered the existence of animals, plants, or peoples that seemed comparable to them. Thus, the presence of ichthyophageal tribes in the southern Red Sea together with the Dresian fish-eaters Agatharchides led to the conclusion that such peoples lived throughout the Erythraean Sea (Diod. sic. 3.14.1 = Agatharchides RCD I 129 ]). Explorers sent by Nero observed "parrots" (supra, p. 201) in Ethiopia, which were characteristic of India (Plin., HN 6.184). Most notable is the case of some Hellenistic scholars who used the analogy between India and Ethiopia in their commentaries on the Homeric poems: the z was intended to explain why "the Indians have no woolly hair" (Strab. 15.1.24 ; trans. H.L. Jones ) .

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the Sidonians and the Eremboi")? Most grammarians identified them with Arabs or Ethiopians. Crates of Mallus, however, claimed to correct the word Ἐρεμβοί and replace it with Ἐρεμνοί (= "black/dark people"), Menelaus having navigated the ocean to India (Strab. 2/1/31; 4/16/27).In other words, "confusion" was present even in scientific debates.In the late Hellenistic period and early Principate, maritime trade between the Mediterranean world and the countries of the Indian Ocean expanded significantly.As a result, the southern and eastern ends of the inhabited world became more familiar to the Greco-Romans.The geographical knowledge we have B. found in the geography of Periplus maris Erythraei and Ptolemy, benefited from trade that pushed traders to Rhapta, Muziris, Ganges, and the silk-producing country.However, Pliny, describing the routes in the Indian Ocean, cites Juba (c. 50 a.m. c.-23 d. C.) and explains that Lepte Acra (near Berenice [Egypt]) also has Promuntorium Indorum ("Indian Promontory"; Plin., HN.) 6.175 [= Juba FGrHist 275 F 35]): This is one of the earliest cases of the use of the name "India" for an African area. Such a change in the Mediterranean representation of space also seems to occur in Virgil's poetry - implying that it had probably spread -: he mentions "Indians" who are probably Ethiopian (G. 4.293; Aen 8.705). Be that as it may, there is no doubt that we are witnessing a great development in the history of "Confusion". The expansion of India is increasingly attested from the 3rd century AD to the end of antiquity. That is why we find expressions such as India major (Expositio totius mundi 16) in some authors of this period; "the Indians nicknamed Happy" (Ἰνδοῖς τοῖς καλουμένοις Εὐδαίμοσιν [Epiph., Index apostolorum, p. 110]); Citerior India (Rufinus of Aquileia, Hist.eccl. 1.9). By using such epithets, they helped the reader to identify the area they were talking about: Axum, Ḥimyar, India proper, etc. Of course, some authors still used the "traditional" spatial designations;14 however, it seems that this new presentation of the eastern and southern parts of the Oikoumene had become common. Therefore, it is not surprising that some realia and mirabilia belonging to Ethiopia were accidentally called "Indian". For example, Cassius Dio (76.1.4) mentions an Indian κοροκότας (hyena?), while this animal was mainly attributed to Ethiopia; Philostratus (VA 2.22) states that the color black is not necessary to represent an "Indian" because the artist only has to draw. . . flat nose and curly hair. In addition, we find in texts from this period several parallels between India and Ethiopia that were missing from earlier documents (z ; 23.6.70; Procop. 1.19-20.

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Dion. 43,165). Some scholars, given the many parallels between India and Ethiopia in Late Antiquity, have suggested that this phenomenon reflected the progressive deterioration of Greco-Roman geographical knowledge from the beginning. Appendix: Not only India and Ethiopia, but also Arabia, Libya, Mauritania, etc. By now, one might imagine that this phenomenon is exclusively related to India and Ethiopia. Actually, Persia, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania, etc. they were occasionally there. For example, elephants also characterize Libya and Taprobane (Plin., HN 6.81; 8.32); the Mauri were sometimes considered "western Ethiopians", as appears in Juvenal (6.336-339): but how Clodius forced his way into a place is known to all Moors and Indians." trans. GG Ramsay; also Manilius, Astronomica 4.727–728); Eratosthenes reports that "the southern extremities (i.e., from Arabia) facing Ethiopia are watered by summer rains and sown twice, like the land of India" (Strab. 16.4.2 = Eratosth III B), 48 Berger). As early as the middle of the fifth century BC, around 300 BC, Herodotus (3.106) had written that "the most remote nations of the world (ἐσχατιαὶ τῆς οἰκεομένης, that is, India, Arabia, Ethiopia ) have somehow attracted to themselves the most beautiful things". The most significant text, however, comes from Posidonius (Diod. Sic. 2,51-53 = Posid. F 78 parts), who affirms that well-exposed countries to the sun (that is, not only India and Ethiopia, but also Arabia, Libya, and Egypt); all produce remarkable animals, colorful birds, and gem s extraordinary. However, India and Ethiopia are the dominant poles of 'confusion' because they appear much more frequently in our evidence than any other country. In particular, it was quite common to pair India with Ethiopia (for example, Theophr., Hist. Pl. 9.15.2; Plin., HN 7.21; 10.3; 10.136; 19.15; Lucian, Syr. D. 16; Lucian, Syr.D .sixteen). ; Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 2.7 etc.), to such an extent that it may have become commonplace (Ach. Tat., Leucippe et Clitophon 4.5). In fact, India and Ethiopia were united by ancient and respected authorities (Aeschylus, Herodotus). This undoubtedly explains why the India/Ethiopia pairing is consistently dominant in this phenomenon. 1.3

15 For example, Warmington 19742, 140: “. . . the ignorance now displayed about India was truly astounding.” 16 Such a connection of India and Ethiopia was a literary way of saying “all over the world”.

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Definition of "confusion"

The documentary evidence, disparate as it may seem, does not allow the confusion between India and Ethiopia to be accurately characterized. At least we can expose the most obvious features of this enduring and multifaceted phenomenon. 2.1 Does the confusion reflect a lack of knowledge? The borders of present-day India and Ethiopia, like those of any modern state, are linear and strictly defined. Therefore, it may come as a surprise to see India and Ethiopia confused in ancient times. This is certainly the reason why the term "confusion" was commonly used for this phenomenon: this word, as well as some other expressions that appear in academic studies (for example, said more or less explicitly that ancient knowledge about these parts of the oikoumene was influenced to some extent by ignorance, error, or inaccuracy.18 In fact, this opinion must be reconsidered. Let us take Strabo (1.2.24-28) as a guide to approach the problem. In a long discussion of the The Ethiopians of the Odyssey defend Homer against those who accuse the poet of not having knowledge of geography (τὴν πολλὴν ἄγνοιαν), the terms they used corresponded to their level of geographical knowledge, and consequently they would be all the peoples who inhabit the southern part of the inhabited world to call Ethiopians.Later, however, at a time when geographical knowledge had improved, the name "Ethiopians" came to be applied only to the tribes that vi They were going to the south of Egypt. In other words, Strabo refuses to reject the old designations on the grounds that they are wrong; Instead, he argues that in order to be properly understood, they must be placed in context. Similarly, let us examine the context in which the parallels with India and Ethiopia emerged. Let's start with the question of the spatial extent of Ethiopia and India. Even after the borders of Ethiopia had been more or less precisely defined (eg Strab. 17.3.1), there was no contradiction to the assumption that Aithiopes (=black-skinned people) lived outside of Ethiopia proper. In other words, the claim that Ethiopians were present in India was certainly not unreasonable (eg, Them., Or. 30.349c). As for the 'African Indies', they are closely related to the growth of trade in the Indian Ocean, which was influenced by a 17 André 1949a, 157–8; Goldenberg 2003, 211. More neutral expressions in Albaladejo Vivero 2005, 11; Dihle 1962a, 50-1 n.a. 6. 18 See above n.4; No. fifteen; also Mayerson 1993, 170; André 1949a, 162.

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new experience and perception of space: in fact, the Indian expansion in Africa reflects a new form of geographical organization of the Indian Ocean. As for changing the spatial designations, it is not a matter of geographic ignorance: the Greco-Romans, who called the Axumites "Indians" instead of "Ethiopians", did the same as us, who use the name "Ethiopia" instead of "Abyssinia". ". For example, when Aelian (NA 17.40) refers to "Indian Rhizophagoi" - a famous Ethiopian tribe (Diod. Sic. 3.23.2 = Agatharchides RCD I 141) - he is more likely to update his geographical knowledge than to make a mistake. 19 The many parallels between India and Ethiopia regarding realities (animals, plants, climate, etc.) might suggest at first sight that these "confusions" reveal the gaps and inaccuracies of ancient knowledge.In my opinion, such a point of view sight is irrelevant in many cases.For example, how were the Greco-Romans able to distinguish Ethiopian myrrh (eg, Plin., HN 12.51 [Commiphora spp]) from Indian (Plin., HN 12.71 [Balsamodendron spp?]) considering that were they just looking at the raw material? They also lacked the tools and concepts (e.g. taxonomy) that modern science relies on, which means it was simply impossible to define two distinct species of rhinoceros, for example. I think most of he parallels mentioned above relate to realia, which were objectively similar from a Greco-Roman point of view; therefore, they do not appear to reflect their inaccuracy or ignorance. At this point I would like to make an additional comment. Today, biodiversity has become a popular concept. On the other hand, in the ancient descriptions of the eastern and southern parts of Oikoumene much attention was paid to the similarities that were evident in these areas; they certainly outweighed the differences. As can be seen from the accounts of Alexander's companions, the ὁμοιότης ('likeness') helped build an organized and coherent description of the world; This was not challenged by some differences ( ἐναντιότης) known to them. For example, the presence of dark-skinned humans or elephants in both regions outweighed differences in skin color or elephant size.20 The fact that ὁμοιότης was sometimes used as a heuristic tool between India and Ethiopia seems confirm this assumption: it is known that Alexander had long believed to discover the source of the Nile after observing Nilotic animals and plants in the Indus River (infra, p. 196).

19 Several occurrences show an awareness of changes in geographical names (for example, Peripl. M. Rubr. 61; Amm. Marc. 22.15.2; Cosm. Ind. 3.66). 20 Dihle 1962a, 49-53; Schneider 2004, 316–21.

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Now let's look at the "confusion" of Realia and Mirabilia, which at first glance really appear to be bugs. In fact, they can have a different interpretation as long as they are put in context. For example, Ptolemy (Geog. 4.8.4) mentions an Ethiopian "tiger", but this name probably applies to an animal other than the actual tiger. The so-called Indians who worship Hammon were certainly some of Egypt's neighbors (Luke 9:517-9); the "Indian" καμηλοπαρδάλεις (= giraffes) that Pausanias (9.21.2-3) claimed to see (εἶδον) had obviously been imported from East Africa, called "India" by the author. As for the various myths and mirabilia that India and Ethiopia share, they were definitely not rooted in either of these countries. Therefore, the terms ignorance and imprecision are not very relevant to analyze such "confusions". However, it would be foolish to deny that a number of "misconceptions" are indubitably errors. For example, when Pliny (HN 6.174) places Barygaza in Ethiopia, for whatever reason, he is wrong; There is no doubt that Hesychius (s.v. ὀρίνδη) confuses the dates when he says that rice grows in Ethiopia. However, these instances of error do not invalidate the main point: as most of the existing evidence shows, the “ancient confusion between India and Ethiopia”21 does not result primarily from a lack of knowledge, precision, or interest: in fact, I hardly I can imagine how a phenomenon that has lasted for more than ten centuries and is constantly taking new forms can rest on such a foundation. Let's try to give a more positive definition of "confusion". 2.2 Confusion as a way of knowing To characterize this phenomenon in a nutshell, I would say that the Greco-Romans did not draw or reject a strict dividing line between the southern edge of the Oikoumene and the east, by a certain number of dates. As a result, India and Ethiopia became they have clearly distinguished and have not mixed in many other issues. For example, I have not found any "confusion" with historical figures (for example, the Indian king Poros, the Brahmin Kalanos, or the Ethiopian ruler Shabaka [Σαβάκων]). Similarly, a considerable number of realia and mirabilia have been clearly and correctly attributed to India or Ethiopia, and have not been confused. that exist in a multitude of texts appear, some written by the most renowned authors. I mentioned Aeschylus (tragedy) above; Herodotus (history); Strabo and Ptolemy 21 Kartunen 1989, 134.

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(geography / chorography); Ctesias and Eliano (specialized monographs); boxes (philology). However, in philosophy many cases of "confusion" appear (Arist., Soph. el. 5.167a 1-20; Plut., De tuend.san.praec. 20); poetry (Ov., Met. 4.605–606); Speeches and novels (Philostr., V A 6.1 -doubtless an author who offered a very subtle parallel between India and Ethiopia-; Heliod., Aeth. 6.3.3; Them., Or. 27.337c), not to mention several other treatises ( for example, Theophr., Caus. pl. 3.3.3; Sen., Q Nat. 5.18.2; Diog. Laert. 9.35). The "confusion" is even documented in the caption,22 which proves that this phenomenon belonged to some extent to "geographical lore".23 Given this situation, the "confusion" between India and Ethiopia should rather be defined as a form of knowledge of lack of knowledge. In other words, what we call "confusion" is an integral part of the Greco-Roman representation and perception of the eastern and southern edges of the world. In my opinion, this is confirmed by the fact that the "confusion" was not only taken up by Christian culture, but also renewed (interpretatio christiana). Christian writers knew India and Ethiopia as described in the pagan tradition. That is why in the patristic literature there are allusions to pygmies, boa constrictors, browns, blacks, etc., which do not differ from their non-Christian counterparts.24 In addition, they usually adopt the spatial designations of their time. For this reason, when reporting the conversion of the Axumite king or commenting on the situation of Saba, they used the name "India" to refer to African or Arab areas (Rufinus of Aquileia, supra, p.190; Origen. PG 12.1524; Epiph ., From XII gemmis 19-21). Christian speculation was also the source of several original "confusions." For example, Philostorgius (Hist.eccl. 3.11) argued that paradise was in the east, stating that the most extraordinary animals and plants in the world were produced in Arabia, India, and Ethiopia. It is also worth mentioning the comment on Gen. 2: 11-13 (the four rivers that flow from Paradise), which led some authors to state more or less explicitly that the Egyptian-Ethiopian Geon (= Nile) of "Ethiopia oriental" (eg, Origins, PG 12.100). 2.3 Were the Greco-Romans aware of the so-called confusion? Schwanbeck thought that some ancient authors had tried-in vain-to explain the "confusion" .25 his opinion was based on a text by Strabo (17.3.7) 22 23 24 25

Bernardo 1969, 143–147; Drew-Bear 1981, 117–8. Dueck 2012, 118. Schneider 2004, 252–8. Schwanbeck 1846, 4.

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in which the geographer gave an opinion of anonymous scholars on the western Ethiopians: the latter claimed that the Maurousian Ethiopians were descended from the Indians who had accompanied Heracles; the question of the natives and emigration (ἀποικία) was a frequent theme in ancient ethnography. Personally, I did not find any trace of explanation in this excerpt. However, Schwanbeck raised a very interesting question: were the Greco-Romans aware of this phenomenon? If so, how was it expressed by them? As for the first question, the answer seems quite clear: almost all the texts in which there is a "confusion" between India and Ethiopia do not show any awareness on this issue, as if they are completely ignorant of it. Let's develop this point with some examples. Diodorus quotes Ktesias (Diod. Sic. 2.14. 4 = Ktesias FGrHist 688 F 1b) about the waters in Ethiopia leading people to tell the truth. As a reader of the Indika, he obviously knew that there was a well with similar properties in India according to Ctesias himself (Phot., Bibl. 47a3–10 = Ctesias FGrHist 688 F 45§31). Diodorus doubts the reality of such a miracle, but does not comment on this coincidence. Pliny mentions a number of strange tribes in India and Ethiopia (for example, Doghead [HN 6.195; 7.23 = Ctesias FGrHist 688 F 45pα]; Himantopodes [HN 5.44; 7.25 = Megasthenes FGrHist 715 F 29]). These coincidences also do not give rise to any observations. While "the perception of India is fading," according to modern scholars,26 there is, to my knowledge, absolutely no comment on the numerous instances of African Indians in ancient texts. There are, however, some parallels between India and Ethiopia, followed by a brief comment that really has nothing to do with the problem we call "confusion." For example, Arrian (Anab. 6.1.2-5) related how Alexander thought he had discovered the source of the Nile until he abandoned that theory. He accused the king for his precipitation, because he had tried to solve an important geographical problem with little evidence (μικροῖς δή τισι καὶ φαύλοις ὑπὲρ τῶν τηλικούτων τεκμαιρό & iges the profile and the profile and the profile and the problem.To cite another example, Aristotle (Gen. an. 2.3.736a 10) corrected (οὐκ ἀληθῆ λέγει) Herodotus's statement (3.101) that the Indians and Ethiopians had the skin and semen equally black: his semen is white, affirms the Philosopher. The point is that Aristotle, paying attention to the precision of the facts, seemed indifferent to the parallel between Amerindians and Ethiopians, as if it did not pose any problem. More remarkable is the following text (Plin., HN 12:17-20) dedicated to ebony Pliny's report begins with the question of production area Two sources 26 Mayerson 1993, 170.

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were at his disposal: Virgil (India) and Herodotus (Ethiopia). There is no doubt that Pliny perceived the contradiction between these authorities. Nevertheless, the coexistence or conflict between the two theories caused him no apparent difficulties: "Virgil speaks in eulogistic terms of one of those peculiar Indias (unam e apartibus Indiae), the ebony, which he asserts is by no means so." . . . . another country grows (nusquam coartada nasci professus). Herodotus, however, prefers to attribute it to Ethiopia (Herodotus eam Aethiopiae intellegi maluit), asserting that the Ethiopians paid the Persian kings one hundred trunks of ebony every three years, together with gold and ivory, as tribute. (trans. H. Rackham) Must we therefore conclude that the Greco-Romans were completely unaware of what we call "confusion"? I don't think so. Some writers are aware of the proximity of India and Ethiopia, but this concept has been used to increase knowledge. I explained earlier how the ὁμοιότης of Ethiopia (with Egypt) and India helped Alexander’s companions convert a great deal of new data and observations into a coherent geographical system. I have also mentioned Crates' interpretation of the Travels of Menelaus. Here is another significant example. In his commentary to Virgil's Georgica (2.116: sola India nigrum / fert Hebenum), Servius focuses on the adjective sola: how could Virgil write that "only India" produced ebony, when he was well aware that this material also is imported from East Africa? ? The answer is as follows: sed Indiam omnem plagam Aethiopiae accipiamus (India means the whole of Ethiopia). Evidently, Servius knew that in his time the name "India" was often applied to certain areas of Africa: this reality - a "confusion" to our judgment - enabled him to resolve satisfactorily a delicate question. In sum, unlike us, the Greco-Romans did not see "confusion" as a problem or obstacle. In summary, there is a gap between ancient and modern representations of space. The proximity of India and Ethiopia seems strange to us. That is why we tend to analyze this phenomenon with criteria of correctness and accuracy, which is not satisfactory. A better approach is to consider so-called confusion as a certainly unusual form of knowledge. This explains in particular a fact that has seemed a delicate subject for some scholars:27 Despite enormous advances in both cartography and knowledge of the Oikoumene (particularly between the time of Alexander and the late second century AD), never it came to be a "Confusion." ceased to develop and renew itself.

27 z. B. Arora 1982, 131; Andrew 1949a, 162.

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This now brings us to the last part of this investigation: What were the origins and bases of this phenomenon? How could such a representation of space and people come about? 3

Understand the "confusion."

It is a very complex combination of different and complicated factors that led to India and Ethiopia coming together. For reasons of clarity, this section is limited to a brief description of the most important ones. 3.1 Peoples Consider the following three examples: according to Poseidonius, Homer divided the Αἰθιοπῆες into two groups, because the Indians (= the Eastern Ethiopians) were "more mature" (εὐερνεστέρους) than the Ethiopians (Strab. 2.3.7 = Pos. F 13 parts); Philostratus (V A 3.20) takes up a tradition which says that the Ethiopians living south of Egypt were originally an Indian people (γένος Ἰνδικόν); Juno in Seneca's Hercules furiosus (37-38) alludes to the regions "where the sun, when it returns, and where, when it declines, colors both Ethiopian races with neighboring torches" (trans. F.J. Miller). All of these excerpts share the implicit notion that Indians and Ethiopians had the same skin color. The dark color of these peoples (and also of some Libyan tribes [e.g. Strab. 17.3.7]) represented a remarkable character from the Mediterranean point of view: quis enim Aethiopas ante quam cerneret creditidit? (Plin., HN 7.6). This justified the parallelism found between them: this physical trait helped draw a parallel between Amerindians and Ethiopians, as opposed to other people, as if they formed an 'ethnic community'. It can be rightly objected that much more information has been provided about these peoples since Alexander the Great. In particular, some differences in skin color were noted: the Indians were less "burnt" than the Ethiopians. Some authors had also distinguished the dark-skinned southern Indians from the less colored northern peoples (eg, Arr., Ind. 6.9; Strab. 15.1.13; Manilius, Astr. 4.725). Based on such claims, a number of modern scholars claimed that adjectives indicating that a skin color is not supremely black (for example, coloratus, to discolor) were attributed only to Native Americans; niger or fuscus, on the other hand, would apply specifically to Ethiopians.28 This does not actually call into question the idea of an “ethnic community”. First, the lexical argument is only relevant for Latin adjectives, since there is no difference in Greek (μέλας describes both Indians and Ethiopians). 28 Snowden 1970, 3; André 1949b, 125–126.

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Furthermore, we can associate fuscus and niger with Indians in several Latin texts (eg, Hor., Sa. 2.8.14; Ov., Ars am. 1.53; Mart., Ep. 7.30.4). Now, what about the chromatic tones mentioned in various ancient documents? Such observations do not contradict the basic idea of skin color similarity that prevailed throughout antiquity: despite this difference, Indians and Ethiopians were considered different from the rest of humanity because of the dark color of their skin. (Arr., Anab. 5.4). .4; Ind. 6.9): His skin (or his blood: Hyg., Fab. 154) turned black in extremely intense sunlight like nowhere else on earth (meaning it wasn't just a tan). In other words, the color of their skin made Indians and Ethiopians exceptional, as did some of the animals and plants that lived on their land. This idea was explicitly expressed by Philostratus in the third century AD. C. (V A 6.1): "They (sc. India and Ethiopia) are also the abode of beasts not found elsewhere, and of black men - a trait not found on other continents - and we find in them races of pygmies and people who bark instead of talking, and other such marvels". (trans. F.C. Conybeare) 3.2 Space space. It was generally agreed that Asia was not separated from Libya by the Red Sea but by the Nile (Arabian Gulf; eg Strab., 17.3.1). Because Ethiopia lay east of the Nile, it belonged to the same continent as India. There is also a division into “climates” (climates), that is, a series of strips of land parallel to the equator. Hellenistic geographers tended to pair India and Ethiopia when defining southern climates: Meroe was at the same latitude as the southern tip of India, Kinnamomophoros (northern Somalia) at the same latitude as Taprobane (for example, Strab. 1.4. 2; 2.1. 5). As for the proximity of India and Ethiopia appearing in Aeschylus's Supplicants (283-286), we cannot determine what spatial notion supported it: this case of "confusion" may be related to the notion that the Erythraean Sea is a closed body de was water (Strab. 1.3.1 = Damastes from Sigeum FGrHist 5 F 8). The idea of maritime unity certainly played an important role in the development of the "confusion". From the Greco-Roman point of view, the Red Sea and the Arabian-Persian Gulf were nothing more than the ends of a sea called the Erythraean Sea or the Indian Sea.29 Such a point of view implied that Ethiopia and India shared the same maritime space: for example , we hear of semi-mythical rulers who successively defeated Ethiopia, Arabia, and India with their warships (for example, Diod. sic. 1.55.1–2 [Sesostris]). Certainly the idea 29 Schneider 2004, 455–461.

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of the maritime unit contributed to India and Ethiopia being connected or even identified. Let us consider the following two cases. – Some authors considered India and Ethiopia (as well as Arabia) alike as “lands of the Erythraean Sea”. In fact, various creatures and products from these areas have been labeled "Erythraean": for example, myrrh (Plin., HN 12.70); Gems and Pearls (Ps.Lucian, Amores 41; Mart., Ep. 5.37.5); ivory (Mart., Ep. 13.100); “Bull” – rhinoceros? – (Ael., NA 2.20). – Since the Erythraean Sea was a major Indian trade route, it was more likely to be considered the "Indian Sea" (eg, OGIS 186; Sen., Q Nat. 4a 2.4). As a result, various nations living on or near the Indike thalassa/mare Indicum (Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Ḥimyarites . . .) could easily be referred to as "Indians". The increase in direct maritime trade between the Mediterranean world and the countries of the Indian Ocean -following the discovery of the monsoon routes by the Greeks under the reign of Ptolemy VIII.30- seems to have had another consequence: India and Ethiopia still They could be perceived as neighboring countries intervening bodies of water. In fact, this was the result of a "hodological" conception of space: for the merchants and sailors who explored the Indian Sea until, e.g. B. Muziris sailing through India came directly to Egypt and Ethiopia, which may evoke the idea of his adjacency (Joseph., BJ 2.385; Lucian, Salt. 19). Finally, it is worth noting the role played by the Homeric partition of Ethiopia. As we have seen, the pair “India/Ethiopia” replaced the pair “West Ethiopia/East Ethiopia”. The representation of space embedded in the Odyssey, i. h the symmetry of opposites has not been eliminated by improvements in geography. It certainly helped perpetuate the "confusion" as the Greco-Romans tended to pair India and Ethiopia as symmetrical countries. The most important example comes from the 3rd century AD: “Ethiopia covers the west wing of all the land under the sun, like India the east wing (...). We have a proof of the similarity of the two countries in the spices they contain, also in the fact that the lion and the elephant are captured and imprisoned in the one as well as in the other, etc.' (Philostr., V A 6.1; trans. FC Conybeare).

30 Eudoxus of Cyzicus (Strab. 2.3.4) is often credited with the first use of monsoon routes.

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3.3 Nature Of the important questions in physiology, I will concentrate on the most important, namely that of nature. the climate that contributed significantly to the emergence of "confusion". In fact, it was believed that the sun was the most important of the principles that regulate the weather. Due to their location to the south and east in Oikoumene, Indians and Ethiopians were thought to experience much hotter than other countries, which, as mentioned above, explains the peculiarity of their skin color. In fact, the main component of the weather (τὴν περιέχοντος κρᾶσιν) was heated, which affected the entire area (Strab. 2.3.1): The sun affected not only living beings (τῶς ῴων καὶ φυτυυν). but also the mineral world (see Posidonius, supra, p. 191,). As a result, it was generally agreed (eg, above, Philostratus) that India and Ethiopia (as well as Arabia) produced animals, plants, aromatic compounds, etc. Similar. Even Mirabilia was affected to some extent by this notion, as Pliny (HN 6.187 = Posidonius?) tells us: “It is not surprising that the confines of this region (i.e. Ethiopia) produce animal and human monstrosities (animalium hominumque monstrific effigies), considering that the mobile element fire can mold their bodies and sculpt their contours.” (trans. H. Rackham) However, we know that Alexander's companions (eg Aristobulus, Onesicritus) held that India was more fertile than Ethiopia. due to its higher humidity. Thus, Onesikrit claimed that Indian animals, both terrestrial and aquatic, were larger than Ethiopians (Strab. 16.1.22 = Onesikritus FGrHist 134 F 22). However, this difference is of minor importance compared to solar radiation, because according to Onesikrit himself, only solar heat allows India and Ethiopia to grow (along with Arabia) extraordinary creatures and products, e.g. B. kinnamomon, spikenard, and other aromatic substances.31 Additional remark: The idea that the animals and plants of India and Ethiopia are similar was all the more readily accepted because they were not exactly named. In particular, animals of different species (in the modern sense of the word) were generally given the same name, however different: all Psittaciformes were equally called Psittacus / ψίττακος; the rhinoceros and an unidentified species of buffalo were referred to as ταῦρος (Ael., NA 2.20; Diod. Sic. 3.31.2 = Agatharchides RCD I 152); it is very likely that the name cinnamomum referred to more than one species of spice, etc. (κινάμωμον φερούση γῆ) have the same climate (τὴν γὰρ κρᾶσιν ἀέρων παραπλησίαν εἶναι) also proves that they are found in the same latitude5);

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The Indians consider the tiger to be much stronger than the elephant (. . .). The Indians report that the tiger is the same size as the largest horse (. . .). However, the ones we see and call tigers are spotted jackals, but larger jackals”32 (trans. E.I. Robson). The parallels between India and Ethiopia were inevitably facilitated under such conditions. I hope this short essay has shed some light on how the southern and eastern fringes of the inhabited world were perceived by the Roman Greeks. While there are real cases of errors and inaccuracies, I think it is important to analyze the so-called confusion as a specific representation of space in order to properly appreciate the value of the old descriptions of these regions. This phenomenon shows that the eastern and southern parts of the inhabited world33, from the perspective of the Mediterranean, had many things in common: unlike the other edges of the world, the countries bordering the Erythraean Sea were seen in many ways as a coherent whole. . This phenomenon, in its own way, can express the idea of the unity of the Indian Ocean, which today supports various studies of world history.

Figure 11.1 India and Ethiopia (courtesy of P. Schneider).

32 See also the TIGER depicted in the mosaic from Palestrina. 33 cosmos. Ind., 2.29: the southernmost and easternmost parts of the earth.

C. Geography and Politics in the Roman Empire

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CHAPTER 12

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and his geographical work Pascal Arnaud The figure of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, co-ruler of the empire, childhood friend and son-in-law of Augustus, has gained a prominent place in the academic landscape of Roman geography far beyond Pliny and Mela, whose texts go back to the have reached the present, but there is a curious discrepancy between the criteria of ancient historiography on the work of Agrippa and the importance that modern historiography attaches to it. Agrippa's geographical work has been the subject of an extensive bibliography1 since the late eighteenth century. Until recently and from the end of the 18th century it was based on the belief that this work was "official" and consisted of a secret part and a world map extracted from these notes and exhibited in the Porticus Vipsania erected after Agrippa's death. This map was considered the origin of the tradition that led to the Tabula Peutingeriana and the Itinerarium Antonini,2 it was exhibited in all the cities of the empire, according to Detlefsen, and became the cliché: "the" Roman world map,3 the main scholars they cite its influence in every subsequent mention on a map, including medieval maps. There is said to have been a connection between the secret part of Agrippa's enterprise and a world survey commissioned by Augustus, mentioned in two medieval books dating back to Julius Honorius's Excerpta eius Sphaerae uel continenteia.4 The idea arose in the middle of the nineteenth century in Germany that Agrippa's map illustrated a new relationship between power and space. 1 The current chapter summarizes the results published in a much longer article. The reader can find more details and a complete bibliography (also Gautier-Dalché 2008; Arnaud 2013) in this article (Arnaud 2007–2008). 2 Mannert 1799, 123–124; Mannert 1824, 6; Franconia 1836; Ritschl 1842; Mommsen 1851, 101-103; Sweden 1893; Sweden 1903; Pallu de Lessert 1909, 226; gross 1913; Kubitschek, 1919a, 1919b; Trousset 1993; Weber 1976; Calzolari 1996. 3 Müllenhoff 1856, 1875; Sweden 1876, 1878; Detlefsen 1906; Gross 1913, 87; Stahl 1955. 4 Ritschl 1842; Detlefsen 1877, 1884, 1906; Nicolette 1988; Nicolet and Gautier-Dalche 1987; Text of the last numbers of Riese 1878, 21-23 and 24-55 A and B.

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and your presentation. This remained the cornerstone of the more recent interpretation of Nicolet.5 Its main basis was the identification with Agrippa of an anonymous writer, referred to by Strabo as 'the chorographer', whose fragments might provide some support for the earlier idea of Some kind. relation to land routes. Some have identified this chorographia (Agrippa's map in his interpretation) with the chorographia attributed to Augustus by a later pamphlet known as the Divisio orbis terrarum and closely related to another pamphlet known as the Dimensuratio provinciarum, both of which have strong parallels with Agrippa's fragments. and with Orosius. .6 Agrippa's map turned out not only to be a mere Augustan plan, but was also enshrined as "the Roman map of the world," a source for all subsequent maps, as well as for Pliny and Mela.7 The complex relationship between all these elements assumed a pedigree of two branches of descent from Agrippa's map, one from his supposed preparatory notes or secret book, the other from the public map. The investigation of sources was unable to unite this scheme and the relationships between other authors, in particular Pliny, Varro and Mela. The appearance of new sources, such as imperial statistics, including formulas provinciarum8, not only did not provide a satisfactory solution, but even led to further confusion. As a result, science burned scholarly treasures to support epic battles between brilliant minds such as Schweder, Detlefsen,9 Oehmichen, or Klotz10 over apparent details about the indisputable pattern of Agrippa's map and his supposed posterity, as if this had become a postulate. The questions then were: did Pliny only rely on Agrippa's map, as Detlefsen believed, or on a text other than the map, as Klotz believed? Who was the choreographer? Of these dominant historiographical patterns, few have remained unchallenged in recent decades. The source investigation methods and the resulting reconstructions have been rightly criticized by K. Sallmann, who has argued with great precision against Klotz's method and conclusions. These turned out to be "highly learned but erroneous."11 The story of Augustus's surveyors, also present on the Hereford map, is now common

5 Petersen 1849, 1850; Nicolet 1988, 1991. 6 - Mullenhoff 1856. 7 - Schweder 1876, 1878, 1883, 1888, 1892, 1893, 1895, 1897. 8 - Jullian 1883; Cuntz 1888, 1890; Detlefsen 1908a; Christl 1994; Salmann 1971, 95–107. 9 Detlefsen 1877, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1901, 1906, 1908b, 1908a, 1909. 10 Klotz 1906, 1931. 11 See especially Salmann 1971, 255 n.a. 511, versus Klotz 1906, 109 and 1930-1931, 444.

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considered a medieval invention,12 and the existence of Agrippa's map itself has been questioned.13 It seems, then, that the nature and scope of Agrippa's work are still unclear, as is its actual importance to the history of geography. . A close examination of the fragments is the only way to distinguish between mere postulates and well-founded hypotheses. one

Fragments and posterity of Agrippa

1.1 Fragments The list and number of fragments attributed to Agrippa varies from publisher to publisher,14 our only direct source for Agrippa's geographic work is Pliny the Elder. He cites Agrippa as the source for him in no fewer than 32 places, mainly in Books III, IV, and VI and never in Book 2. As with any fragmentary work, Agrippa raises the problem of determining the relationship between the surviving fragments. and the original. First, we must remember that fragments are the result of a selection process. The impact of this selection process is greater when the selection is made by a single author. The frequency with which Agrippa is quoted makes him the main explicit source for Pliny's books on geography (3–6). This did not happen by accident. Agrippa not only illustrated the superiority of Rome's contribution to geographical knowledge compared to that of the earlier Greek. It was also the language of truth, and the god Augustus was the guarantor of it. Even when information is clearly attributed to Agrippa, it is often difficult to determine how much Pliny owes Agrippa and to what extent information attributed by Pliny or by modern historiography to other sources may have been cited for Agrippa by other authors. . In at least two places it can be proven that Agrippa quoted and probably discussed Polybius as well.15 Agrippa cannot be reduced to the original raw data. He also drew on previous authors, whom he did not always quote.

12 Birkholz 2004; Gautier-Dalché 2008. 13 Arnaud 1990, 993–1297; Brodersen 1996, 268–287. 14 editions of the fragments: Motte 1872; Partsch 1875; Philippi 1876; Swedish 1876; Giant 1878, 1–8; Detlefsen 1906; Klotz 1930-1931; Arnaud 1990, 993–1297. 15 HN 5.9-10 and 6,207. See below.

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It is evident that Agrippa was used as a source in other places where Pliny did not quote him. Klotz reached a total of 66 fragments. This includes three different text groups. Some simply correlate with dates securely attributed to Agrippa. It happens that the sum of the data provided without authorship coincides with the exact amount given by Agrippa. Another group of fragments comes from two late imperial pamphlets. The Dimensuratio provinciarum (Dim)16 is known from three manuscripts. The first two are copies of the same lost manuscript. This presented the text of the Dimensuratio in the form of extracts from an older manuscript.17 The third, also the oldest (13th century), attributes the text to a priest of Jerome. The text of the so-called Divisio Orbis terrarum (Dv)18 belongs to the same 13th-century manuscript as the Dimensuratio and was quoted in its entirety by Dicuil shortly after AD 825. in the first five chapters of his Liber de mensa orbis. It ends with the epigram of two cartographers who commissioned a map from Theodosius II, probably for the University of Constantinople.19 Müllenhoff felt that these two works belonged to the same tradition, that they were directly dependent on Agrippa's map and not Pliny's influenced map. . There are certainly some expressions that seem characteristic of Agrippa's style, especially in the Dimensuratio. These show some relation to Orosius and Isidorus and to a small map of the world preserved on a late 8th century map, the ms. VAT Lat. 6018.20 There is no doubt that they belong to the same tradition, although they differ completely in some areas, always those described by Pliny. This points to a possible relationship with Pliny at a certain step in the tradition. The Divisio is a more complete build, probably based on a different lore when it comes to islands. The dimensuratio is generally closer to that of Agrippa quoted by Pliny, but the discrepancy as to the measurements and the fact that Agrippa's most characteristic expression is also found at a point (Dim 9) where Agrippa does not seem to have used it ( Plin. HN 4.91) suggests that the connection between these pamphlets and Agrippa is not as direct as Müllenhoff thought.

16 giant 1878, 9; Uhden 1933. 17 The measure (Appendix L) of the provinces, which was not included in the earlier codex but was taken from the older book. 18 Riese 1978, 15; Mullenhoff 1856; Schweder 1876. 19 Wolska-Conus 1973. 20 Klotz 1930; Uden 1933.

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In no way can we take these two works together as reliable testimonies to Agrippa's lost work unless Pliny confirms them. A third group of fragments, said to date back to Agrippa, is provided by the so-called "chorographer". The editors of the Fragments considered them all to be part of the Fragments. In five passages, all referring to southern Italy and the large neighboring islands, Strabo21 quotes an anonymous author who expressed distances in Roman miles, even at sea, as Agrippa probably did. In a sixth passage (6.2.11) he only mentions the choreography, as if that title were enough to identify the source he used. Furthermore, Riese thought that all the passages with distances in Roman miles found in Strabo may have come from the same author, which is highly controversial since Polybius also expressed some distances in miles. Most scholars have assumed that this chorography was the orbis terrarum (. . .) quem diuus Augustus primus omnium per chorographiam ostendit (Dv 1), in other words, the Chorographia Augusti was intended to be identical to Agrippa's letter. They have interpreted a passage in Strabo (2.5.17) describing the "chorographic map" (ὁ χωρογραφικὸς πίναξ) as a mention of the "choreographer's map". a specific letter. It takes place in a very general opposition between geography and chorography.23 Some scholars have argued against identifying this anonymous choreographer with Agrippa.24 Unfortunately, most advocates of identifying Strabo's choreographer with Agrippa have been content to criticize the unlikely identifications. of sight. In fact, it is highly unlikely that Strabo knew Agrippa as a geographer; nor did he know his card. In his description of the Field of Mars, Strabo is even unaware of the existence of the Porticus Vipsania.25 A comparison between the dates of the choreographer and Pliny has led K. Sallmann to the conclusion that Strabo's choreographer could not be Agrippa.26 As long as Where possible, both for comparing authors seldom agree and often differ, unless modern editors correct the values given by manuscripts, which has frequently been done. 21 5.2.7; 5.2.8; 6.1.11; 6.2.11; 6.3.10. 22 See above, notes 4–7, and Riese 1878, XI; Klotz 1930–1931, 40. 23 Prontera 2006a. 24 Oehmichen 1873, 67; Nissen 1883, 17; Country 1886, 159; 1957 Jul, 224-240; 268-273; Roddaz 1984, 577-578; Sallmann 1971, 93-94, 105-106 and 42; Arnaud 1990, 1164-1181; Brodersen 1996, 280-284; Haenger 2001, 150. 25 Wiseman 1979. 26 Sallmann 1971, 106, o.42, 255.

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Closer examination shows that one of the fragments allows a reliable comparison between Agrippa's dates and those of the chorographer. It has long been proven27 that the value of Sicily attributed to Agrippa by Pliny (HN 3.86) is equal to the sum of the lengths of the three sides given elsewhere (HN 3.87) and that this also implies that the latter came from Agrippa. We have not only shown that the values do not match at all, but that the forms of some place names in Strabo and Pliny are not the same.28 Strabo is also ignorant of the existence of the Vistula, while Agrippa knew of the river and thought he was the first to be the one to mention it. It therefore seems utterly impossible that the anonymous choreographer quoted by Strabo was Agrippa. As a result, the entire system built on the Chorographia (including Augustus' Chorographia) falters, along with the main hint of a possible strong relationship with land routes, and Agrippa's work loses some of its impact and posterity. 2

Agrippa's work: content and worldview

2.1 The content Sufficient data have survived, certainly from Agrippa, to allow an approximate reconstruction of its content within the limits of Pliny's principles of selection. The most visible and largest part consisted of measurements. This is not surprising: measurements were the basis of the Hellenistic tradition of geography. These were referring to different types of rooms. Some referred to the usual three continents (Asia, Europe, Africa).29 Agrippa also gave the distance between Gades and Issos in a straight line (HN 6,207). From Dicaearco, this line is called the diaphragm. It was both the basis for assessing the longitude of the inhabited world and the axis along which regions were assembled on a schematic map of the world. Most of the surviving measures relate to these large regional units, which closely resemble Eratosthenes' Sphragids, which are the only subject of divisio and dimensuratio. They often follow, but do not always coincide with, the administrative boundaries of the provinces. We find provincial groups still pregnant, as in Asia Minor or the Three Gauls

27 Detlefsen 1906, 63-65; Klotz 1930-1931, 405-407. 28 Arnaud 2007–2008, 63–6 29 Plin., HN 5.40: Africa; Extension of Africa and Asia from the Mediterranean Sea southward.

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the old name Gallia Comata,30 or parts of a province, as in Cyrenaica,31 actually combined with Crete to form a common administrative province. The provinces were also often measured: Agrippa gave the dimensions of Illyricum,32 Gallia Narbonensis33 and Baetica34. The recent discovery of an important inscription35 sheds new light on the mention of Lusitania cum Asturia et Gallaecia (HN 4.118). This edict mentions a short-lived province called the Transdurian province, the boundaries of which seem to have coincided exactly with those of the group mentioned by Agrippa. This province lasted from 22/19 BC. to 15/13 B.C. when the new provincial organization classified Asturiae and Gallaecia in Hispania Tarraconensis. Other distances are among the most common categories developed by classical and Hellenistic geography, and include circles of islands and seas, distances between islands and capes, and distances between cities or capes, common to all periplographic description. These include quite small details, such as the dimensions of the so-called Dromos Achilleos, a peninsula 80 miles long (HN 4.81). It is not certain, but likely, that the mention of the form (ad formam gladi), which typically refers to Roman culture, also comes from Agrippa. This type of comparison is very common in Hellenistic geographical descriptions. To the best of our knowledge, none of these distances are based solely on data collected from travel routes, but rather on data found in periploi. It has been argued that some distances in Africa, the Middle East, or Italy were calculated on the basis of travel routes.36 This is demonstrated by comparing not only with surviving ancient travel routes, but also with other data found in geographers such as Strabo and Agrippa's dates are not the sum of distances along Roman roads, but echo data found in the Hellenistic tradition. The only value that really comes close to that of land routes is the latitude of Italy between the rivers Var and Arsias (HN 3.43). Unfortunately, it is based on a road, the Via Julia Augusta, whose landmarks date from no earlier than the late 13th and early 12th centuries BC. C, respectively. 31 HN 5.38, without naming the authorship. 32 HN3,150. 33 HN 3.37. 34 HN 3.16. 35 AE 1999, 915 = AE 2000, 760 = AE 2007, 785. About this inscription see López Barja de Quiroga 2010, with bibliography. 36 Klotz 1930–1931, 389 (HN 3.16); 393-4 (HN 4105); 439 (HN 5.25, doubtful, but with the words qua cognitum est; 446 (HN 3.132 doubtful); 451–3. All parallels are only very rough approximations. No exact agreement (or even a rough approximation) is recorded between itineraries and dates, whose attribution to Agrippa is not always well documented.

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which is not a reliable source for this passage. It is striking that Pliny also ignores itineraries as the real basis of geographical knowledge, although Polybius and Artemidorus did. Furthermore, no surviving fragment of Agrippa refers to distances between places in the interior. The width of Gaul, where Agrippa himself had built the road between Lyons and Boulogne (Gesoriacum), is apparently calculated from earlier maritime data. The indication of orientation in relation to a maritime distance37 was the basis of the work of Timosthenes of Rhodes and is a common feature of the voyage of Syria and Asia Minor on the Stadiasmus Maris Magni. All the distances make Agrippa part of the Hellenistic tradition of geography rather than the starting point of a new one. Information about ethnicity was also present in Agrippa's work, although only one such information has survived. He claims that Agrippa thought all the people on the Baetic shores were of Punic origin.38 This directly reflects a passage from Strabo (3/17/15) who apparently ignored Agrippa but claimed to be a follower of Polybius, a well-known source. , considered by Agrippa, and information from Varro summarized by Pliny in the same chapter (HN 3.8). Again, Agrippa belonged to a well-established tradition. The words that Pliny uses to introduce Agrippa's quote are the same ones that he uses to introduce other geographers, which confirms that his account was of the same nature. However, some of them reveal some peculiarities. When it says Computavit,39 Agrippa probably calculated new dates by combining several. When he says that Agrippa added a certain number of miles to an earlier geographer's assessment, 40 Agrippa is probably quoting that predecessor—here Varro—and arguing against him. When Pliny writes credit or existimavit, he indicates that Agrippa relied on less reliable information and presented his data as an opinion.41 This verb is commonly used in passages referring to 37 HN 4.60: a Carpatho insula promunturio Samonius LX in favonium ventum. 38 HN 3.8: Oram (Baeticae) in uniuersum originis Poenorum existimauit Agrippa. 39 HN 4,105 (Gallia Comata). With Pliny, the verb always expresses data resulting from the combination of various data (see also HN 2.171; 2.174; 6.209). It is noteworthy that Pliny (HN 6.206) opposes Agrippa's taxat (introduction of a crude removal) to the result of his own calculation based on Agrippa's (Polybius) source. 40 HN 4.45: Ab Histri ostio ad os Ponti passuum D alii fecere – Agrippa LX adiecit. These alii are actually Varro according to Klotz 1930–1931, 448 based on HN 4.78. 41 When Agrippa gives a value for the shores of the sea without saying that it is an opinion and without indicating the precision qua cognitum est, then Pliny points out that this measurement is actually uncertain (uncertain: HN 4.91).

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edges of the earth42 or to unverifiable information. Agrippa then opposed the certain (certum and cognitum) and the uncertain or opinion, including the probable; He probably ruled out fables, as Pliny suggested. When Agrippa measured Africa "as far as is known", he implicitly rejected any evidence of the circumnavigation of Africa attributed to Hanno of Carthage and Eudoxus of Cyzicus, but accepted the partial testimony of Polybius on Scipio's orders, which was also a guarantee. by the statement of Polybius. This fits with an important aspect of the originality of Agrippa's perspective and work which, together with Agrippa's diligence and Augustus's confirmation of the work, has justified Agrippa's choice as the foremost source of information and visible from Pliny. One of the more specific expressions of Agrippa seems to have been qua cognitum est,43 which Pliny always used in passages surely or probably inspired by Agrippa, but never in relation to any other author. This has long been known to belong formally to Vulgar Latin, a total of 42 Sallmann 1971, 175: Great Britain (HN 4.102); Ethiopia (HN 6,196); ethnic origin of the people who live on the shores of Betica (HN 3.8). 43 Klotz 1930–1931, 422. Cf. HN 5.38: Finis Cyrenaicus Catabathmos appellatur, oppidum et vallis suddenly convex. ad eum terminum Cyrenaica Africa et Syrti minore decies LX in longitudinem patet, in latitudinem qua cognitum est DCCCCX, where no author is named, but Klotz and Detlefsen saw the same value as in Agrippa in Pliny (HN 6.209: sed quoniam in Cyrenaica eius parte DCCCCX fecit Agrippa, deserta eius ad Garamantas usque, qua noscebantur, complectens), who then uses the past tense qua noscebantur to indicate progress in knowledge since Agrippa; HN 5.25: Sabrata contingens Syrtim minorem, ad quam Numidiae et Africae from Ampsaga longitude DLXXX, latitude qua cognitum est CC (same values in Dv 25 and Dim 26, without the expression); Dim 8: Dacia Getica finiuntur of east desertis Sarmatiae, of west flumine Vistula, a septentrione Oceano, a meridie flumine Histro. Quae patente in longitudine milia passuum CCLXXX, in latitudine, qua cognitum est, milia passuuum CCCLXXXVI (cf. HN 4.81: Agrippa totum eum tractum from Histro ad oceanum to decies centum milium passuum in longitudinem, quattuor milibus quadringentis in latitudinem, ad flumen Vistlam a desertis Sarmatiae prodidit where the edges fit Agrippas, not the measurements); Dim 9: Sarmatia and Scythia Taurica. It ends ab oriente iugis montis Tauri, ab occidente flumine Borysthene, a septentrione oceano, a meridie Pontica province; quae expanduntur in longitudine milia passuum DCCCCLXXX, in latitudine qua cognitum est †CCCLXXXVI, where Agrippa probably did not use it (cf. HN 4.91: Sarmatiae, Scythiae, Tauricae, omnisque a Borysthene amne tractus longitude DCCCCLXXX, latitude DCCXVI a M. Agrippa tradita est Ego incertam in hac terrarum parte mensuram arbitror, HN 6. 37 (cf. Dim 6): Agrippa Caspium mare gentesque quae circa sunt et cum bis Armeniam determinatas ab Oriente oceano Serico, ab occidente Caucasi iugis, a meridie Tauri, a septentrione Oceano Scytbico, patere qua cognitum est CCCCLXXX in longitudinem, in latitudinem CCXC prodidit.

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with an original use of the verb patere,44 and that the use of Vulgar Latin used to be an important feature of Agrippa's style.45 That this expression comes from Agrippa is confirmed by the fact that Pliny quotes Agrippa once, say a measure in the margins of the earth, without the exactness qua cognitum est, he comments that in such an area the measure was inevitably uncertain (incertam) to his knowledge. He thus seemed closer to the thought of Carneades and the New Academy than to the stoicism that prevailed in Eratosthenes and later in Strabo and, therefore, also to the modern perception of ancient geography. 2.2 Agrippa's work: sources and dating Defining sources is always a difficult task: no ancient geographer actually possessed the data that he published under his own name. Even people known to have traveled, such as Artemidorus, used second- or third-hand material. The fact that the data is under the authority of, say, Artemidorus does not necessarily mean that it did not circulate before him or that it was known through his direct or secondary use. Eratosthenes and Timosthenes provide a good example of how difficult and dangerous source research is. Both have been lost to time. There are numerous quotes from the former, far fewer from the latter. But Marcianus Heracleensis (RCD I 566), who appears to have had direct knowledge of both, tells us that the former's list of coastal sites was derived entirely from that of the latter. Therefore, it is not easy to assign a measure to a single author and consider it his imprint. Since the content of Agrippa's work relates to the same places as the entire Hellenistic and republican tradition of geography, he was indebted to a large number of anonymous authors and works. There was a vast common base of values that did not necessarily belong to an identified author. A value transmitted by, say, Artemidorus may well have been found by him in earlier works and/or transmitted from other sources. For this reason, any attempt to build a source-like investigation would be not only risky but also misleading. The truth is that measurements can provide parallels. They never prove the existence of direct relationships between two authors.

44 This rare verb is also used in Dimensuratio and Divisio and by Suetonius in a passage (Iul. 25) probably derived from Agrippa (via Pliny?). 45 Bardon 1956, 78; Roddaz 1984, 574. 46 HN 4.91.

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The only author who was certainly not only used but also quoted by Agrippa was Polybius. Pliny attributes to Agrippa a lengthy passage that actually appeared to be an excerpt from Polybius's account of his journey along the Atlantic coast of Morocco after the fall of Carthage.47 A reasonable conclusion is that Agrippa did in fact quote Polybius. , and that even the The introductory paragraph dealt with it The journey of Polybius comes from Agrippa. Polybius was also the main source for Agrippa's assessment of the diaphragm from Gades to Issus (HN 6.206). Pliny does not appear to have known Polybius directly, and some have thought that Pliny knew Polybius from two Latin sources, including Varro (Klotz 1906, 39–40). Agrippa (who partially quoted Polybius through Varro) is likely the other. It is likely that Agrippa, like most geographers before and after him, copied and pasted a considerable number of passages from various authors, including Polybius: most of Agrippa's distances, though expressed in Roman miles, were actually in dates expressed in stadia and derived from the Greek periplographic tradition used by most authors since Timosthenes (and before him by Dicearch). The distances from the Cretan capes (HN 4.60) obviously go back to this tradition. Most of Agrippa's data is based on this corpus, often anonymously; the different conversion methods (approximates or exact conversions) show that Agrippa probably found at least some of these dates in one or more Latin sources. Therefore, it is not easy to determine which authors he used directly. As we have seen, Pliny often quotes Artemidorus but he does not seem to have known him directly (Detlefsen 1906, 35). The only certain agreement between Agrippa and Artemidorus was that they both made Catabathmus the border between Africa and Egypt (HN 5.38; 6.209). The length of the pelusiac isthmus (HN 5.65) is the same as in Posidonius (Strab. 17.1.21 = FGrHist 87 F 101b), which, however, does not prove direct use by this author. Pliny often objects to the measures of Eratosthenes and Agrippa (eg HN 6.164). Several fragments are believed to have come from Eratosthenes.48 There is little doubt that Agrippa relied on Eratosthenes' method and, to some extent, his data, but it is unlikely that he had direct knowledge of Eratosthenes. What he knew he probably learned from Polybius and Varro, and we cannot exclude that Pliny sometimes quoted these two authors and Eratosthenes through Agrippa. 47 AN 5:9-10; Riese 1978, 5 has correctly attributed the entire passage to Agrippa. Klotz (1906, 15) later understood that the second part came from Polybius due to the specific use of the value of 450 stadia per day of navigation (Pédech 1955, 321; Arnaud 2005, 83). 48 Klotz 1930–1931, 448–450.

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Klotz49 said that Agrippa only knew Artemidorus through Varro. Varro was clearly Agrippa's source for the distance to Calchadone ad Phasim (HN 6.3). Regarding fragments 49–52, Klotz (HN 4.45; 4.77–78; 6.103) relates the dates of Artemidorus and Varro and Agrippas, suggesting that Agrippa kept most of the dates transmitted by these two authors and only made corrections. minors. As for the Euxine area, Klotz50 was undoubtedly right when he supposed that Agrippa depended mainly on Varro and Cornelius Nepos. These elements make Agrippa anything but a revolutionary figure in the landscape of ancient geography. Although he probably provided the first announcement of the Vistula, his view of the masses of the Gauls and Germania did not challenge the earlier consensus. R. Moyniham (1985, 155) could correctly write: "Here we find reaffirmed all the constitutive elements of the Greek geographical tradition." Agrippa's sources of information were quite limited in number, quite traditional, and mostly second-hand. It is not surprising, therefore, that his conception of the known world is unoriginal in comparison with previous ones. The essential changes consisted in the inclusion of administrative districts as the framework of the known world instead of Eratosthenes's purely natural Sphragids and in a far-western geography that was considered secured by the Roman conquest. But these districts were themselves limited by natural features. The picture we can get of his work is that it was both highly conventional and largely secondhand, as far removed from the secret weapon some have seen in Agrippa's work as it is from any great innovative survey in the world, which is commissioned by his Augustus. 2.3 Agrippa's world view The data obtained from extant fragments allow at least a rough reconstruction of the size (if not the exact shape) of the known world and its main components according to Agrippa.51 However, they show this longer than that of Agrippa. Eratosthenes. , but closer to the views of Polybius, he questioned neither the general conception nor the image of the inhabited world of Eratosthenes, nor those of the separate parts of it. This could be entirely inscribed in the northern hemisphere and surrounded by ocean, forming the island that Eratosthenes assumed it to be. 49 Klotz 1906, 35; 1930–1931, 448 note 1. 50 1931, 447–449. 51 Partsch 1875; Philippi 1880, plate III; Berthelot 1933, 11; Salmann 1971, 208; Moynihan 1985, 162 Figure 6.

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But has it been determined that the inhabited world was actually an island? We have seen that Agrippa's world is influenced by Polybius's. We now know that Polybius had a very original worldview. He thought that southern Africa extended at least as far as the equator, where he conjectured that the Nile had its sources, challenging Eratosthenes' idea of an insular ecumenism entirely inscribed in the northern hemisphere. Agrippa was very interested in distinguishing between the physical limits of ecumenism and the limits of knowledge about it. As we have seen, he expressed the latter with the words qua cognitum est "as far as it is established." He used this term to characterize measurements made from the limits of the known world, not from the physical limits of the world. Even before these measurements reached these physical limits in the north, Agrippa made it clear that this was the ocean. It is noteworthy that when the same expression occurs in relation to the southern limits of ecumenism, Pliny never says that Agrippa regarded the ocean as the southern limit of Cyrenaica or Africa. Only the later dimensuratio and divisio set a limit to it. This shows that Agrippa did not decide the actual limits of the world in this area. He only determined the limits of current knowledge. The known world was not an island, but ecumenism might be. This apparently kept all options open for southern African expansion. 3

Agrippa's work: nature and extent.

3.1 Agrippa: geography or chorography? The extant fragments clearly place Agrippa as an inheritor of the Hellenistic and republican traditions of geography. He knew the main problems and debates that had been faced since Eratosthenes, and he depended, directly or indirectly, on the great geographers of the time more than on official documents, be they itineraries or secret statistics. Based on the available evidence, there is absolutely no indication that this document had strategic purposes and/or a secret version. From what we know of the surviving fragments, this work was very similar to other published treatises in terms of content (nature of the data and data itself). There is absolutely no indication that any secrets were associated with this work. In a fragment preserved by Strabo, Polybius explains that he will describe contemporary reality, the location of places (θέσεις τόπων, from the Latin terrarum situs) and the

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distances between them.52 This is exactly what Agrippa did, according to his source. He was not interested in the relationship between the inhabited world and the globe and did not write geography. From this point of view it is normal that Pliny never quotes him in Book II. 3.2 The Text: Preliminary Notes or Geographical Treatise? As shown above, the evidence for the fragments clearly indicates that they originate from a text and not a map (Riese 1876, IX.; Klotz 1930–1931, 44). Even if Western Latin medieval cartography shows that maps could give large spaces to long texts, the existence of abundant Agrippa citations from earlier authors, as well as the number and variety of indications preserved in the fragments (particularly peripolological data) prevent them from being derived from a map. The idea that they actually came from a lost text has never been seriously questioned, but the nature of that text has been, and still is, debated. My own attempt to date the Scriptures to 13 B.C. B.C. it was probably based on questionable arguments. The information available about the province of Transduriana suggests that Agrippa's information about this area predates the reorganization of the Spanish provinces, which took place between 15 and 13 BC. lie took place. The innovative data collected in the Crimea is probably based on the experience of the campaign of 15 BC. If Agrippa undertook this work to exhibit at the Porticus Vipsania, as Pliny says, then he necessarily followed the project of the Porticus, the construction of which only began after Agrippa's death. The work was then probably 14-13 BC. Written in connection with the spirit that died in the year 13 B.C. led to the inauguration of the Ara Pacis Augustae. It is widely accepted that this work was only a set of preparatory notes, perhaps left unfinished by Agrippa, in preparation for the monumental realization shown in the planned Porticus Vipsania, construction of which began only after Agrippa's death and was brought to corporal by Augustus This work would have been titled Commentarii. The basis of this hypothesis is one of the few surviving testimonies about Agrippa's work. Given a discrepancy between Agrippa's Baetic measurements and those derived from the data available at the time, Pliny (HN 3.17) rules out any possibility of Agrippa's error as follows: Agrippam quidem in tanta viri diligentia praeterque in hoc opere cura, cum orbem terrarum orbi spectandum propositurus esset, errasse quis credat et 52 Polyb. 34.1.1–5 (cited by Strab. 10.3.5) ἡμεῖς δέ (...) τὰ νῦν ὄντα δηλώσομεν καὶ περὶ θέσεως τόπων καὶ Διαστημάτiscν: τοῦῦ τῦ τib.

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cum eo divum augusto? ist namque conplexam eum porticum ex destinatione et commentaris M. Agrippae a sorore eius inchoatam peregit. Agrippa was a very conscientious man and he took special care in this work when he intended to show the world in front of everyone. So who would believe that he was wrong, and with him the deified Augustus? Because it was Augustus who finished the portico that contained it, and which Agrippa's sister had begun according to the project and plans of M. Agrippa. This text explains that Agrippa's project was to display an image of the earth in a public space - the portico he planned to build - and that Agrippa's text was part of that project. The second part of Pliny's text is more confusing. The entire sentence refers to the building that stood on the very spot where Agrippa's depiction of the world was eventually displayed (complexam eum [sc. orbem]), not to the object on display there. The syntax implies that all information between porticum and inchoatam relates to the portico. Ex destinatione (after the intention, perhaps the will) and commentarii (the formal plans) do not refer to the exhibition but to the building. Since the formula and use of the full name M. Agrippa look the same as in public inscriptions, I suspect that the entire sentence is an abbreviated citation of the dedicatory inscription of the Vipsania Porticus, where is (thus Augustus) is given instead of the full title of the emperor. Thus, the god Augustus would have been the guarantee of Agrippa's dates simply because he had accomplished Agrippa's project after the death of Agrippa's sister Vispania Polla, following Agrippa's plan every step of the way. This process is completely normal. It was the responsibility of the family of the deceased to get to the memorial. Augusto intervened in this matter as the father-in-law of the deceased after the death of Vipsania Polla. It was politically shocking to invade another family's monuments (Hinard 1992). This is probably why Augusto insisted on the dedication inscription about the process that had led him to carry out the project. This does not help to understand the nature of the document exposed in the portico. The verb selector is too vague. The expression orbem orbi spectandum (urbi is an unnecessary correction to the manuscript text) is taken as clear evidence that it is a map. Actually, it is not. The confusion between texts and maps in the vocabulary is very common and not accidental. Pliny (HN 6.211) uses the same verb spectare that he had used to present Agrippa's intention in concluding his own chorographic description of the world, His addemus etiamnum unam Graecae innovationis scientiam vel exquisitissimae subtilitatis, ut nihil desit in spectando terrarum situ, to complement his choreography.

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Description the list of places along the parallels. Given the importance of Agrippa to Pliny, this may indicate the similarity of Pliny's text and the exhibit in the Porticus Vipsania. Four centuries later, when the rhetor Eumenes held a map on the portico of the Augustodunum school, Pliny repeated it, but added the word "depresentum" to leave no doubt that in this case it was a map. he challenged Agrippa's text with this letter. Most scholars have seen a reference to Agrippa's map, exhibited in the Porticus Vipsania, in a passage by Pliny (HN 6.139) on Charax in the Persian Gulf, cited as source: prius afuit (sc. charax) a litore stadios X et maritimum etiam vipsania porticus habet. It doesn't matter much that a map is unlikely to have made it possible to distinguish between a place on the coast and a place a little more than a Roman mile inland. The main problem is that this is not the text of the manuscripts, which give the most plausible reading maritimum etiam ipsa inde portum habet. The proposed reconstructed text from the 19th century raises too many philological problems to be acceptable.54 Although the existence of an Agrippa map has long been taken for granted, this opinion has been challenged.55 Pliny does not seem to believe that there was a difference. Enter the text you used for the item shown in the Porticus Vipsania. The most common meaning of the verb proposere, used by Pliny to characterize Agrippa's project, is public display of texts,56 but Pliny generally uses it for paintings,57 in one case referring to a fake phoenix on display in the Comitium became ( HN 10.5 ); the Tabula Siarensis58 uses it for a Carmen and a statue. He always seems to indicate something detachable and would rule out anything like wall paint or floor tiles. Therefore, it is impossible to prove the existence of a map on the portico and it is important to emphasize this point. But it is likely that a map was at least part of the documents on display at the Porticus Vipsania. Maps were neither common nor unusual in Augustus' time. Above all they used 53 Eumenius, Pan. Latin 9.21.3: Nunc enim, nunc demum iuuat orbem spectare descriptionum, cum in illo nihil uidemus alienum. 54 According to Moreau 1988 “la place de l'adjectif référentiel avant le substantif, la métony mie porticus Vipsania pour porticus Vipsaniae forma et l'emploi de l'inanimé porticus comme sujet de habet avec objet et attribut de l'objet rendu par en fait une ville Maritime” would prevent regular restoration. 55Arnaud 1990; Brodersen 1996, 268-287. Contra, Salway 2005. 56 See Cod. Theod. 2.7.2.1; 8/2/18; 2.10.2; 6.22.2; 6.23.4.2; 11.27 etc 57 HN 1.35; 35.22; 23; 84; 140; 151-152. 58 AE 1984, 508, fgt II, col. B.l. 11 pp.

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be a prestigious marker. It would be strange if the prestige of maps, often displayed in porticos, had not led to placing a map next to the text. This is a good reason to think about a map. Furthermore, we know from other sources that the coincidence of texts and maps was not exceptional. However, it was Agrippa's text that Pliny had celebrated. It is unlikely that all of Agrippa's text could be displayed on the portico, given its probable length, but we can imagine that showing a monumental map was the solution to an unresolved problem: associating a text with a map, its dimensions those of a papyrus. . the parchment did not fit. 3.3 The propaganda of Agrippa or Augustus? Modern historiography has brought some confusion between Agrippa's project and that of Augustus. Augustus is said to have completed the project only after Vipsania Polla, Agrippa's sister, had probably died. The monument where Agrippa's work would be exhibited belonged to the Vipsania gens, not the Iulia gens, and in 7 B.C. On the Agrippae campus, Augustus publicly proclaimed that the Porticus Vipsania remained in the hands of the gens, whose name was boring, and that it was part of a project dedicated to Agrippa's self-portrait. Although Marcus Agrippa was Augustus' imperii colleague, his person was the center of the whole project. Establishing his public image is probably an essential key to understanding the project. We know the main components of this public image. Only Augustus was the winner. Like his imperii colleague, Agrippa was the one who organized the subjugated world.59 Agrippa's worldview not only showed what the later Eumenius (Pan. lat. 9.21.3) could say about the Augustodunum world map: “For now, now It is finally a pleasure to see an image of the world, since in it we do not see anything that is not ours.” He also illustrated Agrippa's division into provinces. Bounded by deserts or the ocean, Agrippa's world was surveyed by the Romans. The decision not to pay attention to unresolved or theoretical problems focused, on the one hand, on the only world that deserves attention: the one open to action and universal power. On the other hand, it illustrated the image of Cato of Agrippa, uir rusticitati proprior quam deliciis (Plin., HN 35.26), "a man closer to the peasant way of life than to the pleasures of luxury", as the popular Latin writes spoken. His seriousness (diligentia and cura) of him, reluctant to admit stories, was the key to the Roman gravitas against the fantasy of the Greek Levites. Agrippa was also the one who wanted to give the common people full access to art and culture, proposing to publish paintings and statues owned by the rich of 59 . Cresci Marrone 1993, 215-222; Hurlet 1997, 75.

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Villas.60 Showing a map of the world before the eyes of the world, Agrippa made public a rare cultural asset and carried out part of his project. He also proved that Rome had been in the regions that Agrippa described as qua cognitum est. For the Roman public, more accustomed to the public display of measured and charted topographical surveys than to geographical treatises and world maps, the world tended to become Rome's measured possession. Agrippa's map left no significant traces. Agrippa's work has. It was probably anything but the secret tool some have made of it. Nor was it the source of further Roman maps or geographical knowledge. For various reasons, including new discoveries in the south and the reaction that followed, the main patterns of later Roman geography, based on itineraries or without numerical data, belonged to a different tradition. Agrippa seems more representative of the reception of the Hellenistic tradition in the center of power at the time of the inauguration of the ara pacis.61

60 Plin., HN 35,26. 61 Arnaud 2007.

CHAPTER 13

The Romans and the Measure of the World Anne Kolb 1

set the stage

In the early 1960s, Nero sent scouts to South Sudan. According to Seneca (Q Nat. 6.8), the soldiers were tasked with investigating the sources of the Nile, an undertaking stimulated by Nero's keen interest in science. Pliny (HN 6.181) and Cassius Dio (63.8.1), on the other hand, both rightly suspected a political motive, namely military recognition for a possible Ethiopian campaign. Dio explains that Nero later scrapped those expansion plans because the undertaking seemed too difficult and time consuming. Nonetheless, the results of the military expedition are recorded in detail by Pliny the Elder (HN 6.184): explorers surveyed a land corridor stretching 1,500 km south of Syene (present-day Aswan) in Egypt, returning to the emperor precise measurements of distances between cities also a map (Aethiopiae form).1 The Roman assessment of space was based largely on the survey and topography of the territory to be explored. According to the prevailing street-oriented, one-dimensional spatial assessment model, this was the only way to determine the extent and structure of geographic regions in order to calculate and carry out both military and administrative actions. These goals show how closely the Romans regarded geography: its use was viewed primarily for its practical value, whether political, military, or administrative. The Romans, through their extensive conquest of the Mediterranean regions (mare nostrum), ruled a vast empire, comprising between 50 and 80 million people in an area of about 6 million square kilometers. Ancient authors since the Republic highlight these vast territorial dimensions as an exceptional achievement and even as a characteristic of the Roman Empire. Already Polybius (1.1.5; 1.2.7; 1.3.9–10; 3.1.4) 1 Plin., HN 12.18ff.; see more recently Heil 1997, 164–166 for a discussion of sources and research. He rightly emphasizes that soldiers were sent rather than geographers, but also argues that Pliny's expedition cannot be the same as the one mentioned by Seneca, based on slight differences in the description.

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noted the subjection of the entire inhabited world (oikoumene) to Roman rule, and the imperial territory was soon equated with the orbis terrarum (Cic., Phil. 4.14-15.; Mur. 22; Dion. Hal., Ant. Rom. 1.3.3; Strab. 6.4.1), soon called orbis Romanus after Augustus (eg, title Res gestae divi Augusti). The consolidation and administrative penetration of this world empire was the main goal of the Roman rulers, a goal they sought to achieve by imposing administrative subdivisions and creating a viable infrastructure for logistics and communications: the provinces, customs territories, and the autonomous areas testify to this. as well as by the infrastructure, with its roads, waterways and associated structures, which created a vast interconnection network estimated at 500,000 km or more.2 This network facilitated travel and made destinations accessible throughout the empire, both in the vicinity as indoors. distance. and not only the emperors and their officials, but everyone. In this context, it is not surprising that, unlike the Greeks, the Romans had little interest in scientific geography and physical-mathematical assessments of the world. The form of Greek geography developed in Roman times also largely rejected scientific geography in favor of cultural geography.3 Authors such as Strabo considered that the main function of geographic information was to provide political leadership with a good basis for their decisions4 and avoid errors resulting from inadequate information. topographic information Knowledge (Str. 1.1.16-17). Apart from the small number of well-known scientific geographers, such as Claudius Ptolemy, who relied on Eratosthenes in his attempt to map the globe,5 this pragmatic approach can be traced through the descriptive geographies produced by republican and early Imperial writers. Inexperienced intellectuals, including Cicero, who abandoned plans to write his own geographical work (Cic., Att. 2.6.1 et al.), regarded scientific geography as obscuror scientia (Cic., De or. 1.14.59 ). Kulturgeographie und Ethnographie, on the other hand, 2 Forbes 1965, 151, calculates with 90,000 km of public roads and a network (together with other types of roads) of 300,000 km; ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World (http://orbis.stanford.edu/#rivertransport) has 84,631 km of roads, 180,033 km of sea lanes, and 28,272 km of navigable waters. For Roman roads, see Pekáry 1968; Rathmann 2003; Kolb 2005; Quilici 2008; Kolb 2014. 3 Gisinger 1924, 622–80; Engels 1999, 165, passim; for the development of descriptive geography, see Clarke 1999, 1–76; Duek 2012, 20-67. 4 According to Engels 1999, 161–162, this was also a topos of Hellenistic historiography for Polybius; on Polybius's geography see recently Engels 1999, 147-165; Clarke 1999, 77-128. 5 His surviving manual of geography (Geographike Hyphegesis) unfortunately only describes his data collection for 26 regional maps and one world map; for his method, see Geus 2007b, 159–166.

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flourished, as the works of Poseidon and Strabo show.6 Roman generals and politicians needed only practical geographical knowledge, as the works of Caesar and Agrippa make clear, in which distances and measurements of length and width are used to assess and describe the area. of the empire .7 In addition to lists of routes both by water (periploi) and by land (itinerary), we also have various indications that graphic representations of areas (such as the form Aethiopiae Plin., HN 12.18ff. or situs representations Plin., HN 6.40) and is used for practical purposes.8 The complete panorama of the empire9 that can be understood in Agrippa's comments and in his so-called "world map" that is publicly accessible at the Porticus Vipsania in Rome9 at the same time proving the importance of these measures. Authors such as Pliny the Elder (HN) and the unknown authors of the Demensuratio provinciarum and the Divisio orbis terrarum (4th century) drew on these achievements.10 Both late antique authors note the length and width of the regions in the oikoumene and provide information about them Rivers, seas, mountains and cities. Finally, the Roman desire to structure, based on the survey and subdivision of small areas and large regions, is also found in the author Isidoro de Sevilla from the 7th region in locis, loca in territoriis, territory in agris, . . . . . divider. However, in contrast to these geographical descriptions, other sources shed light on the theory and practice of actual surveying. This includes the work of surveyors with their technical and legal observations, but also inscriptions that document the determination of borders based on the survey of territories. In addition, there is various evidence on roads, including routes of travel, building inscriptions and milestones, 6 Clarke 1999, 193-336, also on Poseidonius 129-192; Engels 1999, passim. 7 Geographical descriptions of Caesar are found mainly in Gall.; Krebs 2006, 115 s.h. together. 21. For Agrippa's work see, for example, Engels 1999, 359-377; trailer 2007; now Arnaud (in this volume). 8 The existence of ancient maps was last postulated by Rathmann 2013b, who conceded that these had little practical relevance, cf. otherwise Brodersen 2012b, who rejects the existence of maps in the Greek and Roman world. Mattern 1999, 26-41, which supports blueprints and maps, discusses the role of the military in the collection of geographic knowledge and its documentation; Itinerary see below. 9 Although some recent research still suggests that the “world map” was actually a text, Brodersen 20032, 268–28 and Brodersen 2012b, 108–109, a graphic representation of the orbis terrarum seems more likely, see Hanger 2007. 10 Brodersen nineteen ninety six.

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all give an indication of the measures taken to invade the conquered territory, an objective that the Romans pursued mainly through the construction and marking of roads. This article uses these sources to examine the processes of spatial measurement and evaluation in the Roman Empire. 2 Surveying The legal right to land has always been the basis of spatial order, which inevitably depended on land surveying at the local level. In order to define property rights, rights of way and other rights of use and taxes, it was necessary to differentiate types of property, which led to the differentiation of categories of property (ager publicus, ager privatus). At the local level, centuriatio and limitatio served to subdivide areas when establishing new colonies or distributing land to veterans and settlers. So, the division of the land in the Roman Empire begins with its expansion in the IV century BC. The specialists (surveyors, finitores, gromatici, menseres), generally military or state officials, were in charge of this task. The Surveyors' Writings (Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum), written in the 5th century AD. C., show their tasks and methods, but also the problems they encountered, including disputes over categorizations and land boundaries.11 The results of their work are still visible in archaeological documents. remains of reticular structures on the ground, but also in epigraphic sources that document the geodetic record of the landscape through cairns and cadastres ( formae). According to the surveyors, the division of the land must be codified in a form on the site and a copy must be sent to the archive in Rome.12 Until now, this practice has only been documented by a few fragments of bronze and stone plans from Italy and the provinces.13 and a bronze tablet from Ilici/Elche in Spain with dimensions and list of 11 Dilke 1971; DeCranach 1996; Campbell 2000; Lewis 2001; Willi 2014 summarizes the process and sources of land division. 12 next flac. (Campbell 2000) 120, 22-32; Hig. Grom. (Campbell 2000) 158, 26-34. For the form, see also Nicolet 1988, 163–179; Moatti 1993, especially 31-48, 88-97; briefly Campbell 1996, 88-90; Chouquer and Favory 2001, 45-49. Bradford 1957, especially 155-216, describes archaeological remains of Roman lattice structures from northern Italy, Croatia, North Africa, and France; for archaeomorphological analyzes in the interior of Tarraco see more recently Palet and Orengo 2011. 13 Cf. bronze plans from Verona AE 2000, 620 and Cavalieri-Manassé 2004 and from the Spanish Lacimurga AE 1990, 529; on the fragments of marble from Orange (Arausio) see Piganiol 1962. On the marble plan from Rome die Forma urbis, Rosada 2007; on plans in general and form in particular, see Dilke 1971, 82-177; Hanger 2001, 21-61, especially 27-43.

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Names as a result of assignment (sortitio).14 On the ground, the boundaries were marked by cairns (terminatio) with inscriptions that defined the boundary (finis) but rarely provided measurements.15 Some of them bear the names of those in charge. officials, for example, the tresviri agris iudicandis assignandis of the Gracchan land reform (CIL I2 639–645; 2932–2935) or a provincial governor.16 Imperial-era epigraphic monuments often document the decision-making process behind of a terminatio that drew limits between the territories of tribes and Municipalities or individuals, carried out by officials of the Roman state. The boundaries and size of the resulting area determined the income from bourgeois property and the tax revenue of the state and municipality. The location and size of private properties were decisive in determining not only rights-of-way, but also taxes and fees, e.g. B. on road maintenance and contributions to government logistics and transportation services. This often led to issues and arguments over territorial boundaries. Such disputes were often resolved by governors, imperial legates, and other officials of the Roman state, but usually only after the communities or individuals involved had been unable to find a solution and had asked official representatives for help.17 This process is mainly documented. by a series of inscriptions with the formula ex auctoritate / iussu imperatoris, showing that the actions of the magistrates in establishing the boundaries between urban areas were sanctioned by imperial mandate.18 However, as permanent monuments in public space, such inscriptions of demarcation only document results relevant to all parts, for 14 AE 1999, 960 and Olesti-Vila and Mayer 2001 were identified. 15 Cairns were placed at corners or along one edge after the boundary had been established and documented in writing to allow for later review, see ILS 9382: ter(minu s) vetus positus secundum acta. In Rome, the distance to the nearest cairn is given by cairns in the pomerium, as well as those along the banks of the Tiber or protective strips along aqueducts, as in CIL VI 40852–40881 ; see briefly Kolb 2003. 16 For example, ILS 9378 (Corinium, Dalmatia): [Finis] inter An[––– et] / [Co]riniens(es) secundum/ [c]onventionem utrius/que partis derectus mensu/[ ris] actis iussu A(uli) Duceni / [Gem]ini leg(ati) Aug(usti) pro pr(aetore). 17 corner 1990; Burton 2000; detailed discussion in Elliott 2004; Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer 2002, 103–116; Cuomo 2007, 103-130; Wesch-Klein 2008, 142-144. 18 These cases suggest that the communities approached the emperor directly, see Eck 1990; see, however, Burton 2000, 213, who also considers the possibility that the phrase is simply a reference to the officer's mandate. For the milestone formula see Rathmann 2003, 78-80.

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responsible for the termination and thus guarantees the legality of the judgment. The practicalities of surveying, which inevitably precede such a proclamation, are generally not recorded,19 as the measurements20 and the names of the responsible surveyors are rarely given.21 However, some rare examples of practicalities are provided by a series of associated associations. documents from the Alpine region, consisting of a demarcation inscription and four cairns,22 as well as four cairns from the Thracian Philippopolis.23 These more detailed documents, however, are the exception.24 All known documents show that topographical surveys in Roman times The Empire took place on a small scale and was therefore closely related to a local mindset and tied to a local frame of reference. 3

The infrastructural penetration of space.

Fundamental to the organization and administration of the empire was its spatial penetration of roads and other infrastructure. Specifically, this process is used mainly in the construction of public roads (viae publicae) from the 4th century BC. BC, which was aimed at connecting the newly acquired territories with the center of the empire and thus contributing to its military security. The layout of the great state highways largely reflects the progress of Roman expansion, which began in Italy and spread as far west as after 19 . In some cases at least one survey is mentioned, as in CIL X 1018 = ILS 5942 (Pompeii). 20 CIL VIII 22786: Leg(io) III A[ug(ustae)] / leimitavit (sic) / C(aio) Vibio Marso / proco(n) s(uli) III / d(extra) d(ecumani) LXX / u(ltra) k(ardinem) CCLXXX. 21 CIL III 586 = 12306 = ILS 5947a (Lamia, Macedonia); CIL VIII 25988.2b = ILS 9387, CIL VIII 25988.7b. 12b. 22 CIL XII 113 (p. 805) = ILS 5957 = Latin Inscriptions of Narbonnaise V/2, Rémy 2004, no. 546 (Passy, Gallia Narbonensis): A border inscription from Passy defines the boundaries between the municipality of Vienna/Vienne (Gallia Narbonensis) and the Forum Claudii Ceutronum/Aime-en-Tarentaise (Alpes Poeninae et Graiae). Boundary Stones (all Gallia Narbonensis): Rémy, 2004, #543–544 (La Giettaz or Cordon); 545 (cordon); 546 (passage). See CIL XIII 6619 (p. 102) = ILS 9377 (Miltenberg, Upper Germany): This powerful border pillar also marked the boundaries of the community. 23 Nigelidis and Sverkos 2009, 166–167 also with other examples. 24 SEG XXIV 1108–1109 (Histria, Lower Moesia, AD 100): These two bilingual inscriptions indicate the course of the border and the corresponding dimensions, but also document the border determination of the governor as a result of a customs requirement; Similar processes are visible on the Republican bronze tablet (Minuciorum sentence) CIL V 7749 = ILS 5946 (Genoa, Liguria).

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This. On the Italian peninsula, the expansion of Rome to the south led first to the construction of the Appian Way (after 312 BC: Frontin., Aq. 5), the first systematically planned state highway, offering a shorter route. shorter and faster to the south than the mountainous Via habilitada Latina or the coastal roads.25 In addition, Horace (Sat. 1.5) describes a drainage channel, also used for towing, which was built between Forum Appii and Feronia to cross the swamps pontines. With this project, this difficult area could be traveled without problems throughout the year. The example shows that roads and canals were complementary parts of the same infrastructure system, a system that also used lakes and rivers (as in the Rhône-Saône region) in addition to the Mediterranean. This logistical infrastructure of the empire was developed piece by piece through the inclusion and expansion of existing connections, but also through the establishment of new routes, especially in the course of provincialization after the conquest of new areas. Various sources also attest to some degree of structural planning, based, of course, on topography and the construction and optimization of communication routes.26 Since these communication routes were designed to connect directly, this process of spatial penetration continued. a concept of linearity. Obstacles were reduced or eliminated with the help of technically demanding structures (bridges, tunnels), as Plutarco (C. Gracch. 7) points out when talking about Tiberius Gracchus' road construction policy. Therefore, the logistics infrastructure was based on a linear and street-oriented perception of space, which ignored the results of scientific geography, that is, the geometric study of two-dimensional space.27 Its usual implementation is shown in three main classes of documents: 1) Inscriptions of buildings, which visualize the penetration of space, manifesting paths, 2) milestones, which as signs are the characteristic feature of the viae publicae, 3) itineraries, which describe one or more paths in literary or epigraphic form . 3.1 Architectural inscriptions as means of spatial penetration The oldest document of the first type is the famous Elogium of Polla (late 2nd century BC), the text of which describes the space opened up by the newly built road from Capua to Rhegium. 28 The inscription lists the most important places along the way and the distances between them; 25 Radke 1973, 1439–1539; Della Portella 2003; briefly Quilici 2008, 553–558. 26 Strab. 4.6.11; for infrastructure development Kolb 2012. 27 Janni 1984, 90-158; Brodersen 20032, 54-65, 165-171, 191-194; Suspension 2001, 157-163. 28 CIL X 6950 (p. 1019) (Forum Popillii). For the identification of P. Popilius Laenas (cos. 132) as a builder, see Camodeca 1997, 266.

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thus providing a precursor to the epigraphic construction documents of the imperial period, which in their public display of infrastructural improvements by the responsible official or emperor list precisely measured distances. Imperial monuments of this type include the so-called Tabulae Dolabellae of Dalmatia, which document the expansion of at least five roads into the new province under Emperor Tiberius, and the Stadiasmos monument of Lycian Patara, which expresses the gratitude of the provincials to Emperor Claudius. . for its completion of the civil wars and the beginning of the road construction works.29 As the distances given in the inscriptions suggest, the construction of the roads was probably preceded by the demarcation of parcels or the agrarian reform. Locally, this can be seen on nine stones from the area around Hierapytna (south-eastern Crete), where Claudius commissioned roads and trails to be built.30 Paconius Agrippinus' dual role as quaestor and boundary-determining officer suggests that the step was to create a cadastre. The stelae (all from the territory of this polis) should not only be considered as evidence of construction, but also as boundary marks.31 The measurements taken in Crete, which were carried out after the turmoil of the civil wars and the final. establishment of the province by Augustus, also seem to be comparable to the interest of Claudius and his governor Quintus Veranius in the construction of roads and highways in the newly founded province of Lycia, as shown by inscriptions on the Stadiasmos monument of Patara (45 AD). . The monument combines tributes to Claudius with a dossier documenting construction activity and a road network: 65 roads in the province of Lycia are listed with their lengths.32 Since the Lycians erected the monument, all distances are given in Greek stadiums, suggesting Established road records and property lines were of prime importance. In Part 29 Tabulae Dolabellae: CIL XVII 4 (fasc. 2) p. 130–133 (Dalmatia); Kolb 2013a, 216–218; Stadiasmos: SEG LI 1832 = SEG LVII 1670 = Şahin and Adak 2007; Kolb 2013a, 206–214. 30 CI III p. 64-66 numbers 25-29; SEG IL 1231 = AE 1999, 1742; SEC LVI 1051-1054. Quintus Paconius Agripinnus (PIR2 P 27) is also known from a series of demarcations in Cyrenaica under Vespasian SEG l 1630; Nigelidis and Sverkos 2009. 31 Two other Hierapytna inscriptions could point to earlier demarcations commissioned by Augustus and even attest to actual road-building activity IC III p. 73 no. 62; CI III p. 74 no. 63; see Baldwin Bowsky 2006, 559-574. 32 As Şahin and Adak correctly assume in 2007, the stone is a base for an equestrian statue of Claudius; on the layout and structure of the Salway route list 2007, 195–203; Graßhoff and Mittenhuber 2009. A practical function of the route directory as a travel route for travelers must be rejected, as Salway 2001 and Salway 2007, 194–201 postulate: Kolb 2007, 179–180, Kolb 2013a, 206–214.

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they will undoubtedly have been updated and adjusted with the help of Roman surveyors.33 However, in the short period of time between the annexation and the construction of the monument, the Romans were probably not able to carry out a complete or factual topographical survey. build roads (AD 43–45). It seems clear, for example, that at the time the Stadiasmos monument was erected, only a short 32 stadia (four Roman miles) stretch of road had been completed in the northwest of the province.34 Other Lycian evidence of the construction of Stadiasmos indicates roads and bridges35 a large-scale and long-term initiative by Claudio -and his successors- aimed at building, expanding and optimizing the transport infrastructure of the new province. The topographical surveys were thus carried out within the framework of the imperial interest in roads and paths. Some other well-known inscriptions describing paths, places, and distances can also be interpreted as building inscriptions simultaneously visualizing the appropriation and penetration of space:36 The stone pillar found near Tongeren (Atuatuca Tungrorum, 3rd century) gives three Routes that appear to have begun in Tongeren;37 fragments of three small 3rd-century marble tablets from Autun (Augustodunum)38 attest to three routes in Gaul; a stela from the province of Arabia (apparently from the year 273) gives information about the area developed by imperial construction activity along a connecting road between Bostra and Dumata.39

33 For earlier terrestrial photographs, see Strab. 14.3.6-8. This argument is not contradicted by the large proportion of even distances, which indicate a conversion from Roman miles to furlongs (8 furlongs = 1 Roman mile), see Anders Şahin and Adak 2007, 107, 120; Salway 2007, 201; Grasshoff and Mittenhuber 2009, 26, 159. See also Grewe 2013, 128–135. 34 Şahin and Adak 2007, 41 C 3–4 (STR 42). 35 SEG LII 1438 (Limyra, Lycia and Pamphylia, AD 45); AE 1998, 1399 (Oinoanda, Lycia and Pamphylia, AD 50). 36 Anders Salway 2001, 59, who interprets the inscriptions as “instruments of public display” intended for the use of travelers; also Salway 2007; for documents see also Fugmann 1999; Brodersen 20032, 172-184; Kolb 2007. 37 CIL XVII 2, 675 = CIL XIII 9158 = ILS 5839: small fragment of an octagonal column (height approx. 40–50 cm, letters 1.5–3.3 cm). 38 CIL XVII 2,490 = CIL XIII 2681 = ILS 5838: originally a marble column or base (frag. b: 16 × 26 × 17 cm, letters 1.2 cm); on this type cf CIL XVII 2, 676 = XIII 4085 (between Junglinster and Bourglinster, Luxembourg, Gallia Belgica): Fragment of a stone tablet (27 × 36 cm, letters 2.5 cm). 39 Kennedy 20042, 60–61 no. 2 (Qasr al Azraq, Arabia): stone block (48 × 29 × 26 cm).

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3.2 Landmarks The largest group of epigraphic monuments, testifying to the surveying and evaluation of space by the transport infrastructure, are landmarks. 40 km by km were built along the public roads (viae publicae), but also along the canals, which were also the roads commissioned by the Roman magistrates and emperors to meet the logistical needs of the public.41 The stones they helped travelers to orient themselves, since the cairns indicated the distance to the real or nominal beginning of the path (caput viae). Each milestone thus simultaneously represented a minimal itinerary: distance indications (Quint., Inst. 4.5.22) on a given path allowed travelers to estimate how far they had traveled and how far they still had to go. The fact that different regions had extensive road networks leading over great distances is reflected in inscriptions with a high number of kilometres.42 It is clear that it was always necessary to gather more detailed information from available travel manuals and descriptions of the routes, both in terms of the length of the selected route and the inns and rest stops along the way. However, such supraregional connections were generally only of importance to the emperor, his officials, and the military, at least not counting long-distance traders, businessmen, and the handful of study travelers around the world. empire. Long routes consisted of chains of shorter routes that had to be planned well in advance, complete with roadside stations and necessary junctions. This was particularly true for larger companies.43 However, most commuters traveled only short distances within a region, so both public and private transportation infrastructure tended to focus on short-distance connections. This is clearly visible in the list of routes recorded on the Lycian Stadiasmos monument. The road network appeared to consist largely of footpaths and bridleways, so there were few viae publicae and most links were of predominantly regional importance44 and unsuitable for carriages due to the hilly and rugged terrain.45 For On the other hand, the system behind the Lycian route list exists mainly in listing individual routes by their starting point.

40 Hirschfeld 1907; briefly Kolb 2004; Kolb 2011. 41 AE 1983, 927 (Dalyan Coyote, Syria); CIL III 12046 = ILS 5797 (Alexandria, Egypt): AE 1905, 39 = ILS 9370 (Alexandria, Egypt); Colb 2012, 64–65. 42 See, p. of Raetia CIL XVII 4, 1; 8-9; Hispania citerior AE 1961, 133; CIL II 4918; Syriac CIL III 208 (p. 973); on capita viarum in the Western Roman Empire, see Rathmann 2004. 43 For example, SHA, Alex. serious 45. 2: Travel plans of Severus Alexander; for Kaiserreisen see further below. 44 Shahin and Adak 2007, 17, 107–1 45 For a typology of Lycian pathways, see Kolb 2008, 359–3

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Points at settlements or crossroads.46 However, if one needed a longer link that passed through several settlements, one had to join segments scattered throughout the text. The milestones also document the integration of migratory peoples into the Roman legal and administrative system, as enduring stone monuments mark the viae publicae as a Roman institution. The structure is evident in the titles of magistrates and rulers, but also in the use of Roman miles to indicate distances. Polybius (3.39.8) reports the length of the route from southern Spain (Carthago Nova) to Italy using stadia, but also notes that the Romans at the time only accurately measured part of the route (between Narbo/Narbonne and the River mouth). Rhône), marks the eight stages (ca. 1 m.p.), exactly as Plutarch (C. Gracch. 7) later described for Gaius Gracchus' road construction project. Pre-Roman cairns were supplemented or replaced by milestones47 as existing roads were extended or incorporated into the Roman road network. A single exception is found in the Gallic and Germanic provinces, namely the stone markers giving distances in Celtic leagues (1 league = 1.5 m.p.) instead of Roman miles. The oldest to date are of Trajanic date, but we also have contemporary and later milestones measured in miles. It seems unlikely that this development was the result of a search for local self-sufficiency or an administrative reorganization.48 Instead, the usual Celtic gauge seems to have been superseded on occasion by Roman gauge, possibly only where it was brought to carried out the actual construction of Roman roads. , like the Peutingerian tabula still gives dimensions for the Leugen area. Celtic markings may have survived along other roads or stretches of road, particularly well-developed ones, unless we are willing to assume that Augustus had Leuga stones erected, later replaced by cairns.49 The fact speaks for this. that several Gallic roads did not provide any pre-Claudian landmarks, although Roman infrastructural activities are known, e.g. during Agrippa's rule in Gallia Lugdunensis (Strab. 4.6.11). So the imperial citizens used their usual measurements to document distances, i.e. stadia in the case of Lycia (which, by the way, never appear on cairns), although the monument obviously also meant that the local population honored the emperor. as its new ruler and presented his province as the highly civilized Orbis Romanus. 46 For the systematics, see Graßhoff and Mittenhuber 2009, 221–250. 47 For pre-Roman roads: Briant 2012; Kolb 2013b, 114 n.a. 40; Rathmann 2014a, 202–208. 48 For a detailed discussion, see Rathmann 2003, 115–120, who interprets the Leuga as an imperial innovation in Gaul with no pre-Roman tradition. The usual measure of 1 league is 2,220 m., as illustrated by Grewe 2013, 131-134 in an example with 2,222 m. 49 Hirschfeld 1907, 721–723.

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Roman respect for local traditions is more the exception than the rule, occurring mainly when the population is required to fulfill specific duties or when such requirements are implemented for the first time in a region. The governor of Galatia under Augustus, for example, used the usual Persian schoinos to measure the necessary services of the population for state logistics. split them and break them in the process. This affected property rights, but also generated obligations related to the construction and maintenance of built infrastructure and public transport services (vehiculatio / cursus publicus). Milestones erected in the course of topographical surveys functioned not only as symbols of power, but also as concrete boundaries or zone markers for the exercise of Roman power, thus replacing cairns at the local level. This can be illustrated in detail with a fragmentary inscription from Phrygia, which documents the dispute between two peoples (in an imperial territory) over the responsibilities of the transport service along the roads of their territory. These responsibilities were assigned based on the subdivision of the highway by the milestones.51 Similarly, building inscriptions sometimes refer to landmarks defining routes or the length and location of a newly constructed facility or repaired section of highway. by using milestones as start and end points. .52 In particularly prominent places, cairns and building inscriptions can also act as cairns and cairns. The Rabland stone on the border between Italy and the province of Raetia (dated AD 46) celebrated the provision of Roman infrastructure from the Po in Italy to the Danube via the Via Claudia Augusta, which stretched for more than 350 Roman miles: . . . viam Claudiam Augustam / quam Drusus pater Alpibus / bello patefactis derexserat (sic) / munit a flumine Pado at (sic) / flumen Danvuium per / m(ilia) p(assuum) CC[CL].53 Similar markers have been found in other places of legal or topographical importance such as city gates, municipal limits or crossroads, where they provide information on certain routes and their respective length. At the city gate of Leptis Magna there is still a milestone of a road leading into the southern interior of the metropolis: Imp(eratoris) Ti(beri) Cae/saris Aug(usti) 50 SEG XXVI 1392 (Sagalassos). 51 SEC XVI 754 l. 4-6; with Pekary 1968, 135–137; French 1991, 57; French 1993. 52 AE 1979, 257 (Torviscos, Venetia et Histria); CIL X 1064 = ILS 5382 (Pompeii, Campania); CIL VIII 26534 = Aounallah 2010, 288 (Thugga, Africa proconsularis). 53 CIL V 8003 = CIL XVII 4, 1; see CYL V 8002 = ILS 208.

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/ iussu / L(ucius) Aelius Lam/ia proco(n)s(ul) ab / oppido in medi/terraneum di/ rexsit (sic) m(ilia) p(assuum) XLIV.54 From the coast, the The interior of the Landes had been surveyed by the proconsul Aelius Lamia on the orders of Tiberius (c. 15/16 AD), who provided infrastructure and 44 miles of road. The name of the settlement where the road ended seems to have been of little importance, as it is not listed; it was probably a small outpost or little-known settlement. Milestones sometimes list multiple connections within a region with their respective distances. The most important and unparalleled example is a North African landmark from AD 220, which lists the distance to the five most important cities in the two provinces of Africa and Numidia.55 In other cases, the landmarks emphasize the supra-regional connections of a region. al including a more remote destination outside the Province.56 Rome is, of course, the most common. The miliarium aureum, ordered by Augustus in the year 20 B.C. C., probably fulfilled the same function. erected in the Roman Forum after adopting the cura viarum, if the prevailing assumption were followed that the monument represented the roads beginning in Rome, with their destinations and lengths.57 3.3 Itineraries Itineraries, literature for the practical use of travellers, they also attest to a road-based perception of space, as they also provide lists of routes and distances.58 However, in contrast to their important function, the actual set of surviving texts is very limited, even if it must be assumed that travel routes are vast they were widespread and used for both private and administrative purposes. In the official context, they were relevant at all levels of state administration. Both the emperor and the army needed travel routes for the planning and logistical preparation of imperial trains and campaigns.59 As late as the fourth century, the military writer Vegetius (3.6) mentions them as a general strategic aid. Governors and other imperial officials60 were also required to have detailed knowledge of the existing road network and its condition ('Ain el, Numidia). 56 eg AE 2000, 1195 (Savarien, Pannonia); CIL XVII 2, 291 (Roquefort-des-Corbieres, Gallia Narbonensis); CIL XVII 2, 298 (Saint-Couat-d'Aude, Gallia Narbonensis); Kolb 2007, 172-173. 57 Brodersen 20032, 254–255. 58 For short travel routes, see Fugmann 1999; Brodersen 2001; Hanger 2001, 95-163; Salway 2001; Brodersen 20032, 172-194; Kolb 2007; Salway 2007; Kolb 2013a. 59 Halfmann 1986, 65–110; SHA, Alex. severe 45.2; IGLS IV 1346. 60 for example curatores viarum, praefecti vehiculorum see Eck 1979, 37-110; Kolb 2000, 152-165.

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since they were responsible for the development and maintenance of both the transport infrastructure and the state transport system.61 The municipalities of the cities and towns also kept road cadastres for administrative purposes, since they were responsible for the maintenance of different types of roads, roads both within the city and in its territory.62 In the private sphere, the example of a certain Martina, who traveled through more than 50 villas from northern Gaul to Acelum/Asolo (near Treviso) , the place of her husband's death, suggests that she knew of and used some kind of itinerary.63 Ancient itineraries survive in literary and epigraphic form, and were often constructed according to the needs of the traveler. This process led to the creation of a first category of travel routes, consisting of individual route lists. This category also includes the earliest known example, Augustus's "Parthian Stations" of Isidore of Charax. It describes the route from Antioch on the Orontes along the Persian royal road to Alexandroupolis in Arachosia, giving the respective intermediate stations and distances.64 Other important examples include the Burdigalense Itinerary,65 which describes the journey of a Christian on his journey from Bordeaux to Jerusalem in America 333, or Theophanes the jurist's notes on his official voyages in 322/23(?), which, though mainly for accounting purposes, contain a list of way stations and distances between Hermopolis in central Egypt and Antioch in Syria.66 Another individual Itinerary is the Itinerarium Alexandri of the year 340, which describes the route of Alexander's army to Persia.67 Late Antique travelogues, such as those of Egeria, who traveled to the Holy Land between 381 and 384 , they also provide more information that goes beyond a pure travel plan.68 A second category, n The same lists, which include numerous roads and trails, are documented. thus in the 3rd century by the Itinerarium Antonini. Includes more than 225 routes and 2,000 place names and distances from all 61 , e.g. Dig. 50.4.1.2; 5/50/11; Pekáry 1968, especially 113–138; Kolb 2000, 123-151; Rathmann 2003, 136-142. 62 See already SEG XXXVII 920 (340 BC, Erythrai); OGIs II 483 (Pergamon) with Hennig 1995, 248–249; for Rome CIL I2 593 (p. 724, 833, 916) = ILS 6085 l. 20–61 (Heraclea) with FreiStolba 1989. 63 CIL V 2108 (p. 1069) = ILS 8453 (Acelum, Venetia et Histria). 64 Schuol 2000, 114–117, 341, 388. However, this itinerary could be part of a geographical account or a monograph on Parthia; Matter 1999, 34-35. 65 Elsner 2000. 66 Matthews 2006. 67 Davies 1998; Tabak 2000. 68 Röwekamp 1995; about travel routes in the hagiography Günther 2002; Gunter 2007.

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During the Roman Empire, the work was probably a travel guide that served as a reference work for individual planning.69 This literature had a long tradition, such as a grave inscription from Smyrna of the 1st a physician named Hermogenes: In addition to numerous literary works , also had two books with distance information created in stadiums, one for Asia and one for Europe.70 Finally, Vegetius (3.6) seems to mention a rather unusual category in his note on the different forms of travel routes: itinerary. . . . not tantum adnotata sed etiam picta. In addition to simple lists with and without comments, there should be travel routes that were represented graphically or with pictures (picta itinerary). It is conceivable that the famous Tabula Peutingeriana, a medieval copy of a fourth-century route description, is the best-known example of this practice.71 Epigraphically transmitted travel routes can be divided into two categories: on the one hand, they also serve to documenting individual journeys or individual paths and routes, visible, for example, in a tomb inscription fragment from the Tiberian to Claudian period, listing a journey from Cilicia to Cappadocia to the day,72 or in a Valentia fragment, listing the place names between Carthago Nova/Cartagena and the Pyrenees.73 On the other hand, they attest “Souvenirs” in the form of cups or bowls of trips to tourist destinations: the trip from Gades in Spain to Rome is documented by four cups of Aquae Apollinares Novae/ Vicarello (AD 50-150),74 while sites on Hadrian's Wall are documented for bronze vessels from Amiens and Rudge.75 4

concluding remarks

It must be assumed that in addition to milestones, building inscriptions, cadastres, official and private documents, there were other helpers -especially in public space- to document the topographical and cultural penetration of 69 . Recently Salway 2007, 182-188, 203-205; Löhberg 2006. 70 IK 23. 536 (with IK 24 (2) p. 374, Smyrna, Asia). 71 For TP see more recently Talbert 2010a; now also Rathmann, in this volume. 72 CIL VI 5076 (p. 3416), Hadrianic (?) with Halfmann 1986, 86. Not included AE 1921, 6–9 Astorga clay tablets, authenticity disputed; see more Kolb 2013a, 200 n.a. 26. 73 CIL II/14, 38 = II 6239 (Valentia, Hispania citerior). 74 CYL XI 3281-3284; about dating etc. Kolb 2013a, 202 n.a. 29. 75 AE 1950, 56; CYL VI 1291.

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Place. This applies in particular to the orientation of travelers on public roads, who could certainly resort to other aids in addition to travel guides and milestones, ie wooden traffic signs. The fact that there is only one example milestone with a list of five routes (from North Africa) makes this clear beyond any doubt. Since this object is unique among nearly 2,000 surviving landmarks from the same area and around 8,000 from across the empire, it must be tempting to postulate the existence of similar objects made of ephemeral material. That public roads were generally equipped with less durable destination plaques seems already to be indicated by the tabellaria mentioned in Polla's Elogium, which had been placed by the builder along its path. from a linear perspective.77

76 CIL X 6950 (Forum Popillii, Region III): . . . I built a road from Regal to Capua, and on this road I put all the cairns and postmen on this road. . . .; see already Cary 1936; Kolb 2000, 26-27; differently Salway 2001. 77 Finally, Talbert 2010b, 264–269 complements the sources for the restoration of the Roman worldview with portable sundials.

CHAPTER 14

Strabo's Geography* Francesco Prontera Strabo was born into a prominent family in Amaseia (present-day Amasya, Turkey), the capital of the Hellenistic kingdom of Pontus. His ancestors dressed under Mithridates V. Euergetes (150-120 BC) and later under Mithridates VI. Eupator held important public positions and was directly involved in the affairs of the empire until his death. Some of them remained loyal to the monarchy. Others, like Strabo's grandfather, crossed over when the Romans seized power, thanks to the campaigns first of Lucullus and then Pompey (66-63 BC). The geographer's birth probably dates from this period (perhaps 64/3 BCE), and his death probably came after that of Juba II of Mauritania (23 AD), to whom Strabo himself refers many times. times (17.3.7; 9; 25) . . The little biographical information we have about Strabo comes from his geographical treatise. He made repeated stays in Rome. 25/24 BC he joined the expedition to Arabia Felix headed by Aelius Gallus, Prefect of Egypt, after having accompanied him on the ascent of the Nile to Syene (Aswan) on the Ethiopian border (2.5.12). Strabo's stay in Alexandria certainly dates from this period, but around 7 B.C. BC he is back in Rome. In the second half of the II century B.C. Around the year 300 a. C., Rome had become a cosmopolitan city, where those Greeks who were willing to put their technical, artistic and intellectual talents at the service of the new rulers of the world received a warm welcome. The personal relationships that developed between Roman political leaders and the local aristocracies of the East from the Mithridatic Wars to the last years of the Roman Republic are generally quite well known, and it is certainly not coincidental that much information about these relationships occasionally exists. by Strabo. The choice of sides that his family made between Mithridates VI. The division of Eupator and the Romans was also imposed on other prominent intellectuals (rhetoricians and philosophers) politically active in the Hellenistic cities of Asia. Later, in the tortuous decades of civil wars, the need or opportunity to choose sides between the two warring parties arose again: Pompey or Caesar, Octavian or Antony. Even when the choice turned out to be wrong, the vanquished sometimes found the victor their new patron. As part of your follow-up, * English translation. of Dr. Gregorio Conti. © koninklijke brill nv, Leiden, 2016 | doi ��.��63/9789004284715_015

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they came to Rome, where they were able to continue their educational and cultural services for the most important noble families. After Actium (31 BC) and the end of the civil wars, the more favorable political climate allowed this process of cultural integration to be fully completed at the highest levels of Roman society. Strabo's teachers included Aristodemus of Nysa (14.1.48), tutor to the sons of Pompey the Great, and the philosopher Xenarchus of Seleucia in Cilicia (14.5.4). After stays in Athens and Alexandria, Jenarco arrived in Rome, where he continued his teaching activity and, thanks to Arius Didymus, one of Augustus's teachers, he was accepted into the emperor's circle, of which he remained a respected and honored member during The rest of his life. Strabo also attended the classes of a famous "grammarian", his compatriot Tyrannion von Amisus (12.3.16). Brought to Rome as a prisoner during the Second Mithridatic War, Tyranion enjoyed the friendship of Caesar, Atticus, and Cicero. He was tutor to the sons of Cicero and reorganized the library of Theophrastus, founded in 84 BC. he was transported to Rome by Sulla after the sack of Athens. Strabo also remembers as a friend (16.4.21) the Stoic philosopher Athenodorus of Tarsus, student of Posidonius and tutor of Augustus (14.5.14). Apart from his friendship with Aelius Gallus, the prefect of Egypt, to which must be added his friendship with Gnaeus Piso, the proconsul of Africa (2:5,33), Strabo tells us nothing more about the patrons. Romans from him. However, he seems to have been well introduced to the dense web of relationships between important political leaders of the late Republic and representatives of Eastern Greek culture, a web that became more closely entwined after the Mithridatic Wars.11

The structure: map and text

Before starting work on his geography, Strabo (1.1.23) wrote a 43- or 47-book history (Ἱστορικά ὑπομνήματα)2 as a continuation of Polybius, whose narrative was written in 146/5 BC. It ends with the destruction of Carthage and Corinth. Only about twenty fragments have survived (FGrHist 91), the content of which does not help much to understand if and to what extent he wanted to distance himself from his predecessor by taking up the events already narrated by Posidonius as a continuation of the stories of Polybius. In any case, the fact that Strabo wrote after the civil wars would have given him a safer perspective on the latter 1 On Strabo's biography and education, see Aujac 1969a, VII–XXIII; Maddoli 1988; English 1999, 17-44; Dueck 2000, 1-30; Panichi 2005. On Strabo's country of origin, see Bowersock 2000; Lindsay 2005. 2 Ambaglio 1990; Engels 1999, 76-89.

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Decades of the Republic and the basis of Rome's hegemony in the world. As can be seen from some more programmatic passages, to which we will pay more attention later, Strabo attributes to his monumental work on geography (in 17 books), the oldest of its kind, importance and special value for us practically untouched since antiquity. .3 Prefixed from a long introduction in two volumes, the description begins in Book 3, and in general its architecture follows the order of the continents dictated by the canonical itinerary of the Mediterranean Periplus, beginning on the Iberian side of the Columns of Heracles and ending in the African Page (Europe: 3–10; Asia: 11–16; Libya: 17).4 In the two books of the proem, there is a difference between the first programmatic considerations (1.1.1–23) and their Later continuation (2.5.1ff.), there is an extensive section devoted to criticism of his predecessors (Eratosthenes, Polybius, Hipparchus, and Posidonius). After dealing with the dimensions of the inhabited earth and its cartographic delimitation (2.5.6-17), the last part of Book 2 closes with a summary presentation of ecumenism (2.5.18-33) and a critical examination of the astronomical data ( κλίματα) indispensable for its representation in the terrestrial sphere (2.5.34-43). The following books present, as far as possible in the order of their context, the major geographical areas and the various "areas" of antiquity. 3: Iberian Peninsula; 4: Celtica and Great Britain; 5–6: Italy and the Tyrrhenian Islands (Elba, Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily); 7 (fragmented at the end): Northern and Central Europe, stretching from the ocean coast, between the Rhine and the Elbe, to the eastern Alps, the Balkan regions north of Greece (Illyria, Epeiros, Macedonia, Thrace), the Pontic coast of Europe, which ends at the Tanais (Don) river; 8–10: Greece and the islands (8: Pel or Ponnesus; 9: Attica, Boeotia, and Thessaly; 10: Euboea, Aetolia, and Acarnania, Crete, the Cyclades, and Sporades); 11: the Asian shores of the Pontus from Tanais to Colchis, the regions and peoples of the Caucasus, Caspian Sea, cis-Taurian Asia (Hyrcania, Parthia, Aria, Drangiana, Bactriana, Sogdiana), then the mountainous countries of Taurus ( Media and Armenia ); 12-14: Asia 3 Radt 2002-2011: Complete critical edition with introduction, German translation and short commentary. In the Collection des Universités de France: I–II (Aujac 1969a–b), III–IV (Lasserre 1966b), V–VI (Lasserre 1967), VII (Baladié 1989), VIII (Baladié 1978), IX (Baladié 1996 ), X (Lasserre 1971), XI (Lasserre 1975), XII (Lasserre 1981). Critical Edition of Aly's Books I–VI 1968–1972. Introduction, Italian translation and commentary by N. Biffi: V–VI (1988: cf. Biffi 2006), XIV (2009), XV (2005), XVI (2002), XVII (1999). 4 Prontera 1984a, 230–231.

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Minor, whose description begins with Cappadocia, on the border with Armenia; 15: India with Taprobane (Ceylon), Ariana, Persia and Susiana; 16: Mesopotamia, Assyria, Syria, Arabia; 17: Egypt, Ethiopia, and Libya (however, the description of Libya begins at the Pillars of Heracles, as in Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder, and continues west along the coast to the Egyptian border.) This structure reveals the complexity of its internal articulation down to the last detail as it gradually approaches our point of view. Of course, a work of this size carries the risk of imbalance and inaccuracy. The geographer himself is aware of this when, in front of a colossal statue5, he invites his readers to focus not on the details but on the global project (1.1.23). Although there are some significant imbalances even within the book itself, the description follows well-established and easily identifiable criteria. Themes and perspectives, for which Strabo does not hide his fondness or that go back to the cited sources, give a unitary approach to much of his geography. But the possibility of an overall vision, both for the author and for his audience, ultimately results from the articulated and orderly presentation of ecumenism (2.5.11). The geometric grid underlying Strabo's map is essentially the same as that drawn by Eratosthenes, constructed by projecting the sphere orthogonally onto the flat surface (Fig. 1).6 Strabo, who had learned his lesson from Hellenistic scientists, not only emphasizes the need for geographic knowledge to be based on astronomy; He also guides the reader in the design of his map, making expert use of the scholarly lexicon of his predecessors (2.5.1–17). In his instructive explanations, certain expressions reflect the characteristic tone of Euclid's statements (2.5.5: ὑποκείσθω.... We suppose...). A longitudinal axis crosses the Pillars of Heracles and the Strait of Messina, touches the southern extremities of the Peloponnese, traverses Rhodes and the Gulf of Issus, and traverses all of Asia along the mighty Taurus range, which marks the maximum extent of the inhabited population. land from east to west. Perpendicular to this reference parallel (36°N) - following the Dicaearchus line (F 110 Wehrli) - a second axis crosses it at Rhodes. On each side of these two coordinates some parallel lines are drawn at irregular intervals according to the same 5 Pothecary 2005a, 5–26. 6 Looking north, however, Strabo's ecumenism ends at latitude 54°N at Ierne (Ireland) and not latitude at Thule (66°N): Aujac 2000, 111.

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The few available astronomical surveys (and only those of latitude) and the estimates of the approximate distances of the travel routes coincide in forming the grid that shows the location and individualization of geographic spaces with their characteristic and distinctive features (cities, rivers, mountains, promontories) . Greek astronomy had made great strides in the four centuries before Strabo's time. However, it should not be forgotten that the very few studies of latitude that have been made, while providing a mathematical basis for geodesy and for the placement of the ancient world in the Earth's northern hemisphere, were clearly inadequate to provide a scientific basis. . to ensure land mapping. In fact, even in Hellenistic times, geographers were forced to resort to rough estimates of land and sea routes and the relative locations of towns and countries, only to later translate them into diagrams through a process of abstraction as daring as it was fatal. wrong. prone. This tension between the varied and often contradictory data relating to empirical local knowledge, on the one hand, and the incessant effort to fit these data into a geometric scheme consistent with the grid proposed by the very few available astronomical studies, on the other hand, along throughout the ancient geography. Traces of this can also be seen on the Strabo map. The shape of ecumenism does not correspond to the parallelogram in which it is inscribed -as in the map by Pomponius Mela7- but rather evokes the image of a chlamys, the characteristic Macedonian cloak (2.5.6, 14 and 18). In fact, the width of the inhabited land decreases markedly at its eastern and western extremities (11/11/7), while its contours dissolve at the northern edge east of Albis (Elbe) and at the southern edge beyond Ethiopia due to ignorance. or due to the inaccessibility of places. The physiognomy and articulation of the whole are mainly the result of the modeling action of the ocean (2.5.7) opening four great gulfs, the Caspian Gulf (probably a great bay of the Outer Sea), the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. , where the European coast is much more irregular and varied compared to the African and Asian coasts (2.5.18). Strabo traces the extent of the inland sea, its gulfs and straits (2.5.19-25) and leaves the continents illustrated later (2.5.26-33) with their physical features and geographical distribution in the background (κατὰ μέρος). This preliminary and summarized illustration already announces some criteria on which the individual choreographies are based. 7 Prontera 2001c, 212–213.

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Strabo makes extensive use of the voyage tradition, but subordinates it to the unified treatment of regional areas, even when, as in the case of Iberia and Celtica, their coasts are divided between the oceanic and Mediterranean sides. His commitment to the search for the ordering principles of his description in the configuration and natural articulation of geographic spaces is characteristic (ἡ φύσις τῶν τόπων: 8.1.3; 12.3.42). Partly because of this obligation, islands are often associated with the contiguous mainland, while in the Aegean archipelago it is Crete that exerts the centripetal force in the description (10.4). Strabo points out (2.5.10) that an adequate representation of ecumenism requires a sphere at least 10 feet in diameter, or a square (πίναξ) with sides of at least 7 feet (m. 2 × 1). No original documents of this kind have come down to us from ancient cartography, but these dimensions indicate large wall maps, such as those that hung on the walls of the Lyceum in the time of Theophrastus (Diog. Laer. 5.61). In terms of natural boundaries, rivers and mountains together with the coastal morphology mark the geographical divisions of ecumenism, which remain stable in contrast to the political-administrative boundaries.8 4.1.1: “Next is Transalpine Celtica. I have already indicated approximately both the shape and the size of this country; but now I must speak of it in detail. Some, as we know, divided it into three parts, calling its inhabitants Aquitani, Belgae, and Celtae. (. . . . . . . ). However, Augustus Caesar divided Transalpine Celtica into four parts. (. . . . . . . ). Well, although physical and ethnic distinctions made should be reported by the geographer whenever they are worth recording, but as to the many political divisions made by rulers (for they suit their rule at the respective times), it is enough if one it gives them only in summary” (trans. Jones 1923). The Istros (Danube), flowing from west to east, divides Eastern Europe in two (2.5.30): "On its left it leaves all Germany (beginning at the Rhine), all the land of fact and the land of the Tyregetans, Bastarnians and Sarmatians to the river Tanais and Lake Maeotis, and leaves to his right all Thrace, Illyria, and finally Greece" (trans. Jones 1917). In the same way, the Taurus Mountains divide Asia into two parts, "the near side." and “the far side” (ἐντός/ἐκτός) of the mountain range that extends without 8 3.4.19 and 12.3.1 (on the administrative divisions of Roman rule), cf 2.1.30 (important methodological considerations on the departments of the geographer) Pothecary 2005b, 167, 177-179.

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Interruption from the Capes of Pamphylia to the shores of the Eastern Ocean, where it ends in a cusp (11.11.7). In accordance with these main divisions, the description of Central Europe is divided into trans and cis Danube regions and peoples (7.1.1; 5.1),9 the description of Asia into trans and cis Tauren (11.1.2–4). By representing Africa in comparison with a trapezoid or triangular rectangle (2.5.33; 17.3.1), and India represented as a rhomboid (2.1.22 and 31), we are again reminded of Eratosthenes' map. The tendency to translate natural features into geometric figures is repeatedly and selectively expressed in individual choreographies. This is a typical feature of Hellenistic geography, but it was lost in the Latin geography of the early imperial period (Pomponius Mela and Pliny), which was willing to incorporate only the figurative aspects of Hellenistic cartography. Even if the outlines of some parts of ecumenism cannot be easily translated into geometric figures,10 it is surprising how carefully Strabo forces himself to characterize his physiognomy primarily through clear demarcation. In this way, it leads the periegesis of Iberia (2.1.3), transalpine Celtic (4.1.1), Italy (5.1.2-3), Greece (8.1.3) and all of Asia (11.1.1-7) (Figure 2). Before Ptolemy's Guide to Geography (Γεωγραφικὴ ὑφήγησις), it is Strabo who documents the progress of Hellenistic cartography along the path traveled by Eratosthenes, and it is precisely in Strabo's own work that the order of periegesis and verbal presentation are reflected. regional and subregional features. the cartographic demarcation of it. The correspondence between map and text must be assumed above all when Strabo describes complex oro-hydrographic systems, whose articulation serves in turn to describe ethno-regional units of different dimensions.11 Two examples of this type are particularly significant. In the section between the Cilician Gates and the Caspian Gates, the row of bulls is enriched with new schematic elements. In front of what is called the main body, some branches (ἀποσχίδες) and fragments (ἀποσπάσματα) break off. The mountain is cut 9 Baladié 1989, 4–6. 10 Biffi 2012. 11 The optimism with which an attempt was made to reconstruct ancient cartographies in the 19th century must certainly be abandoned and one must be skeptical of such reconstructions, especially when the profiles of geographic spaces do not correspond to geometric figures. But a greater awareness of the limitations of our documentation should not lead to the almost total denial of the production and dissemination of geographical maps in the narrow circles of educated and scientific people, like some parts of Strabo's Geography, and especially some passages from the Prolegomena. , show.

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by the course of the rivers that mark the beginning or the end of its partitions. Such a detailed depiction of the mountains and the people who live there cannot be traced back to Eratosthenes' map. Neither the southern foothills of the Caucasus (Strab. 11.2.15) nor the northern foothills of the Armenian bull could be known to Eratosthenes, which were discovered only when Armenia entered the scene in Hellenistic history and historiography, that is, with the end of the reign of Antiochus. third from Syria (Strab. 11, 14, 5, and 15).12 The same observation applies to a greater extent to the regions of the western European hinterland, whose physiognomy begins and emerges in classical literature only after Hannibal's war. In this case, too, the general design of the proem in books 1-2 is then compared by the descriptions of the regional profiles according to the order given by the "nature of places" (τάξις), that is, consequently, with the order in which their cartographic representation corresponds.13 The decisive factor for the geometric representation is the tendency to represent the Mediterranean and Atlantic European coasts with a clearly parallel east-west development. The misalignment of the Pyrenees causes the consequent distortion of other elements of the chart that are shown as parallel (the Iberus/Ebro, Mount Idubeda, the Sucro/Júcar river, the Rhône/Rhine and the three remaining rivers of the Atlantic Céltica). . or perpendicular to the Pyrenees (the rivers of Lusitania and Monte Cemmenus/Cevennes: Fig. 3). The Narbonitis rectangle (south of the Cévennes chain) is bordered to the north by Aquitaine, which in turn consists of two rectangles whose long sides are formed by the Pyrenees, by Garumna and by Liger/Loire.14 The Rhine estuary is facing south. -eastern point of the British triangle, while its sources are on the slope of Mount Adula (Saint-Gothard?) opposite the slope from which the River Adda falls (erroneously). Of course, at this regional or supra-regional level, the geographic coordinates are missing, the follow-up of which is discussed in the cartographic part of Proem. However, the geometric scheme that guides the description cannot be explained as the casual elaboration of a "mental map" for the reader's use. The interactions between the different parts of the drawing represent a degree of systematization that requires the ordering intervention of a geographer/cartographer. François Lasserre gave the name of Posidonius 12 Prontera 2011a, 202–214. 13 Strab. 2.5.27-28; 4.1.1; 03/12/42. For the correspondence between map and text in Strabo's description of Iberia, see Counillon 2007. 14 Prontera 2011a, 227–229.

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explain the updating and enrichment of the oro-hydrographic frameworks of Western Europe (Iberia and Celtic) and Asia in the face of the summary delimitation of Eratosthenes.15 The mathematical-astronomical principles of geography as their cartographic application. However, we know from Strabo that he modified the position assigned by Eratosthenes to the Sicilian Triangle in the delimitation of the Mediterranean Sea, modifying the development of pre-Ptolemaic cartography, and not only in theoretical terms. 2

The "regional" descriptions

The geography that describes the peoples and countries of the inhabited earth already had a long tradition in the time of Strabo, which over time enriched its content and defined its themes. After the two books of Hecataeus' Periegesis came the seven books of Eudoxus' Γῆς περίοδος (Journey Around the World) (4.100 BC). Along with this tradition, Strabo's 17 books were influenced by scholarly Hellenistic geography and history. The increase in the number of books is due in large part to new information available through military-political history. The insertion of the new information was facilitated by the structure of the Ecumenical Descriptive Geography, which reflects the “regional” divisions of the cartography. Like others before him, Strabo boasts of his extensive travels from Armenia to Etruria and from the Euxinus Pontus to the Ethiopian border (2.5.11), but in assembling and illustrating the mosaic of ecumenism he must use the stones and materials provided. by tradition. The inconsistent quality of the work no doubt stems from the fonts used. However, the character of the author is manifested more clearly in the seriousness with which he confronts methodological questions, in certain ups and downs or uncertainties with which these questions are formulated and resolved, in his critical and even hypercritical attitude towards his intellectual predecessors and in his declared and defended the predilection for certain subjects (the signs and memories of the Greek civilization, the defense

15 Lasserre 1966b, 6, 106, 124 Note. 2; Lasserre 1975, 21 y ss. (vgl. 39 n. 3); Lasserre 1981, 60. 16 Str. 6.2.1= F 249 EC; Prontera 2011a, 239–253.

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of Homer's geographical knowledge). The programmatic announcements of the Prolegomena are all scattered throughout the descriptive books, although the practice does not always correspond to the theoretical preambles. The individual chorographies, after a preliminary delimitation of the geographical space, go through the inhabited nuclei and sanctuaries, the towns and the physical and anthropological characteristics of the landscape in the order of their interior neighbourhood, by whose location Strabo refers not only to rivers but also to the Roman roads (Via Egnatia: 7.7.4 and 8; in Iberia: 3.4.9; in Italy: 5.2.9; 6.3.7 etc.). In its geography there are numerous references to the distances between the places described, especially in relation to those facing the inland sea. Observing the various sections of the Mediterranean Journey inserted in the chorographies, one immediately notices the remarkable accumulation of information based on the nautical experiences of the Hellenistic period.18 Strabo's guilt towards Artemidorus is certainly greater than what is explained. Within individual chorographies (Iberia, Gallia, Italy, etc.), Strabo interrupts the descriptive itinerary to highlight the peculiarities of the region, with observations on soil productivity and economic activities, on the uses and customs of the inhabitants and the historical and mythical memories of towns and their cities, with a multitude of details and a variety of interests that make up the singular richness of the work. Strabo is a human geography whose historical depth is mainly determined by the literary tradition itself, to which must be added the interests of an author who also requires his presence among his audience. While it is possible to characterize the geographies of Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder in terms of their main themes, for Strabo the same operation is much more difficult. In the overall vision, his work loses many details to a much greater extent, which are no less important than the overall architecture of the work.19

17 The color maps illustrating the edition published by Müller, C. and F. Dübner in 1858 give a first impression of the wealth of information contained in Strabo's geography. 18 Arnaud's 2005 book is very important. Timósthenes of Rhodes, admiral of Ptolemy II, wrote ten books on ports; Prontera 2013. 19 Dueck 2000, 165–186.

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“Thematizing” the geography of Strabo20 (the economy, political institutions, religion and myths, natural phenomena and physical geography, literary figures, philosophers and scientists who give splendor to their cities)21 is an exercise that , with the same attention, can be quite useful, the historical and geographical contexts in which the different themes have their raison d'être will be addressed. Strabo, for example, undoubtedly shows some interest in urban geography, to use a modern expression, but in essence it is only one of the aspects that together make up the historical-political identity of a city. To the descriptions of Rome (5.3.7-8) and Alexandria (17.1.6-9), where he stayed for a long time, are added those of Marseilles (4.1.4-5), Rhodes (14.2.5-9), Ephesus (14.1.20–25) and his own Amasea (12.3.39). His long digression on the history of the Attalids (13.4.1-2) 22 has very few comparisons with the rest of the work, but it refers to the dynasty that ushered in Rome's dominance in Asia. The difference in perspective between the regions of an older civilization and those regions that have recently become part of the Roman Empire or lie on its borders is accentuated when Strabo describes areas of Greece or Greek culture. In fact, in local traditions and memories, history and myth are so closely linked to the territory that they almost become distinctive elements of the landscape. What may seem to us a strange mixture of geography and antiquarian interests was in fact quite normal in relation to Greece, as Polybius' criticism of Eudoxus and Ephorus (10.3.5) shows. And Polybius (. . .) says of the Greek histories that while Eudoxus gave a good account, Ephorus gave the best account of the founding of cities, kinships, migrations, and original founders, "but I," he says, "should show the facts." as they are now (τὰ νῦν ὄντα δηλώσομεν), both as to the position of the places and the distances between them: for this is the most appropriate function of chorography" (trans. Jones 1928). In another context, Strabo He explicitly cites the approach of Polybius, who, however, claims to correct it.Certainly a geographer must represent the current conditions of countries and their peoples, but he must also say

20 Aujac 2000, 113-134; Dueck 2000, 79-83 (on the writers and works of art that characterize the urban landscape). 21 Engels 2005. 22 Virgil 1984.

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something about his past, especially when it comes to celebrated events23 (6.1.2; cf. 1.1.19). 6.1.2: "But the man interested in the description of the land ( τὴν τῆς γῆς περίοδον) must speak not only of facts of the present ( τὰ νῦν ὄντα ), but also sometimes of facts of the present past, especially when they are notable" (trans. Jones 1924). In a long passage of the Prolegomena (2.5.17) this idea is given an articulated and mediated formulation in which it is not difficult to recognize concepts from philosophical anthropology and ethics. “It is the sea, more than anything else, that defines the contours of the land and gives it its shape, forming gulfs, deep seas, straits and isthmuses, peninsulas and promontories alike; but both rivers and mountains support the seas in this. Such natural features give us a clear idea of the continents, the nations, the favorable locations of cities, and all the other miscellaneous details with which our geographical map is filled. And such details include the multitude of islands scattered both in the open sea and along the entire coast. And as different places have different good and bad qualities and consequent advantages and disadvantages, which are partly natural and partly human, the geographer must mention those that are natural; because they are permanent, while random properties are subject to change. And of the latter qualities, too, he must indicate those which can last long, or those which cannot last long, and yet somehow possess a certain distinction and fame which, surviving to later times, is the work of man, even if it is no longer there, a kind of natural property of a place ( συμφυῆ τοῖς τόποις ); therefore it is clear that these letter attributes should also be mentioned. In fact, what Demosthenes said of Olynthos and the surrounding towns, which have so completely disappeared, he says, can be said of many cities that a visitor could not even tell if they were founded at all. But still, people like to visit these and other places because they are eager to see at least the traces of these famous events, just as they like to visit the graves of famous men. I have also mentioned customs and constitutions that no longer exist because in your case the benefit only urges me to do so.

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as is the case of the scriptures; that is, to encourage the imitation or avoidance of this or that” (trans. Jones 1917). Strabo's interest in the past of the Greek world (in part Book 6; 8-10) and in its surviving traces reaches the point of entering into the chorography of Hellas and the Hellenized regions of Asia Minor (particularly Troas, Book 13). extensive sections are devoted exclusively to the topographical exegesis of the epic.24 Following the comments of Hellenistic scholars such as Demetrius of Skepticism and Apollodorus of Athens (2 Discussions on the identification of the places and peoples mentioned by Homer. Considering the exemplary status that Homer always had in the upbringing and education of the Greeks, it is recognized that in order to correctly understand their poetry it was also necessary to acquire sufficient knowledge of astronomy, geography and topography.Homer made geography a very early subject of study for the philologists of Alexandria. Pergamum and therefore in the teachings of the grammarians of the Hellenistic age is the East as Tyranion, who came to Rome to e teach the youth of the aristocracy. At the same time, the specialization of learning and the expansion of geographic knowledge provoked a lively debate among scientists and scholars of the early Hellenistic period. According to some Stoic philosophers, Homer already possessed, although perhaps in an embryonic form or hidden in his poetry, much of today's knowledge. Crates of Mallus (2nd century BC) even interpreted some of the poet's verses in light of the spherical shape of the earth! Among the Alexandrians, Eratosthenes vigorously opposed the modernizing interpretations of the Stoics, emphasizing instead the distance between the extent of modern geographical knowledge and the still limited and uncertain knowledge present in epic poetry (Strab. 1.3.3).25 The themes and arguments of this debate can be traced in Strabo's Prolegomena.26 A whole series of issues related to the limits of ecumenism and the continuity of the ocean, with the winds and orientation, with the movements of the sea, with the tides of the Nile are directly related to the interpretation of Homer. By dealing with epic concepts, "scientific" geography is also given a historical perspective. Thus, the treatises of Eratosthenes and Hipparchus open with a retrospective vision, whose starting point is, of course, Homer. So Strabo is certainly not the first 24 Baladié 1980. 25 Prontera 2011a, 5–10. 26 Aujac 1966 and 1969a–b is fundamental on this point; see Birashi 2005.

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give a historical dimension to the periegesis of ecumenism, and his interest in the history of geography is already part of the Hellenistic tradition. Strabo's improved account of the ethnographic and geographical description of the Western European regions (Books 3-4) derives mainly from his use of Poseidonius, while his description of the Mediterranean coastal lands preserves the Periplo tradition, reworked by Artemidorus Ephesus. As already mentioned, the books devoted to Greece are dominated by interest in archaic history and questions of Homeric topography. The books on Asia Minor (12 and 14), on Syria and Palestine (16) bear the traces of Hellenistic-Roman history. In the sections on India (15), Strabo relies heavily on the historians of Alexander the Great, Megasthenes, and Eratosthenes. In his Description of Egypt and Africa (17)27 the literal sources are supplemented by the author's personal observations. A source study has successfully attempted to isolate those parts of the geography for which Strabo relied on the work of multiple authors.28 Even when by a single author, however, these sections contain layers of tradition. Like Polybius (3.59.3), Strabo (1.2.1; 11.6.4) stresses the importance of campaigns and conquests for the expansion of geographical knowledge; in Western Europe thanks to the Romans, in the Pontic areas thanks to Mithridates Eupator,29 in Hyrcania, Battria and the Asian Scythians thanks to the Parthians. Especially with regard to the most recent events, to which he himself is a direct or indirect witness, Strabo provides information that he was able to obtain first-hand from his circle of acquaintances and patrons.30 However, his preference is literary sources. , which also does not hide his negative judgment on the Latin authors, who limit themselves to translating the Greeks without adding anything new, so that when the Greeks become extinct, the void cannot be filled (3.4.19). Extraliterary sources are not highly regarded (Seafarers and Merchants: 2.5.11-12) and, although he draws on the Peripli tradition, he judges them unscientific (1.1.21). He rarely shows much interest in the administrative divisions of the empire (Iberia: 3.4.19-20; Egypt: 17.1.12). The division of it into senatorial and imperial provinces is presented only in an appendix to the work (17.3.24-25), while the historical process of creation is found at the end of Book 6 after Laudes Italiae (6.4.1-2 ). In his teleological reflections on the advantageous location of the peninsula and its centrality, which caused its boom, 27 Biffi 1999; on the Aelius Gallus expedition, see Nicolet 1988, 126 and note 4. 28 For an overview of the literature, see Dueck 2000, 182–186. 29 Biffi 2010. 30 Lasserre 1984.

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of Roman power, Strabo assigns to Italy the same geographical vocation to govern (πρὸς ἡγεμονίαν εὐφυῶς ἔχει) that Ephorus discovered in the Boeotia of his time (in Strabo 9.2.2) and that Aristotle sought in Minoan Crete (Pol. 2.9.1271b ). In any case, the regions of ecumenism are described according to their traditional ethnic divisions. It is certainly not questions of administrative boundaries that attract the attention of Strabo, who is more comfortable attempting to reconstruct the political geography of Homeric Greece by drawing on the full arsenal of Hellenistic "archaeology" or by drawing the boundaries of regions." ethnic groups" according to the divisions dictated by the "nature of the places".31 His unrestricted adherence to the ideological justifications of the new order founded by Augustus is expressed again and again in the consistently pacifying and civilizing role of the Romans in the world. . 2.5.26: “The Romans also seized and brought many nations that were naturally savage by virtue of the regions they inhabited, those regions being rocky or harborless or cold or for some other reason unsuitable for the settlement of many, wherefore not only connecting isolated peoples with each other, but also teaching poachers to live under forms of government” (trans. Jones 1917). Meanwhile, the superiority of Europe, "admirable by nature for the development of eminent men and governments," is firmly assured not only by the ancient political and technical virtues of the Greeks, but also by the ability of the Romans to create the peoples wild. participants in their political civilization. This is the justification of Roman rule in the Stoic vision of universal history.32 The same evaluation criteria that guide the selective gaze of the geographer explains the superiority of the Mediterranean coastal regions. Strabo's interest focuses programmatically on those countries in which the institutional framework of nations and their cities ensures the full development of human activities or with which relations and trade can be easily established and maintained (2.5.18; cf 1.1.6). . The recognition of the civilizing work of Rome supposes a frank admiration in the description of Western Europe (Iberia, Celtic, alpine areas), but it is absent in the regions where the Greek culture still preserves its vitality in the lifestyle of the cities. It is significant that this is a notable exception: Panichi 2005, 213. 32 Dueck 2000, 115–122.

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two perspectives are available. In Cisalpine Gaul, Romanization translates into civil and material progress (5.1.4-12), thanks to the colonies, the road network and productive agriculture (5.1.4-12),33 but in Lucania and Bruttii it coincides with the political and cultural decline of what was once Magna Graecia (6.1.1-15). 2.1 Geography according to Strabo In the two introductions to the Proem (1.1.1–23; 2.5.1ff.), Strabo offers the most detailed reflection that antiquity has bequeathed to us on the nature of geography, the tasks of the geographer and his audience The geographer must have a wide range of knowledge (πολυμάθεια) - in physics, astronomy and geometry - all of which are necessary for this global vision of the world that is inherent in philosophy, encompassing things "human and divine". Strabo dedicates himself entirely to theorizing about the fundamental principles and field of study of geography, taking full advantage of his reading of the very authors that he easily criticizes and, at times, distorting his views. Without making an original contribution to the scientific achievements of Hellenism, his theoretical commitment aims to rebuild the unity of geography along the lines of Posidonius, bringing together the legacies of Eratosthenes and Polybius. In fact, after Eratosthenes, mathematical-astronomical science and its cartographic applications embarked decidedly on a path different from that of descriptive geography. Hence the ambitious goal of imparting this knowledge in its entirety in such a way as to make it accessible to intellectually well-educated individuals, but above all to the ruling elites responsible for the military control and governance of the empire. It is understandable, therefore, that in moving from theorizing about geographic knowledge to his predominant practical purposes, Strabo tends to downplay his scientific principles in order to emphasize their politico-military applications. These oscillations in his work clearly reflect the double role of the geographer. 1.1.1: “The science of geography, which I now propose to examine, is, in my opinion, like any other science, the philosopher's business; and the correctness of my point of view is clear for many reasons. In the first place, those who ventured to deal with the subject in early times were philosophers in their own way: Homer, Anaximander of Miletus, and Anaximander's fellow citizen Hecataeus, as Eratosthenes has said; The philosophers were also Democritus, Eudoxus, Dicearco, Ephorus, with 33 Tozzi 1998, 23–43.

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various others of his time; and furthermore, his successors, Eratosthenes, Polybius, and Posidonius, were philosophers. Secondly, the broad learning ( πολυμάθεια) which makes it possible to undertake a work of geography belongs only to the man who has studied things both human and divine, the knowledge of which is said to constitute philosophy. And so is the use of geography - and its uses are manifold, not only in relation to the activities of statesmen and commanders, but also in relation to knowledge both of the sky and of things on land and sea, animals, plants, fruits and so on everything else is seen in different regions - the utility of geography, I say, presupposes in the geographer the same philosopher, the man dedicated to the study of the art of living, that is, of happiness" (trans. Jones 1917). the scene of the activities of the states is the land and the sea, the abode of men.(. . .) Therefore, it is clear that geography as a whole has a direct influence on the activities of the commanders; because describes continents and seas, not just seas within the confines of the entire inhabited world, but also those beyond those confines. And the description given by geography matters to those who care about whether this or that is so or not, known or unknown. For thus they can manage their various affairs more satisfactorily when they know how great a country is, how it stands, and what peculiarities it has, whether in heaven or on earth” (Jones trans. 1917). It is worth dwelling on this point because it can help us to clarify the reasons for the poor reception of Strabo not only by his contemporaries but also by the Latin authors of the first imperial period. they are intended to serve the interests of a cultured and aristocratic public, located mainly in the Greek and Hellenistic cities of the empire, knowledgeable of their history and traditions, but who are also the upper classes of Roman society residing in the Schools of rhetoric greeks. , grammarians and philosophers before taking administrative positions in the provinces. Theoretically, there is nothing to prevent the thought that a Roman governor destined to serve in Greece or Asia might have read geography to some avail. But to what extent is your knowledge of the epic 34 Aujac 2000, 134–137; see Engels 1999, 45–58.

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him to appreciate Strabo's predilection for the smaller and more controversial questions of Homeric topography? On the other hand, the administrative and military needs of the Empire produced a great deal of first-hand information available in official reports. During campaigns, army staffs of all ages have always preferred to ensure direct access to necessary information through reconnaissance missions in the field or through the use of local informants or by commissioning ad hoc preliminary reports on the situation in the country. For the deployment of legions to ensure territorial control of the provinces, the specific dates of the travel routes were much more useful than learned historical choreography. While he proclaims the practical utility of geography, and his geography in particular, Strabo does nothing to hide his reluctance to turn to extraliterary sources. If Agrippa is indeed "the chorographer" that Strabo often refers to for miles in his description of Sicily and Italy, his silence regarding the map shown in the Porticus Vipsania35 becomes even more puzzling. Finally, most of the sources used by Strabo also belong to the numerous authors cited by Pliny the Elder (NH 4-6), who, however, does not cite Strabo. There is no doubt that empire building increased geographic knowledge, and it is also evident that empire administration required a variety of technical, statistical, logistical, and information technology tools.36 However, it would be misleading to claim that these were The world geography was a typical product of this period, as it reflected the ecumenical aspirations of the Roman Empire. Under different historical conditions, world geography arose in Asia Minor (Ionia), which in the course of the Hellenistic period reached its highest level, which Strabo at least deserves to preserve and pass on to his successors. In fact, the modern recognition of Strabo's geographical work, and especially of its exceptional documentary value, is conditioned by the loss of the Hellenistic literature on which he largely relied. Used by Byzantine scholars in the East, Strabo's geography was translated into Latin some fifty years after the Latin translation of Ptolemy's guide (c. 1410), and quickly became a model for Renaissance descriptive geography. Sebastian Munster, author of Cosmographia, one of the greatest best-sellers of the sixteenth century, was called "the German Strabo."37 In defense of the universalist conception of a scientific and historical scientific discipline, nineteenth-century geographers liked to refer to the example Strabo. They were found in 35 On this issue, see Arnaud 2007–2008. 36 Nicolet 1988. 37 Broc 19862, 76–84.

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It harmonizes with the theoretical positions of Strabo's Proem, but is not always identified with the way in which they are put into practice in the 15 books of his Periégesis. It still occasionally happens today that a geographer in search of identity begins to see himself as a bit of a "philosopher" and discovers in Strabo an illustrious predecessor.

FIGURE 14.1 Eratosthenes world map: a reconstruction after Aujac 2001 (courtesy of C.T.H.S.).

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FIGURE 14.2 The four parts of cis-Tauran Asia (Strab. 11.1.1–7) (Courtesy CUF, Les Belles Lettres Édit., Paris).

FIGURE 14.3 Western Europe in Strabo's geography: a reconstruction based on Lasserre 1966b (courtesy CUF, Les Belles Lettres Édit., Paris).

CHAPTER 15

News from the East? Geographers of the Roman period and Pontus Euxino* Eckart Olshausen 1

The topic

The tremendous territorial gains - partly by conquest, partly by bequest - that pushed the frontiers of the late Republican Empire and early Roman Empire to distant parts of the world, including the Pontus Euxinus (the Black Sea) - raise the question of whether The effects of this dramatic development led to a significant change in the way of viewing the Pontus Euxinus, both from a geopolitical and geographical perspective. Pontus Euxinus for a long time and became familiar with it built numerous settlements on its shores. Initially, the focus was on the practical question of exploring sea lanes, which may have given rise to naval manuals, the literary remains of which are mostly fragmentary periploi.4 * I would like to thank Dieter Prankel for translating the text and Richard Szydlak, who created the map. 1 Nota bene: The focus is solely on geographers' knowledge of the Pontus Euxinus, not on the level of information about it in the Roman world in general. 2 For a comprehensive treatment of the subject, see Rausch 2013. 3 See Wittke, Olshausen and Szydlak 2007, pp. 68f., including sources and literature. 4 Cf., for example, Ps. Scylax, the anonymous author of a voyage of the three continents Europe, Asia and Africa (4th century BC), who used the alias of the famous navigator at the court of the Persian king Darius I (522–486) wrote . His description from right to left of the coast of Pontus Euxinus joins the Tanaïs (Don), the border between Europe and Asia (67–91). See also Ps. Scymnos, the anonymous author of a fragmentary iambic periegesis dedicated to King Nicomedes (probably Nicomedes II Epiphanes, 149–128). He also goes around the Pontus Euxinus and leads from a place called Philia (722f.) To the left to the polis Thynias on the island of Apollonia (1025f.).

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Aristotle (384-322) then theorized the Pontus Euxinus and the properties of its currents.5 Eratosthenes in his Geographica compared it to a Scythian bow, an image that was widely adopted.6 Hellenistic mythographers were fascinated with the Pontus Euxinus. The epic of Apollonius Rodius (3rd century BC) about the expedition of the Argonauts7 has been transmitted. As a librarian in Alexandria, and as such a predecessor of Eratosthenes, he traced a route that crossed the Euxinus Pontus from the Thracian Bosporus to the Phasis (present-day Rioni) River, and then back through the mouth of the Istros (Danube) to the Halys (Kızılırmak) .8 Undoubtedly, the myth of the Argonauts predates the Homeric tales. However, Apollonius' available geographic knowledge was definitely more up-to-date, even if Alexander's expedition circumvented the Pontus Euxinus, thus perpetuating traditional misconceptions rather than correcting them.9 The historian Polybius (2nd century BC) used periploi and academic sources in his Roman History to explain the historical and geographical circumstances of the commercial war that Byzantium waged against Rhodes in 200 BC. At the latest at that time, the class of Roman senators acquired some knowledge about the Pontus Euxinus, unless some educated Romans had already acquired some information from the works of Herodotus11 and, in particular, Xenophon12. 1.2 The Roman Senate and the Pontus Euxinus Long before Nicomedes IV died (74 BC) and bequeathed his kingdom of Bithynia to Rome, and long before Pompey established the twin provinces of Bithynia as part of his reorganization from the Near East (63 BC). and Pontus erected by movements 5 Arist., Mete. 2.1.354a. 6 Cf. Geus 2002, 282ff. 7 Cf. Kubitschek 1933. 8 Ap. Rod. 4.236-328. See also Meyer 1998 and Valerius Flaccus's Argonautica, which is largely attributed to Apollonius. 9 Cf., for example, the connection between Istros and Adria, Ap. Rod. 4,284-493. 10 polyb. 4.39-43. For the Pontus Euxinus he may have used Straton of Lampsacus as a source, to whom he critically refers in 12.25c. In this same account, he decries the use of stories by merchants, sailors, and poets while using his information in the same context. 11 On the western and northern tributaries of the Pontus Euxinus (4.47–58) and the sea itself (4.85f.). 12 On the way from Trapezus to Harmene (Xen., An. 4.7.21–6.1.14) and thence over the Thracian Bosporus to Salmydessos (Xen., An. 6.2.1–7.7.57).

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Eastern border of the Roman Empire on the banks of the Pontus Euxinus, the Roman Senate was aware of the existence of this body of water. Since clashes with Queen Teuta of Illyria, which led to the so-called First Illyrian War (232-228), the Roman Senate had focused on the eastern Mediterranean world with increasing intensity. This set off a chain of actions: while the Second Punic War was still raging, the Senate had the sacred stone of the Magna Mater removed from Pessinus in Asia Minor and brought to Rome on the basis of a Sibylline oracle. Although Rome was not officially allied with any state in Asia Minor, the Senate had been friends with Attalus, King of Pergamum, since the days of the First Macedonian War (215–205), and it was he who negotiated the transfer of the stone. sacred. to Rome.13 Subsequently, Roman envoys repeatedly became involved in negotiations over relations between cities and kingdoms in Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor.14 Thus, diplomatic activities between the Senate and various dynasties in the eastern Mediterranean were of particular importance, when towards the end of the 3rd century B.C. The balance of power between the three great monarchies—the Antigonid, Seleucid, and Ptolemaic kingdoms—was tottered and eventually collapsed. It is in this context that the diplomatic activity of M. Aemilius Lepidus must be seen: he visited Ptolemy V in Alexandria in 201, accompanied by two fellow senators, and the following year paid an unaccompanied visit to Philip V at Abydos en route asian. coast of Hellespont, delivering around him the Senate ultimatum that would start the Second Macedonian War. Roman diplomats also played a role in the disputes between Attalids Eumenes II and Pharnaces, King of Pontus, which led to the Pontic War (182-179). The two monarchs sent 182 envoys to Rome in the spring. Simultaneously, the delegates from Rhodes arrived in Rome marrying Sinope, an allied city on the southern shore of the Pontus Euxinus, which had been conquered by Pharnaces the previous year. The Senate then sent a commission to the East to investigate these conflicts. Fighting had already broken out when the senate sent another delegation to Asia Minor in response to the commission's report. A third delegation was then commissioned to travel to Pergamum to gain additional perspective.15

13 CF. Stark 2007. 14 Documentado and Knibbe 1958, 23ff. 15 police. 23.9.3; 24.1.2f. Mayor evidencia en: Knibbe 1958, 70ff.

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Senatorial involvement in the affairs of Pontus Euxinus reached a new intensity when the city of Chersonesos on the Taurian peninsula of Chersonesos forged a defensive alliance with the king of Pontus against the constant threat of Scythian raids after the Pontic War (182-179 ). An inscription survives that contains the oaths of the Chersonite and of the Pontic king Pharnaces that uphold the treaty.16 The text of the two oaths contains identical passages that emphasize friendship with Rome as a guarantee of the stability of the treaty.17 1.3 Roman provinces bordering the Pontus Euxinus The southern shore of Pontus Euxinus was directly ruled by Rome when, in 74 B.C. Nicomedes IV, who had bequeathed the kingdom of Bithynia to Rome, died. Thus, the possession of the coastal strip that extended from the promontory of Hieron in the Thracian Bosporus to the mouths of the Billaios or Parthenios18 rivers had displaced the border of the Roman Empire to the Euxinus Pontus. In the course of several Roman provincial administrative reforms, this area was eventually extended to the mouth of the Phasis (Rioni) river at the foot of the Caucasus, when Arrian administered the province of Cappadocia as a propraetorial legate from AD 131 to 137.19 Between AD 75 and 28 BEFORE CHRIST. A.C. it happened several times that the west coast of the Euxinus Pontus south of the mouth of the Istros (Danube) as part of the province of Macedonia was affected by Roman measures;20 however, this area was only separated from Macedonia under the emperor Claudius. 45/46, in order to constitute the province of Moesia.21 Only in very few cases did Rome act directly, such as the temporary stationing of naval units in areas beyond the mouth of the Istros in the west and the Phasis in the east. . These matters have generally been handled indirectly through the use of proxy clients primarily.22

16 Cfr. Works 2005; Heinen 2005. 17 IOSPE 12 402.3f.; 26f. 18 Strab. 12.3.8; Fair 1,104 (Billaios), Men., Per. 5801.7 (Diller 1952, p.152); Plin., HN 6.5 (Parthenius). 19 Cf. Wittke, Olshausen and Szydlak 2007, 182; 271 with sources and literature. 20 for example, under the Macedonian proconsuls C. Scribonius Curio (75), M. Licinius Lucullus (72), C. Antonius Hybrida (who suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the rebels in 59), and finally M. Licinius Crassus , who completed the pacification of the Region in the Pontus Euxinus which would become the province of Moesia (29/28). See Lica 2006. 21 I LS 986. See Wittke, Olshausen and Szydlak 2007, 184f., with sources and literature. 22 Cf. Stein-Kramer 1986, 50pp.

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New geographical perspectives on the Euxinus Pontus in Roman times?

In ancient times, authors generally rarely named their sources. This also applies to geographical publications, and ultimately applies to Strabo as well, although he is arguably a bit more generous with such information than his colleagues. This makes it so difficult to trace the sources of geographical works that in many cases we have to content ourselves with more or less likely hypotheses. The following selection of geographical writings dealing with or relating to Pontus Euxinus comprises texts that have survived, either directly or as significant fragments, from the period between the founding of the province of Bithynia and Pontus by Pompey (63 BC). .). the Roman imperial court to Byzantium (330 AD). From then on, the main administrative center of the empire came so close to the Pontus Euxinus that it took on a whole new geopolitical importance within the empire. Detailed descriptions by Ammianus Marcellinus23 and Procopios24 provide ample evidence of this change. The authors in question are: Menippus of Pergamum, Strabo, Pomponio Mela, Pliny the Elder, Arriano and Ptolemy. 2.1 Menippus of Pergamum This early Augustan author wrote three volumes of the Periplus of the Inner Sea; by this he means the Mediterranean Sea and its various sections as opposed to the all-encompassing ocean. The work is known only in an epitome by Martian, in fragments of the writings of Stephen of Byzantium (6th century AD) and as part of an anonymous journey from Pontus Euxinus (6th/7th century AD) transmitted. Menippus takes the reader from the sanctuary of Zeus Urios on the east bank of the Bosphorus to the river Iris (Yeşilırmak) in Pontus.25 For the description of the route between Chersonesos in the Taurian Chersonesus (Crimea) and the mouth of the river Tyras ( Dniester) cites the Geographumena of his Contemporaries of Artemidorus of Ephesus.26 23 Amm. Brand. 8/22/9-48. 24 Prokop., Goth. 4.2-6. 25 D 5603f.-D 6023. In 1952, Diller supplemented the extant Menippus text fragments with additions from the anonymous Periplus of Pontus Euxinus and with the Menippus fragments contained in the Lexicon of Stephen of Byzantium to further the description of the iris. to Philia (154-156). 26 FGrHist 438.

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No other authors are named. Artemidorus traveled a lot, but we don't know if he ever saw the Pontus Euxinus. 2.2 Strabo Strabo was a contemporary of Augustus. His Geographica is the only geographical description of antiquity that has survived more or less completely. However, he did not manage to compose a circular journey of the Pontus Euxinus. The work comprises a collection of coastal sections that add up to the sum total of what he thought was newsworthy about Pontus Euxinus.27 Strabo was born in Amaseia on Pontus. Nysa in Caria was one of the many places he visited for educational purposes or learned about on his world travels. Judging by the detailed accuracy of the description of his birthplace, he had a deep personal knowledge of Pontus and parts of Pontus Euxinus.28 Among Strabo's sources on Pontus Euxinus, Homer ranks prominently.29 He also relied on mythical sources such as the Myths the Argonauts, the Amazons, the Golden Fleece and the Trojan War. Similarly, he took advice from poets such as Archilochus (7th century), Pindar (6th/5th century), Euripides (5th century), Alexander the Aetolian (3rd century) and Euphorion (3rd century). The list of prose writers he used as witnesses consisted of the historians Hellanicus of Lesbos (5th century), Ephorus (4th century), Theopompus (4th century), Callisthenes (4th century), Palaephatus (4th century), Dionysus (4th century ), Menecrates of Elaea (3rd century) and Apollodorus (2nd century). He also referred to the geographical writings of Scylax of Caryanda (5th century), Eudoxus of Cnidus (4th century), Zenodotus (3rd century) and Eratosthenes (3rd century). All of them are exclusively authority figures from before the Roman Empire arrived at the Euxinus Pontus with the legacy of Nicomedes. There were very few authors who published material on the subject after this event to provide Strabo with source texts: Apollonides, a geographer of the Mithradian period, describes in one of the surviving fragments of his Periplus of Europe how the rivers Halys and Iris deposited sediments in the Pontus Euxinus.30 However, Strabo does not cite this work with reference to this geological phenomenon at 27 Strab. 7.3.19–7.4.8 (Bullfighting Chersonese: 7.4.8); 11.2.1–19 (from Tanaïs to Colchis); 12.3.1-40 (Pont); 12.3.40–42 (paphlagonia); 3/12/42–4/12/7 (Bithynia); 7.6.1f. (from Istros to Byzantium); 7.3.13–19 (from Istros to Borysthenes). 28 Cf. Braund 2005. 29 Kahles 1976. 30 FHG 4.309f. by Scholl. Ap. Rod. 2,964.

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the southern coast, but on a historical issue - the number of the sons of Scilurus, the Scythian king in the Taurian Chersonese.31 Strabo also includes the opinion of the philosopher Posidonius on this point - we do not know, however, which of them his writings was quoted (Across the ocean and adjacent countries?). He refers to Theophanes, his older contemporary, Pompey's personal biographer, in connection with a discussion of the sources of the river Tanaïs (Don),32 about whose upper reaches very little was known at the time, but does not support Theophane's view for above those of the rest Strabo also quotes Hypsicrates, another older contemporary of his, who, in a historical work whose title has not been preserved, amplifies an episode in the history of the Bosporian Empire under the reign of Asander (44-16 BC),33 defended the Kerch Peninsula against Scythian incursions from the west by closing off the Feodosian Isthmus with a defensive wall.34 We do not know which source Hypsicrates used. As a native of Amisus, he may have found out about this fortification through conversations at the port. Information given to readers about the world around Pontus Euxinus often focuses on Roman military and administrative activity (Lucullus, Pompey, Caesar, Mark Antony, Augustus), also on landscape features, but there is very little references to history and geography, although Strabo once mentions that the Danube played an important role as a route for transporting military supplies and stores.35 2.3 Pomponius Mela Mela was a contemporary of Emperor Claudius. This Spanish-born Roman geographer wrote a three-volume Chorographia. It contains a journey of the Pontus Euxinus in two parts: an Asian section (1.102-117) and a European one (2.1-23).

31 Strab. 7.4.3. 32 Strab. 11.2.2. 33 Strab. 7.4.6. See FGrHist 190 F 2 com. 618. 34 It is generally accepted among archaeologists that the 36 km long Wall of Unzular (Akkosov) has been correctly identified as this barrier on the peninsula; cf. Lisetskij 1999, 1085 No. 5. 35 Strab. 7.3.13.

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The perihegetes follow a trail of myths36, such as the founding stories of cities (Heracleia Pontica, Cycnos north of Phasis, Dioscurias, Chersonesus) as well as the myths of Hercules and Echidna, Iphigenia and Orestes, Castor and Pollux, Cerberus and his cave, the Golden Fleece, Achilles and also the Amazons. Evidently Mela was convinced of the historicity of these myths when he argued37 that naming Heraclea after Heracles made the historical character of the founding myth plausible. In these passages he names no author, in other passages he only names Homer, Hanno, and Cornelius Nepos: the title of Nepos's text is unknown, but the citations, p. by Pliny the Elder and also by Mela38 allow us to conclude that they also contained detailed geographical information on the Pontus Euxinus.39 Mela attached great importance to the topicality of his sources, as evidenced by his explicit reference to Nepos.40 His assertions that in general they really cannot be trusted to use with newer fonts; In fact, his description of the northern shore of Pontus Euxinus in no way reflects what Lucullus and Pompey would have conveyed to Rome.41 2.4 Pliny the Elder C. Pliny the Second was the author of an extensive Natural History (Naturalis Historia). . 42 He lost his life on August 24, AD 79. C., when Mount Vesuvius erupted. The four volumes (3-6) devoted to geography also contain a description of the Pontus Euxinus. However, it is not presented as a unit, but is divided into a left (western) European part (4.76–93) and a right (eastern) Asian part (6.1–22). Pliny saw the Tanaïs (Don) river as the demarcation line between Europe and Asia.43 In the passages on the Pontus Euxinus, Pliny refers to Eratosthenes, Polybius and Artemidorus, all writers who did not benefit from the new knowledge of the Roman military expeditions in this region Region. Nepos, Varro, Agrippa and C. Licinius Mucianus, on the other hand, can 36 In fact, this only applies to the stretch from the Bosphorus to the Tauri. As for the West Coast, it does not refer to such sources. 37 Mela 1.103: Heraclea vocitatur, id famae fidem adicit. 38 Mela 3.44f.; 3.90. 39 Plin., HN 6.5; 6.31. 40 Mela 3.45: Cornelius Nepos ut updateior, auctoritate sic certior. 41 Cf. Rostovtzeff 1931, 44. 42 Evans 2005; Skržinskaja 1977. 43 Cf. Plin., HN 3.3. The consideration of the Tanaïs as a border between Europe and Asia had a long tradition prior to Pliny, cf.Ps.Scymn. 875; Ps.Scyl. 70

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they have gained new insights into the Pontus Euxinus as a side effect of the military successes of Lucullus and Pompey in the East. However, Pliny found very little plausible information in the geographical work of Cornelius Nepos.44 In contrast to Pomponius Mela, Pliny even assessed the credibility of the Nepos data as low.45 Nepos, neither personally nor as a personal connoisseur of Asia Minor First hand, he had civil servants since he never held a position within the cursus honorum. Everything he reported on the Pontus Euxinus was based, at best, on secondhand experience. On the other hand, it is very likely that M. Terencio Varrón, as Pompey's legate in the 3rd Mithradic War (74-63), acquired experience in the East. His Legationes would be found, 46 but apart from this title, nothing seems to have survived. These may have provided Pliny with first-hand information about the Pontus Euxinus. However, Varro does not provide actual data on the subject,47 instead providing estimates long before Pompey's conquests. Pliny also rejects M. Vipsanius Agrippa's estimate of the circumference of the Pontus Euxinus,48 although in many other cases it is based on information from him.49 From which Agrippa's writings was Pliny's material taken? bill. Agrippa was concerned about the situation of the Regnum Bosporanum at various times, particularly in the face of the turmoil of the civil war that he waged in 16 BC. he ended up just surfacing with his fleet at Sinope on the opposite shore. He did not travel much further on this sea, but there is no doubt that he had a clear idea of the Regnum Bosporanum, both politically and geographically. C. Licinius Mucianus, another source for Pliny, was consul three times, probably under Nero and definitely under Vespasian. He visited Asia Minor on several official occasions and therefore probably had the opportunity to learn about the Pontus Euxinus. From his memoirs, Pliny took, among other things, an estimate of the size of him .50

44 Plin., HN 4,77; 6.5. 45 Vgl. Plin., HN 5,5. 46 Vgl. Sallmann 1971, 245f.; 267. 47 Plin., HN 4.77f. Vgl. Salmann 1971, 258f. 48 Plin., HN 4,77. 49 Plin., HN 4,78; 4,81; 4,83; 4.91. 50 Plin., HN 4,77f.

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2.5 Arian In 132/133 AD. Arrian of Nicomedia (also known as L. Flavio Arriano in the Roman character for him) was a Propraetorian legate in the province of Cappadocia under Hadrian. As such, he traveled from Trapezus to Sebastopolis, along the northeast coast of his province, for inspection purposes. He then prepared for the emperor a Latin account of this particular voyage and supplemented it, drawing on various sources, with descriptions of the remaining coastal areas in a Greek voyage by Pontus Euxinus. Thus, it contains the account of the inspection tour of Trapezus to Sebastopolis (1-11), followed by a description of the route from the Thracian Bosporus to Trapezus (12-16), and finally the stage of Dioscurias to Byzantium via the mouth of the Tanaïs.51 Da Arrian had seen the route from Trapezus to Sebastopolis with his own eyes, he needed no special sources; rather, it was memories of him as a highly educated Greek that led him to mention Homer, Xenophon, myths like the tale of the Argonauts, Orestes, Prometheus, and Hephaestus, and the aetiologies of various cities. Most of the military details are unavoidable since this passage from the Periplus is primarily an inspection report. Arrian evidently follows Xenophon's Anabasis for his description of the southern coastal route from the Thracian Bosphorus to the Trapezoid.52 Xenophon's influence is still present when he comments on Salmydessos at the end of the third part of the Periplus from Dioscuria to Byzantium; for it was the beach of Salmydessos that Xenophon's ten thousand migrated south after their long westward march.53 The sources of Arrian's journey from Dioscuria to Salmydessos are difficult to determine. The exact description of the coast from Dioscurias to Isiacon Limen (a place whose position cannot be determined with certainty) can be explained by the current interest in some events at the royal court of the Bosporus. In fact, during Arrian's inspection tour, the news reached him that Tiberius Iulius Cotys II had died at the end of AD 131. C.54 Given the power vacuum in the Bosporian, it seemed possible that Hadrian might intervene. This did not happen, however, as Rhoimetalces, son of Cotys, ascended the throne without complications. In all probability, the familiarity documented by Arrian or his source was based on the coastal area from Dioscurias to Isiakon Limen.

51 9v42–16r1 (Diller 1952, 129–136). 52 Cf. Xen., An. 4.7-6.6. Véase también Bosworth 1993a, 244-246. 53 Cf. Xen., An. 7.5.12–14 con Arr., Peripl. P.Eux. 25.1f. 54 Arr., Peripl. P.Eux. 17.3.

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that this kingdom had been a client of Rome since Augustus recognized Asander as king.55 The description of the coast between Isiacon Limen and Salmydessus is much less detailed. This applies in particular to the lack of information about the route from Isiacon Limen to Psilon in the Istros estuary. Arrian's source calls it "a nameless wasteland", but this is an area where e.g. Cities such as Tyras and Niconion were established. Are we really to believe that so competent an author as Menippus of Pergamum, who is credited as the source of Arrian, was capable of such errors? Equally problematic is the assumption of a gap in this part of Arrian's source text.57 2.6 Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy was a Greek scholar in Alexandria who received Roman citizenship during the reign of the adoptive emperors (2nd century AD). Among many other works, he compiled a Geographike Hyphegesis (after AD 150) to provide a basis for a cartographic representation of the earth. For this he included in his work (Books 2 to 7) a list of all the geographies of the Oikoumene, identifying their positions by the intersection of longitude and latitude. Like Pliny, Ptolemy divided his material into the three continents of Europe, Libya (= Africa), and Asia.58 For this reason, the Pontus Euxinus is not treated as a unit. The coast undergoes further dissection as its parts are oriented along different “satrapies and provinces”59 within two continents: In Europe:

• Thrace: from Anchialos to Byzantium (3.11.4f.) • Inferior Moesia: from Cape Pteron to Mesembria (3.10.8); the mouth of the Istros (3.10.2–6); from the mouth of the Axiaces River to Harpis (3.10.14); from the mouth of the Borysthenes River to the mouth of Tanaïs (3.5.7–14)

in Asia:

• Sarmatia Asiatica: from the mouth of the Tanaïs to the mouth of the Corax (5.9.2–10) 55 Lucian, Macr. 17. 56 Cf. the admiration of his contemporaries in Anth. Kind. 9,559. 57 Cf. Bosworth 1993a, 248 including discussion. 58 Ptol., Geog. 2.1.6. 59 Ptol., Geog. 2.1.8.

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• Colchis: from the mouth of Corax to the city of Phasis (5.10.2) • Pontus and Bithynia: from Bithynia Acra to Cytoros (5.1.5–7) • Galatia: from Climax to Amisus (5.4.2f.) • Cappadocia : from Leukosyron Ankon to the mouth of the Apsorros River (5.6.2–7)

Ptolemy's primary source was the unfinished geographical work and a lifetime's work of Marinus of Tyre, whose existence is only documented by laudatory and critical statements in Ptolemy's Geographike Hyphegesis; His work can be dated to the early 2nd century BC. be dated. SHOW. Marinus' special achievement was the inspection and collection of detailed information from the geographic records available to him. Ptolemy also evaluated earlier writings, e.g. the ten volumes of the work of Timósthenes of Rhodes, one of the admirals of Ptolemy II.60 3

Resume

In Ptolemy's time, the Pontus Euxinus had been part of the Roman Empire for over 200 years; it was fully accessible and developed, both politically and economically. Even in classical and Hellenistic times it was a well-known part of the inhabited world, which no Roman needed to explore by autopsy; long before Rome's eastward expansion, it was possible to find out in a wide range of literature. Roman exploration interests moved to the fringes of the inhabited world, a geographic state long since left behind by the Pontus Euxinus. Arrian's Periplus did not add significantly to the body of knowledge available to Rome about the Euxine Pontus. His personal experience in situ was too superficial and mixed with xenophonic reminiscences. In turn, he took information about places and events that he had not obtained himself from Xenophon's anabasis and older periploi. One of them covered the western coast rather superficially, while another offered detailed descriptions of the Regnum Bosporanum, in particular of the peninsula known as Tauric Chersonesus (Crimea), which reliable sources attest61 had been in operation since the 4th century. BC as the main granary in the Pontus Euxinus region for the Athenians. The question of whether Arrian raised the information from him about the Taurian Chersonese coast and coastal areas adja60 3. Cent. See Ptol., Geogr. 1.15.2; 4. 61 Cf. 20:29-35; 34.36; Syll.3 206.15.

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percent on both sides of Menippus's writings cannot be answered because the text base of the surviving fragments is too small. Pliny based his claims about the Pontus Euxinus largely on what had been known for a long time. He trusted Eratosthenes as a trustworthy witness. Varro and Agrippa may have provided new insights, but this cannot be proven beyond doubt from the text of his Naturalis Historia. Pomponius Mela does not inform his readers about the authors of his sources on the Pontus Euxinus; rather, he refers to "others," to "the Greeks and our authors," and to "specific individuals" who have passed on various information about this body of water. However, there could possibly be one or another sound source below, possibly Menippus of Pergamum. Mela's description of the various stretches of coastline follows the same order as the Menippan text. But Mela does not contribute new knowledge either. Strabo provides the most complete description of the Pontus Euxinus. Unfortunately, in an effort to bring his geographical material to life, he makes abundant use of myth and poetry, as well as the works of historians and geographers of bygone times. This does not indicate that the information provided is up to date. More of this can be derived from his personal expertise and experience, consistent with his origins and biography, but his focus is less on the geographical features of Pontus Euxinus than on its history. Compared to other parts of his geographies, geography and history are less clearly separated here. As for the Roman intervention in the region of Ponto Euxino, Strabo only praises the effectiveness of a power that created stability in the face of a complex and sometimes threatening situation. Menippus of Pergamum was the first, and therefore the first author discussed in the context of the Euxine Pontus geographers. His journey62 was admired by his contemporaries, as well as by the late ancient Greek geographer Marciano, who placed him alongside Artemidorus and Strabo, emphasizing that Menippus' journey is of historical interest, not just geographical one.63 But in Marciano's shortened version from Menippus In Periplus we find information on coasts, estuaries, cities, inhabitants, anchorages and distances, but no historical references.

62 das the Epigram of Crinagoras of Mytilene in Anth. Kumpel. 9,559. 63 Marciano in GGM I 566.4–8; 42–44.

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4 Assessment Our initial questions were: Has the addition of the Roman provinces in the Euxinus region, largely by Pompey on the south coast and by M. Licinius Crassus (the triumvir's grandson) on the west coast, resulted in a major increase in knowledge? On this sea? And has this had a significant impact on the geopolitical and geographic status of this region? An unconditional affirmation does not seem possible. The Greeks had already accumulated a great deal of geographical knowledge over the previous 600 years that was too important to ignore. Practical knowledge was collected in navigation manuals and implemented in everyday life; it had become a myth and had become literature like poetry, travelogues, and scholarly treatises. This wealth of impressions had reached Rome centuries before the lives of Pompey and Crassus. They were aware of what awaited them geographically once they reached the Pontus Euxinus; this was common knowledge long before the Empire reached the shores of that sea. Still, some historical aspects of the region may have had some informational value. Strabo's Geographica in general, and his writings on his Pontic region in particular, are a good example, as is Hypsicrates, cited by Strabo, and his reference to Asandros's construction of a defensive barrier on the peninsula near Theodosia. That is why the loss of historical references to the work of Menippus is so tragic. The many geographical writings that no longer survive may have contained equally interesting historical insights. Ultimately, however, it is doubtful that the additional geographical and historical details about the Pontus Euxinus significantly advanced the concepts of Roman geographers beyond what had been passed down to them by the Greeks.

FIGURE 15.1

Ponto Euxino (Map by R. Szydlak).

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CHAPTER 16

Rome and Iberia: the emergence of a cultural geography Gonzalo Cruz Andreotti Ancient science developed essentially through the accumulation of knowledge and speculation. In geography, tradition carried great weight and the paradigms of the past often prevailed without opposition. However, the analytical and reflective role of "scientific" approaches and the discovery of new territories contributed to the advancement of real knowledge embedded in different and diverse literary genres. In short, reason finally triumphed over mere curiosity or the basic need for knowledge.1 The Enlightenment of Iberia by ancient Rome must be understood as a cultural and literary product resulting from the dialectical tension between tradition and innovation. Inherited theoretical models were confronted with auto-optical data and the experience of military conquest. The discussion in this document will follow this premise. Until the arrival of Rome, Iberia had only been partially explored along its coast on either side of the Pillars of Heracles. After its conquest there was an unprecedented qualitative boom in the geographical perception of Iberia. Gradually it moved from the periphery of Rome to an integral part of the Mediterranean world. During this long process, the reality, history and geography of Roman Iberia were often explained and described according to traditional Greek "science". This is not the place to expand the geographical chart available for ancient Iberia from the 7th century BC. until the arrival of Rome. Suffice it to say that it largely depended on its location on the periphery of Mediterranean history and its geographical centrality.2 A large part of its territory * This work is part of the research project financed by MINECO (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness), Identities Ethnicities and civic-political identities in Roman Hispania: the case of Turdetania-Bética (HAR2012-32588). ** English translation by Teresa Erice. 1 Prontera 1984a; 1988; Jacob 1985; 1992; Jacob and Mangani 1985; Arnaud 2013. 2 Podossinov 2014.

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FIGURE 16.1

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Detail from Herodotus' Iberia (Bunbury 1879).

it was unknown, except for the Mediterranean Sea and the nearest Atlantic coast. Iberia did not experience colonization to the same extent as Italy or Sicily and remained far removed from the Hellenic historical space, which is why the region was considered a geographical periphery.3 In addition, the border areas were especially favored for the staging of myths . Precise topographies in the unknown reaches of the world were needed to house gods and other creatures in otherworldly and exotic landscapes. The Pillars of Heracles became a cultural landmark, a boundary between the known world (order) and the unknown (chaos). They separated the Inland Sea from the Ocean and announced all navigation to the Atlantic at a time when the borders of the world were being drawn. They witnessed battles between heroes and gods of the underworld, while the Greeks and Phoenicians were already sailing along the same coasts.4 Heracles and the Pillars are present in the first geographical references to Iberia in the Late Archaic (Stesichorus,

3 Dominguez Monetero 2006; 2013. 4 For a general assessment of mythical geography, see Jourdain-Annequin 1989; Ballabriga 1986; currently: Bernard 2012. On Western mythology: Prontera 2004a; Janni 1998a; 2008

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fr. 184 page PMG – cf.Apollod. 2.5.10; pherek. FGrHist 3 F 18).5 It was a frontier area known for heroic deeds. Herodot6 was also influenced by myth. His brief comments on the Tartessos River and the presence of Samians and Phoceans in the area are loaded with mythical references to the limits of the world and the figure of Heracles as a culture hero. Such was the popularity and persistence of the tradition that Hecataeus was forced to vigorously deny the existence of the Theban hero in the West.7 The myth survived in the writings of other authors, some as respected as Ephorus and Timaeus, the latter heavily criticized. by Polybius precisely for the reproduction of old stories, myths and legends. Strabo, for example, was still immersed in the debate about the position of the columns, placed alternately in Gades or in the Strait,8 which clearly speaks of the survival of a cultural and religious geography in the geohistorical tradition.9 The development of Geographical science was framed by the studies of the rising of the diaphragm and the controversies about the habitability of the northern latitudes that arose after the voyage of Pytheas. However, there were no major changes in the general panorama of Iberia, apart from noting the shape of the coast and its condition as a peninsula bordered by the Pyrenees. Despite the transmission difficulties, data on the Mediterranean coast and its most important settlements such as Gades or Emporion can be found in the Periplo literature (Ps.Scylax, Ps.Scymnus or Avienus10), although framed in a simplified ethnic context ( Tartessians, Iberians . . . ) and a religious topography more typical of navigators than of geographers. In summary, before the arrival of Rome, Iberian geography was essentially built on a qualitative and cultural perception of space, because Historical Real5 Cruz Andreotti 1991a. 6 hours 4,152 (Samians); 1.163–165 (Phocaeans); 4.8.1–3 (Heracles and Gades). See Cruz Andreotti 1991b. General: Domínguez Monedero 2006; 2013; Cruz Andreotti 2002, 2004; 2010; Moret 2006. 7 FGrHist 1 F 26 (cf. Cruz Andreotti 2010; Moret 2004). 8 Strab. 3.5.5-6. is a good example of the survival of this cultural worldview well into the Roman Empire. Heroes were the central figures in origin myths that preceded colonial and historical events. Strabo emphasized the distinction between the cairn of the Straits columns and the Phoenician columns of the Gadir temple; He respected the Greek tradition, although he could not avoid mentioning other versions that still existed. See Panichi 2013 (forthcoming). 9 Jacob 1997. 10 Ps.Scyl. 23; Ps.Scymn. 198-200; Avien., O. March 249-53; 470-75; 414-21. See González Ponce 1995; Marcotte 2006.

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The city was not attractive to the outside observer. In order to translate empirical experience into geography, it also had to become a historical interest created by events involving the Greek cities and their geographers and historians. Although frequented by sailors and merchants who brought myths and legends with them, the coast of Iberia remained unknown to armies and colonists.11 Spatial perception did not change until the map became the focus of geographic debate for a very specific group in Alexandria. . would do . Outstanding figures such as Pytheas, Eratosthenes or Hipparchus broke the cultural barrier represented by the Pillars of Heracles. Although Iberia was no longer a place built by heroes, it was only with the arrival of Rome that its physical characteristics were recorded in historical-geographical narratives that later replaced the Alexandrian cartographic tradition. This transition will be deepened in the following sections.12 1

Rome and the geography of Iberia

The Roman occupation did not automatically imply a progressive and extensive knowledge of the Iberian territories. Physical reality was not conveyed through literature but through generals, merchants, officers, magistrates, and their endless reports, both public and private. Aided by an apparent increase in information, a transfer of knowledge between the public and the literary world was inevitable, though not as direct and direct as might be supposed. Knowledge and enlightenment only mattered in a broader context of cultural perception. Governors and officials have reflected on geographic information to understand very different and heterogeneous realities and to build comprehensible, global and indulgent narratives of the process of domination (cf. Strab. 1.1.16).13 This dialectical tension between reality and perception is better summarized to understand as part of a diachronic narrative, from the contribution of the Greek tradition. The Romans did not see the Iberian Peninsula from the perspective of the traveler or the settler -two very different points of view- but from the perspective of the conqueror who wanted to colonize and exploit the territory and had to justify such a large human and material capital. costs. The responsible intellectuals could 11 Gómez Espelosín 1993. 12 Prontera 1990; 1996b; 2006b; Bianchetti 2008a; Ciprés Torres and Cruz Andreotti 1998. 13 Cadiou 2006.

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Realities, in the same way that the Roman occupation brought about a radical change. In the old cultural tradition, knowledge was cumulative; geographical spaces were built as part of a continuum in which the past was diluted in the present. The changes were also marked by previous states of the places and their inhabitants, which at times seemed immutable. Inherited knowledge was also an important part of the cumulative process that corresponded to the ancient cultural tradition. Alexandria's geography quickly established itself as canon, and no major geographer would have ignored it. From Ephorus it was considered a necessary complement to any historical account. Therefore, the cartography of Iberia had to be revised, since it was no longer a border area, but the western end of the known world and the Diaphragm terminus. Geography could not be understood without a map; the map defines the shape, extent, and location. The columns ceased to function as a cultural boundary, and it was the Sacred Promontory that began to play that role, representing in an east-west projection -an effective change of orientation- the true finis terrae of the diaphragm. It was also generally accepted that Iberia was a peninsula, an important factor in the creation of habitable spaces since Herodotus. In this way, Iberia was given clear borders and became an integral part of the Mediterranean world. The Pyrenees were already considered its cartographic limit, although it only became a historical limit as the conquest progressed. The first task was to define the shape and extent of the peninsula. The great contribution of the Alexandrian school was to open a debate on issues to be reviewed by geographers and historians, despite the different criticisms and opinions about the real advances of this school.14 Scholars and historians, with varying degrees of precision, reached a point common cartographic language and descriptive uses. The coastline remained the main component in the original configuration of a map, but the great mountain ranges and rivers gradually became the backbone of the interior of Iberia, used to calculate and articulate space. The demarcated territories had to be defined internally (plain/mountain/coast/rivers) because these elements determined climatic and life conditions that could be used in a broader sense to describe the life of their inhabitants based on their natural and material resources. Ethnic groups and communities also defined the personality of geographic spaces according to their degree of barbarism. Initially, they were viewed in terms of their resistance or their adaptation to conquest and pacification. Some were 'new', some were 'old', and they took on new meanings with the 2006 Rome 14 Prontera; Bianchetti 2008; Gomez Fraile and Albaladejo Vivero 2012; Marcotte 2006.

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Arrival, although, as will be seen later, they never fail to preserve much of their original essence. The ethnography of the Iberian Peninsula during the Roman era alternated between discovery and stereotype, since numerous nuances were added to the term "barbarian" (previous historical circumstances, natural conditions, degree of resistance to the conquest...). Communities and peoples were presented in a harmonious and homogeneous way, the whole was preferred to the part and exhaustive knowledge was dispensed with instead of offering a coherent picture, a representation, as has been the custom in geography since time immemorial. Strabo's words summarize the extension of such a geography that united nature and culture 2.5.14: "(. . .) It is necessary to imagine a definite parallelogram in which the chlamysoid shape is engraved in such a way that its greatest length coincides with it coincides and is equal to the length [of the parallelogram] and whose width coincides [and is equal] to its width. This clamised form is the inhabited world. 2.5.16: "With this general form it seems convenient to take two straight lines that intersect at right angle, one passing through the greatest width and the other passing through the longitude. The first will be one of the parallels and the other of the meridians. Then one should think of parallel lines on both sides separating the land and the sea that we are using. (. Means of these. Using them as a kind of primitive we can build the parallel parts, as well as the other positions of the inhabited places both on earth and in relation to the sky. 2.5.17: “The sea mainly describes e land and determines its shape, giving rise to gulfs, open seas and straits, as well as isthmuses, peninsulas and capes, aided by both rivers and mountains. This is how the continents, the towns and the favorable location of the cities are understood, as well as the variety that fills the chorographic plan, including the numerous islands scattered both in the open sea and along the coast. Different [places] have different merits and demerits, exhibiting advantages or difficulties, some according to nature, but others according to humanity. effort The natural ones must be discussed because they remain, but what is imposed changes

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as to the latter, it should be noted that those which are strong enough to last a long time, or which do not last long but nevertheless have some distinction or reputation and last to later times, have a certain characteristic which harmonizes with the place, so that so it no longer counts as something created and must be clearly recorded. (. . .) However, they find it pleasant to go to these and other places because they want to see the traces of memorable events, like the graves of esteemed men. Thus we have registered customs and governments that no longer exist (invoked for their usefulness), as well as acts with the purpose of imitation or avoidance” (Roller, 2014). The Greek tradition served as the basis for the elaboration of the Roman historical geography of Iberia, so in the strict sense it was not simply a geography of conquest or Romanization. Certain authors, presented below, marked historical periods contributing to important changes in scientific knowledge, but above all in the literary perspective of geographic space. 2

Polybius and the conquest of Iberia

The most influential of these scientists was Polybius. He proclaimed himself, in a characteristic burst of intellectual pride, the true discoverer of the West (Polyb. 3: 58-59). He claimed to be the first to bring the West to genuine historical and geographical knowledge, where before it had only been the commonplace of myth and legend or the fanciful speculation of misinformed office historians. The Roman armies—and especially those of Scipio, whom he accompanied—opened the way for him.15 Polybian geography followed the line of Ephorus, 16 with each description completely subservient to the historical purpose of the work (Polib. 3.58.1; 12.25 ). and. one ). Seen as a structural component of the nature of historical events, geography must not go beyond the purpose of causation 15 . For the geography of Polybius see: Clarke 1999, sp. p. 81-97; Cruz Andreotti 2004b; Pedech 1956; Prontera 2001b; 2003; Texier 1976; Walbank 1948. For the Iberian Peninsula see: Cruz Andreotti 2003; 2006; Moret 2003a. 16 Polybius recognized the influence of Ephorus in his work, although, unlike his predecessor, he narrowed down the geographical information more and scattered it throughout the written work, while the Cumean was known for his long geographical introductions (Polyb. 5 :33.1-2; 34.1.1-5).

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Explanation or objectives of a military narrative. Literary concessions that contained not only rhetorical language, but also references to landscapes, accidents, curiosities, stories, towns, etc., were not admitted. not directly related to the events being narrated at that time, which generally dealt with military or political issues, so as not to distract the reader from the main theme (Polyb. 9.2.1; 4.6; 12.25h; 12.26d). These works are better described as topographies or chorographies than as geographies in the traditional Greek sense (Polyb. 5.21.4–10), accompanied by a geocartographic description, which could be regional or continental, but always simple and easy to remember (Polyb. 3.36.1–5). For example, sober descriptions of the geography of Italy (Poland, Sicily, the Peninsula) complemented the narrative of campaigns such as the Gallic conquest or the First and Second Punic Wars. . .,18 which in most cases leads to geographies useful for combat and military strategy (mountains and ports, plains, coasts, communication routes, difficulties and strategic advantages, resources, etc.). In rarer cases, geographies may also contain information about the character, behavior, and way of life of the communities encountered by Rome. However, without a cartographic basis, it would have been impossible for the geographer to organize a historical narrative involving events occurring simultaneously in different places, especially if he had drawn on it several times (Polyb. 1.4; 5.21.4–10). Thus Polybius was sometimes forced to pause in his narrative to make the boundaries clear and understandable and to give the reader a real geography lesson (Polyb. 3:36-8).19 This is especially true of his famous Book 34. Here Polybius reflected on issues not related to political or military events but to debates on the geography of Alexandria, such as the reliability of sources, Homer's historicism, the habitability of the hemispheres, etc. (cf. Polyb. 3.57.1-6, 58 and 59) .20 With virtually all of western Oikoumene conquered, Polybius felt the time had come to review the western Sfragids of Eratosthenes 17 Prontera 2001b; 2003. 18 See Polyb. 1.41.7; 42; 2.14–16: Brief descriptions of the shape and contours of the territory have been simplified by using a geometric figure easily remembered by the reader, accompanied by a few words about the communities that inhabited the land and, at most, a few clues about their wealth and wealth way of life. 19 See Janni 2003. 20 Pédech 1956; Wall bench 1948.

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in its entirety and to discuss certain theoretical questions arising from geographical astronomy and Pytheas' travels in that part of the world (which he considered amateurish - Polyb. 34:5).21 Polybius called for a more empirical and credible approach (as z one derived from his descriptions of the Iberian coast due to Hannibal's voyage to Italy), leading him to question the true extent of Massiliot's voyage. than is actually known.23 Polybius's Iberia was spatially constructed by Rome, leaving no room for past geographies.24 Polybius himself realized that it would be more accessible through the wonders of the Strait of Gibraltar or to read the riches of western Gibraltar. , among other accounts traditionally used by historians and geographers the (polyb. 3.57.2–4), however, rejected the term because it had no relevance to what it was trying to represent at the time of the Second Punic War, in which it appeared for first time on stage Although it was evident that he knew that Iberia was a peninsula (as he later states at 34.7 and 8), at first he included only the Mediterranean coast from the Pillars to the Pyrenees, and according to his method he recalculated the distances to the new available. data from Hannibal's trip to Italy – Polyb. 3.39.25 He was unable to name the interior because it was divided into numerous tribes that could only be defined after his conquest (Polyb. 3.17.2, 36.1–4, and 37.11).26 As the conquest progressed, so did the Exploration . from Iberia (Topoi: Polyb. 2.1.5; 3.13.2; 17.3 etc.). Territories were articulated around important natural features, and especially around ethnic groups, once they became known through contact with Rome and Carthage. The Iberians of the Mediterranean coast (on both sides of the Ebro) played a central role during the Second Punic War. They were organized by city, ethnicity, and other smaller but significant family groups (Polyb. 3.98.1, 7 and 9; 10.18.4) and were led by princes or chiefs (Polyb. 3.76.6; 10.18; 10.34 and 35). , Etc). They are followed in geographical proximity by the Celtiberians, an ethnic group “in transition” that had a 21 See Bianchetti 2005. 22 Zecchini 1991. 23 Prontera 2001b; 2003. 24 An exhaustive study with complete bibliography: Ciprés Torres 1993; Cruz Andreotti 2003. 25 New data allowed him to recalculate the triangle formed by Narbona at the vertex and the Strait of Messina and the columns at the sides (Prontera 2004b). 26 For the different conception of Iberia in Polybius (in a restricted or loose sense) see Moret 2003a.

FIGURE 16.2

The Iberia of Polybius (courtesy of P. Moret).

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Territory between the coast and the interior (configured by the Ebro river and the Idubeda mountain range). They built their territory through military expansion. At their highest peak they occupied central Iberia up to the source of the Baetis river (Polyb. 3.17.2; 34.9.12-13; cf. Strab. 3.4.12 and Plin., HN 3.25, 26, 27 and 29) great fame for their resistance against the Carthaginians and later the Romans in the mid-2nd century B.C. Its expansion and military and political power were reflected in its prominence at the time (Polib. 3.5.1)27. Cartography occupied a subordinate place in geographic knowledge. It has been presented in a clear and simple way, clearly different from the complex cartography of the Alexandrian tradition based on parallels and meridians. For Polybius it was enough to delimit the Mediterranean coast between the Pyrenees and the Columns (the first area that came into contact with Rome) - Polybius. 3.34 and 39 - and later represent only some transversal courses (rivers such as the Ebro, Baetis, Anas or Tejo - Polyb. 34.9.12; 10.39.8 and 40.11-12 etc.) or longitudinal (mountains such as the Pyrenees and Idubeda - cf Polyb. 3.17.2; 10.7.3) to give shape and extent to the interior of Iberia occupied by recognizable ethnic groups and/or cities, which only gained concrete importance as the Roman armies advanced west and north. He managed to complete a map simply by drawing the length of the Tagus from east to west (8,000 stadia and another 1,000 between the source of the Tagus and the Pyrenees), placing the latter from north to south; and detailing the route followed by Hannibal between the Columns and Gaul (8,000 stadia). The result was an unfinished map, but empirically supported by his personal experience and first-hand data (Polyb. 34.5.12-14). Iberia was first presented as a peninsula, with the Pyrenees functioning as a clear boundary between Iberia and Gaul (Polyb. 3.37.9–11; 39.4). He defined the peninsula more clearly in Book 34 in relation to other western Mediterranean peninsulas, presumably with the aim of emphasizing Italy's centrality in the new world order. War, conquest, and territorial control have tangled Polibio's geography and cartography, contributing to his precision, 27 See Ciprés Torres 1993; 2006; Beltrán Lloris 2004. Polibio's ethnohistory of Iberia is full of significant historical details that are far removed from the descriptive stereotypes of the time about barbarism (González Rodríguez 2003). For example, although Rome gave the Celtiberians their name and defined their historical character, Polybius also recognized the complexity of the Celtiberians' social and political development before the conquest, which only altered and accelerated afterwards. In fact, the Celtiberians acted as a central force in the formation of ethnic identities in central Iberia. Another example of social complexity is found among the Iberians, who were organized around cities, families, and ethnic groups, complementary identities that alternated times of war and peace. These are just two examples among others.

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which was genuinely historical: the 'discoveries' of the Pyrenees and the other mountains and rivers of the Iberian interior were the result of the wars against Hannibal, the Celtiberians and the Lusitanians that pushed the Romans into the Atlantic - as was the 'discovery' and the enlightenment of Italy were also the result of these wars.28 Space in Polybius only gained importance when it became historically relevant. There was no confirmed geographic reality for Polybius unless it was derived from data collected by politicians and military campaigns. This position explicitly denied the centrality of the cartographic geography defended by the Alexandrian school. Polybius argued that his obsession with centrality and the map had led her to establish a set of western limits based on highly questionable dates when no map could exist without historical knowledge. This "empirical geography of the present" challenged earlier geographies based on traditional historiography. It brought about a Copernican revolution in the perception of the Iberian Peninsula. Iberia was no longer defined by cultural geographies built on speculation and legend. It was no longer a missing piece in a cartographic puzzle, but a specific place with geographic features that had a physical and historical relationship to Rome. Its personality derived from being a peninsula at the western end of the known world, a frontier condition that it eventually renounced to become an integral part of Mediterranean civilization. 3

Artemidoros and the geography of the Roman settlement

It is not the purpose of this article to expand the debate on the authenticity of the so-called "Artemidorus Papyrus" or the accompanying map, which was recently found and caused so much controversy. In any case, columns IV and V of the document, which refer to Iberia, seem to be a selection of texts by Artemidoro -or attributed to Cástulo-, the question of Lusitania, the place names of Kilibe and Ipsa, or the reference to the river Obleuion - Lethe, even in some partial measures. 218-24; Moret 2003, especially 282 pp.; Prontera 1996c, sp. 339-41; Beltrán Lloris and Pina Polo 1994. 29 Prontera 2012a, 184; D'Alessio 2009. 30 Moret 2012, 33.

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of P. Moret31 was the morphology given to space, which inevitably led to a cartographic representation. So it must be seen in the light of the preceding tradition. The text of the papyrus allows it.32 However, the map that accompanies the text does not represent Iberia.33 Therefore, not much is mentioned about the subject, only some aspects that distinguish it from its famous predecessor (Polybius) and in Particular of the Iberian geographer par excellence, Strabo. Curiously, despite his fame as a first-class geographer (at least in late antiquity: Martian of Heracleia), Artemidorus's work has survived only in fragments. This may be due to difficulties in the transmission of ancient knowledge, since his work did not correspond to tradition; it represented neither the Hellenistic tradition from which it came nor the emerging Roman perspective on geography. Artemidorus, who followed Polybius for a few decades, differed in his cartographic design. His map, though apparently under review, was sealed with clear boundaries. The geography of Artemidoro does not resemble a geography of conquest, but of political occupation, aided by incipient military and administrative mechanisms. Evidence for this change can be found in his territorial perspective (like that of Polybius) in contrast to the maritime perspective of Pytheas and Eratosthenes. Significantly, in his first two books on geography, Strabo ignored Artemidorus while he discussed the purely cartographic tradition. However, he used it as a source when developing the choreographic part, specifically Book 3 on Iberia in aspects such as nature, ethnography or history - he refers to it up to 12 times! (cf. Strab. 10.3.5) .34 On the other hand, the information conveyed by the papyrus was limited to the route of travel and cartographic data, which allows a "reconstruction" of the map of it as an alternative to the map of Polybius. It may be that Strabo favored Polybius in matters of cartography and only recognized Artemidorus for his chorographic or cultural-historical work. 31 Ibid. 32 The controversy over the authenticity of the papyrus has been dealt with in detail by Luciano Canfora. A lighter approach to his position can be found in C. Schiano (2010). See Marcotte 2010a and 2012b for a measured and clear overall assessment of the question. They are followed by Moret (2012) and Prontera (2012a), the edition by Gallazzi, Kramer and Settis (2008) and the colloquium they edited in 2012. Also Pajón Leyra 2012. 33 Moret 2003b; 2012, particularly pp. 35–44, and Prontera 2012a, on the ancient geographic tradition of drawing maps with dates other than those in the text, at least until the publication of the codex, see Prontera 2010. 34 Prontera 2012a; Panichi 2013 (coming soon).

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As shown on the papyrus, Artemidorus described the three sides of Iberia in a simplified and schematic manner, outlining the coastline and combining sea and land distances at a time when Rome was building a reliable and secure road network. Iberia was conceived as a quadrilateral, with the east coast formed by the north-south projection of the Pyrenees; the North Coast in the Gulf immediately to the west thereof; the west coast at Cape Artabri, running south to the Strait/Gades, where the Sacred Headland marked the boundary between Lusitania and the Gades "Region"; finally the Mediterranean Sea bordered the southern coast. Four main rivers (Baetis; Anas; Tejo and Duero) flowed into the west façade, while only two flowed into the south (Sucro and Ebro rivers). (P. Artemid. Cols. IV 14–V 45).35 He also used newly established areas and provincial boundaries to organize space on the map.36 His work reflects close connections with Roman reality in the second century. a. C. Geographers such as Varro and Pliny, evidenced by certain interpretive agreements, such as the identification of Gades with the Pillars of Heracles (apud Strab. 3.5.5; Artemid. fr. 1 and 9 Stiehle; cf. Plin., HN 2.167; 242 3.3 and 4).37 On the other hand, the work of Artemidorus differed greatly from that of Strabo, who is known for his cultural digressions and lack of topographical precision, as exemplified by Strab. 3.1.4, where Strabo was more interested in the cultural role of the Sacred Promontory, in contrast to Artemidorus, who was more interested in its precise topography and schematic role of it in the far western paraplo. Artemidorus not only built a new and complete map, in contrast to Polybius's unfinished draft, but also followed the Hellenistic 35 Moret 2012, 63–68. 36 Iberia was identified with Hispania (P. Artemid. col. IV 1–5); and the limits between the provinces of Ulterior and Citerior were established. Carthago Nova, Castulo, and the source of the Baetis River (the ancient Saltus tugiensis, located 120 km north of Castulo) were not specific geographic landmarks but geopolitical boundaries (i.e., approximate boundaries for magistrate rule in each province). . Cástulo was a junction in the communication routes that connected the Mediterranean coast with the interior (P. Artemid. col. IV 5-14) (see Moret 2012, 49-56). Knowing that Tarraco and Gades were connected by two alternative roads (inland and coastal - Saetabis / Castulo / Corduba; Cartago Nova / Malaka / Calpe, respectively - Artemid. fr. 1 Stiehle) helped Artemidoro, the map of Iberia and calculate its extension. All of these examples are, among other things, evidence of Artemidorus's Roman perspective on geography, which survived Titus Livy and later Pliny. 37 For the cartographic debate between Gades and the Strait, see Moret 2012, 57–59 and Panichi 2013 (forthcoming).

FIGURE 16.3

The Iberia of Artemidoro (courtesy of P. Moret).

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Tradition (found in Eratosthenes), space to articulate ethnopolitical groups defined as more or less barbaric according to their proximity to the Mediterranean. Therefore, Lusitania was the most barbaric, while Gades was the most civilized (P. Artemid. col. IV 13–14).38 However, all areas were grouped together as part of one territory, Iberia/Hispania, which de facto it was dominated by Rome. , a reality, which allowed him to name all the interior spaces. In short, Artemidorus combined the genuine Hellenistic tradition as seen in his map designs with contemporary Roman reality. The establishment of Roman power and administration allowed him to build the spatial reality of Iberia.39 4

Strabo and the historical reconstruction of Iberia

Strabo will be the subject of a more detailed analysis because the Geography is one of the reference works of ancient geography. Colossal and encyclopedic (Estrab. 1.1.1; 15, 16 and 23), Strabo introduced the long tradition of ancient knowledge acquired in the history and geography of Iberia. Strabo, striving to create an independent literary genre, combined in his work different branches of geographical practice that were closely related but arose separately. It combined with historical and cultural geography that originated with Herodotus and continued with Ephorus and Timaeus, with the Alexandrian school that focused on map making, and finally also with current geography that confirmed the existence of Space recognized only after the conquest once acquired administrative and political importance. This latter geographical approach allowed for more extensive descriptions that eventually eclipsed the more analytical approaches of Roman times.40 Strabo did not belong to any of these already vaguely defined tendencies; He embodied a truly mixed approach that could be confusing at times. Strabo tried to present his work in a coherent, harmonious and simple way, avoiding excessive formality or detail, maintaining both tradition and critical approaches. In general, Strabo's work was rich and complex due to the various approaches he took. The first two books by him stand out clearly from the others. In it he defined geography and reviewed the contribution of the Alexandrian school. 38 Numerous examples can be found in Strabo. 39 Artemidorus' Iberia in the cartographic context of Polybius, Strabo and Pliny is presented in detail in Moret 2012, 70-78. 40 Prontera 1984a; Cruz Andreotti 2007a.

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The rest are better characterized as chorographies, in which historical geography replaced the map. Taken together, his map differed greatly from that of Artemidorus and even more so from the maps of Eratosthenes and Polybius (revised by Poseidonius). In the first place, the long side of the triangle between Narbonne and the Strait measured 2,500 stades, compared to the 2,000 mentioned by Polybius. Therefore, the Mediterranean coast was steeper. The Holy Promontory jutted out further to the west, forming the westernmost point of the map, parallel to the Pillars, while Artemidorus's position differed markedly from that of Gades. The result looked more like a square than a rectangle.41 None of this seemed to matter, however, when, in Book 3, he restricted the description of Iberia's shape to a simple comparison to a bull's skin, accompanied data about its length. and width, and the enumeration of a series of capes and chasms on its sides (Strab. 3.1.3). Enough information was provided to his audience, knowledgeable readers, but without specific cartographic knowledge, to form a clear idea of the site (Strab. 1.1.21-22). Book 3, which deals with Iberia, is more than just a sum of different sources; the use of one over the other depended on the geohistorical development that Strabo recognized for each area.42 When there was evidence of a site before the arrival of Rome, he cited ancient authors to support his historical perspective, as if he were dealing with archaeological sites. deal with the evidence.43 Where there was nothing but barbarism and lack of civilization, the Roman conquest was the only

41 Prontera 1999; 2006b; 2007; Moret 2012, 73-76. His problems in understanding and adjusting the cartographic boundary are well known; one particular example has been cited at length: while in 2.4.3 he rejected the distance of 5,000 stades proposed by Hipparchus for the distance between the Gulf of Lion and Libya, in 2.5.8 he accepted it without making a declaration of longitude Iberia, the sector west of the Oikoumene, or the latitudes of Massalia and Narbonne (in Strab. 2.4.4 and 5.27). His objections may be due to the fact that he had not entered his dates into a work schedule. 42 Trotta 1999. 43 Turdetania is the most important example. Its origins go back to Homer's Nostoi, the mythical version of the ancient colonization, and to the legendary Tartessus, considered the oldest and most prestigious Western civilization. The region of ancient Tartessus experienced accelerated economic and cultural progress thanks to its privileged natural resources -a harmonious combination of valleys, coasts, mountains and navigable rivers that gave rise to unprecedented agricultural, fishing and mining production centered on the cities of the developed Tals- and by external factors that favored the growth of the area, more recently Rome (Strab. 3.1.6 ss. and 1.2 passim). For all: Cruz Andreotti 1993; 2007b; 2010; Castro Páez, Cruz Andreotti (forthcoming).

FIGURE 16.4

Strabo's Iberia (courtesy of P. Moret).

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recognizable past.44 It grouped ethnic entities under a common name and a defined territory bounded by great rivers and mountain ranges.45 They were shaped by the complexity of warfare, but also by their resilience or ability to absorb and communicate with urban Mediterranean cultures . before the arrival of Rome. Rome was only one of several external and internal factors that intervened in the ethnogenetic process experienced by the ethnic groups of Iberia. Although Iberia encompassed a heterogeneous reality, it was a physically limited geographical entity. Historically, its identification as a coherent cartographic entity—a peninsula—coincided with its advance toward civilization, which was not necessarily understood as Romanization.46 The distinction between inland and coastal communities was not as simple as a mere confrontation between civilization and barbarism. . In the interior of the country, favorable climatic and topographic conditions for urban development became difficult. They were communities that lived isolated in the mountains and far from fertile and well-connected valleys. While there is some truth to this geographic opposition that Strabo used to structure his narrative,47 it is no less true that other factors also played an important role in creating historical and cultural differences between the communities of Iberia. For example, the Lusitanians were rich in natural resources but were considered backward and barbaric due to their practices of banditry and robbery, which Rome tried to stamp out (Strab. 3.3.8). The same happens with the Celtiberians, who were characterized by their warrior culture, although the Ebro Valley provided the perfect setting for other forms of life. Only when they were finally defeated and pacified, their expansionist ambitions suppressed, did they begin to develop urban ways of life, reduced to their limits by Rome.

44 Lusitanos, Welsh, Asturians and Cantabrians were found at the extremes of Iberia and were only recognized as ethnic groups after the conquest (Estrab. 3.3 and 3.4.10 ss). Rome not only gave them their name, but they also changed their way of life, bringing them down from the mountains and herding them around cities as part of the pacification process. Strabo overlooked smaller ethnic groups and did not even identify them, or even attempt to replicate their unpronounceable names (Strab. 3.3.7). His attitude reveals his proximity to contemporary historical perspectives, which understood ethnogeographical landscapes only after they had been modified by Roman armies and administration. See García Quintela 2007 and Ciprés Torres 1993. 45 Turdetania was surrounded by the Baetis/Tartessus river; the Iberians on the coast; Celtiberia on the Ebro river; Lusitania in the Tagus; and the mountain communities were taken to the plains from the Cantabrian Mountains. Counillon 2007. 46 Cruz Andreotti and Ciprés Torres 2011; Cruz Andreotti 2014. 47 Council 2007.

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historical territory (Strab. 3.4.20).48 On the other hand, although the northern communities scandalized the Romans with certain social or eating habits (such as the gathering of wild plants or cleaning with urine - Strab. 3.3.7 and 4.16 ), as a consequence of their isolation they also practiced ritual combat or hecatombs in the Homeric manner, showing that they defended certain heroic values (Estrab. 3.3.7) that Strabo did not disapprove of. The coastal Iberians and Turdetans, despite their favorable living conditions, were never able to form contiguous unitary states and were therefore always dominated by foreigners due to their weakness of character, which was compensated by their ability to learn. from their invaders and organize themselves in the best way. of social organization for the exploitation of natural resources (Estrab. 3.4.5; 13). Barbarism or civilization always varied in light of different cultural values. The hospitality of the southern and Mediterranean communities towards the invading forces was viewed positively given the cultural development these communities enjoyed as a result; on the other hand, the warrior culture was not negative either insofar as it served Rome (Estrab. 3.3.8). Strabo's ethnography is historical and cultural, judging each group on its personality, its ability to learn from other cultures, its ability to unite and articulate into larger and stronger groups, or to transform its talents into virtues. Despite Strabo's historical and cultural theories applied to the development of communities and their territories, and despite his rhetoric of the other, there is still a lot of information that can be filtered into historical processes that are not found in other documents, particularly processes of ethnic articulation, occurring with or without a Roman impulse, which in turn are reflected in other types of evidence. For example, the term "Celtiberian" clearly refers to the union of two ethnic groups, coined by foreigners to understand and simplify a more complex reality. However, it can be concluded from Strabo's lines that contemporary literature recognized certain phenomena of integration and social expansion under this term.49 Although Strabo recognized these transformations only from a military point of view, later both the Celtiberian war and cohesion social posed a threat to Rome Interests in what led to the bloody Numantine War. First the military threat

48 Strabo rejected any idea that the Celtiberians had developed urban ways of life before the arrival of Rome, as suggested by Polybius and Poseidonius (Strab. 3.4.13). 49 This is what underlies the statement "they brought from the whole neighboring country the same name as theirs" (Estrab. 3.2.11) or the controversy over the (mere) parts of the historical region of Celtiberia (Estrab. 3.4. 13). and 19).

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disappeared, Rome found the term useful to include these areas as part of the province, a broad and imprecise administrative framework.50 The dynamic nature of ethnicity is widely recognized in current research as one of the key factors in the transition from the era pre-roman to the Roman to the Iberian Peninsula. Strabo observed this for southern Iberia. Not only did he rhetorically consider the region as an ideal land for the development of civilization, but a closer reading reveals that he presented the Guadalquivir region as a place of interaction between cultures.51 The Phoenicians and Punians were the seeds of ancient Tartessus civilization. , which later became a very diverse mix of peoples who built their identities around their cities and ethnic groups (Estrab. 3.2.14).52 In general, Strabo's interpretation is not that far from historical reality. This perspective also explains why the geographer downplayed the necessary but not complete intervention of Rome in the region. Strabo's work was not a reflection of Romanization, as many scholars have interpreted, but a geography of the historical conformation of the Iberian communities, which is the central theme of Book 3.53 There are many examples that illustrate the potential of the work of Strabo, literature to transcend the sphere as a historical and historiographical source. First, it drew on diverse and heterogeneous geographic and historiographical sources which, together with a historical perspective on geographic space, produced a rich and nuanced encyclopedic narrative. It is simultaneously descriptive and analytical. It may not be as rigorous as Polybian geography, but it is certainly much closer to the reality of Braudel's longue durée, the importance of which was clearly recognized by Strabo and recognized by his contemporaries, despite his propensity to stereotype the civilization of recently conquered communities. for Rome.

50 Beltrán Lloris 2004; Cipres Torres 1993; 2006. 51 Cruz Andreotti 2009; 2011. 52 The description of Gades as an “ideal city” combines the founding myths, its own historical and literary traditions, and the Roman political and socioeconomic organization (up to 500 individuals of its population are attributed to the equestrian order). It has been presented as the paradigm of the Mediterranean civilization initiated by the Phoenicians (in Strab. 3.5.3–10). Cruz Andreotti 1994, sp. 71 pp. 53 Cruz Andreotti 2009b; 2014 (coming soon).

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Epilogue: The consolidation of an administrative perspective of geography

It is common to speak of Roman pragmatism versus Greek speculation to explain changes in geographic perspective. The Greeks themselves helped spread this interpretation. However, it was less a mentality problem than a change in the political and cultural context. Hellenistic thought interpreted the world as a mixture of cultures and societies that shared similarities and differences, a world without hegemonic power that needed to be understood in all its diversity. The development of geography was the result of such a context. Although Rome inherited the drive to "civilize," she changed the world in her wake, so that geography became a reflection of the present, not the past. The communities acquired legal status and the space became territory. Historical culture lost importance in the light of descriptive geography. Periplus models, which favored the accumulation of knowledge, replaced cartographic models, where form was more important than detail. An empirical rather than a speculative approach was used to describe space.54 Strabo resisted these changes as if protected by a clearly superior culture (Strab. 3, 4, 19), mentioning them only briefly in his closing paragraphs to the contemporary (provincial) administration. divisions, legal status of the most important cities, government models...) after the description of each "geographical unit". Pliny, on the other hand, took a more encyclopedic approach. Although he was not oblivious to the advances in cartography, his work cannot be considered a geographical description; In fact, it doesn't even refer to Strabo. It is a catalog of conuentus and ciuitates, following an administrative order and journey in which ethnic groups and other cultural considerations (origin of communities, traditions, etc.) were considered secondary, with the notable exception of Gades. Although Pliny combined well-known geographical criteria (coasts, rivers, ethnic groups and local resources) to organize and classify information, throughout his work administrative data predominates, which he probably extracted from lists of cities used to collect taxes in the Provinces and continents. They were used. However, the weight of tradition remained. He gave shape and extension to Hispania, and on that shape he superimposed a descriptive model —lists of cities and towns— that could be said to be contradictory due to its lack of geographical projection.55 Baetica is a paradigmatic example. On the geographical breakdown 54 Arnaud 2007; More recently: Home 2013 (coming soon). 55 Beltrán Lloris 2007.

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of the coast and the Betis river, Plinio respected the tradition, although without specifying longitude, latitude or any type of grid (Plin., HN 3.7-10). For the interior of the region, he adjusted his enumeration of cities to the administrative division between the Conuentus of Hispalis and the Conuentus of Corduba and Astigis (Plin., HN 3.10-12), although such adjustment does not correspond exactly to ethnicity. divisions between the Celts and Turduli of Baeturia or Bastetanian. Neither did he mention a significant geographic feature that could be used as a physical reference in space. Either the geographical reference was very clear, or Pliny dealt with two very different sets of sources, at least in some places.56 Interestingly, Pliny preferred the name "Turduli" to "Turdetani", perhaps indicating that the former predominated over the latter, in In fact, an ethnic term used loosely as a binder (Plin., HN 3.13).57 The importance of the first indigenous peoples in the new Roman territories has not yet been elucidated, although it seems that they played a minor role, at least in relation to the attribution of cities to their conuentus. From the Roman point of view, ethnic groups may have been used as a transitional instrument between the military government of the republican period and the "civilian" imperial administration of the Augustan period.58 This could explain certain inconsistencies in Pliny's work. , but it could also be due to the use of very different fonts. Pliny probably served as a model for Varro and Agrippa. Mela also followed him, although to a lesser extent, since his work was not as scientific and resembled a simplified – and outdated – guide that only outlined the coasts and capes with very few references to the towns in the interior.59 In short, contemporary history (whether interpreted as ethnic groups or administrative units) clearly prevailed over cultural geographies and especially over the more scientific geography that focused on maps and landforms.60 Ptolemy was the last exponent of this approach. Scientific geography and descriptive geography contributed to mutual development; both sought a homogeneous and harmonious perspective of the oikoumene, either in its form and cartographic extension or in its cultural characterization. Ptolemy followed Eudoxus, Pytheas, and Eratosthenes and tried to incorporate all the data collected in Iberia into a single scientific design. 65 pp. 59 Parroni 2007. 60 Gomez Fraile 2002; Paroni 1993; Prontera 1992b; Train 2007.

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from the 3rd century B.C. There were placement errors as a result of an attempt to fit the information from the Periplus sources into an orthogonal grid that matched the regional map. It was the last serious attempt to propose a complete and coherent map of the known world in terms of continental and maritime surfaces (an idea that has been on the minds of geographers from the very beginning). portrayed by Pliny, he sacrificed this first objective for a new one, the Peutingerian Tabula, which listed as many streets, towns, ports, mansions, etc. known as possible, all arranged in a linear array with no real shape. a harmonious and simplified representation of reality in the form of a map had been abandoned. The new times united geography and empire in a common political project that required descriptions of geographic space full of useful administrative data intended to reflect the domination of the world by Rome. Cultural geography combines descriptions of life forms with cartographic data. The way the world was represented during the Empire also used as much data as possible, but was aimed at reflecting Imperial greatness rather than understanding geography and thinking about different forms of life and their location in space.

61 Bianchetti 2008a, sp. 49–52; Marcotte 2007. 62 Prontera 2003b.

CHAPTER 17

The geographies of Pliny and his "monkey" Solinus Kai Brodersen Indeed, I believe that blessed are those to whom the gods have given either to write or to write and read, and certainly blessed are those who do both. "For my part, I consider blessed those who by the favor of the gods are granted to do what is worth writing, or to write what is worth reading, and very blessed are those who have been granted both gifts") . Pliny, Ep 6.16.3

One such eulogy, the second part of which still resonates with authors (and assistant editors!) today, was lavished by Pliny the Younger in a letter to the historian Tacitus about the writer's uncle, Pliny the Elder. In fact, he was among the "most blessed" as an officer and as a prolific writer. You will receive a book De iacule equestri (“On the use of rockets on horseback”), 2 books De vita Pomponi Secundi (“The Life of Pomponius Secundus”), 20 books on Bella Germaniae (“Wars in Germany”), 3 with titled Studiosus (“The student”), 8 on Dubius Sermo (“Unclear use of language”), no less than 31 on Historia A fine Aufidii Bassi (“From the end [of the stories] of Aufidius Bassus”) and 37 books on Naturalis Historia, an encyclopedic work presenting a vast body of knowledge and probably written in the 1970s AD However, Pliny the Elder himself seems to have endorsed a humbler view. In his seventh of the 37 books on the Naturalis Historia he presents examples of happiness ( felicitas), highlighting Augustus, quem universa mortalitas in hac censora nuncupet (“that all mankind places under this group”, HN 7.147) – after all, Augustus he certainly did what is worth writing about, only to later examine his many misfortunes and contrast such vanitas with two men whom the Delphic oracle considered felicissimi (NH 7.151): Subeunt in hac reputate Delphica oracula velut ad castigandam hominum vanitatem ab deo emissa . duo sunt haec: Pedium felicissimum, qui pro patria proxime occubuisset; iterum a Gyge rege tunc amplissimo terrarum consulti: Aglaum Psophidium esse feliciorem. senior hic in angustissimo Arcadiae angulo parvum, sed annuis victibus large sufficiens praedium colebat, numquam ex eo egressus atque, ut e vitae genere manifestum est,

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minima cupidin minimo in vita mali expertus. ("In this connection, two Delphic oracles come to mind, uttered by the god as if to punish the vanity of mankind. The two are these: 'Pedius was the happiest that lately fell in love with his country,' and as the oracle was consulted by Gyges, then the richest king in the world: "Aglao of Psophis is happier." He was an old man who cultivated a small piece of land, small but large, in a very narrow corner of Arcadia enough for his yearly provisions, and that he had never ventured outside of it and, as is apparent from his mode of life, was a man of least desires, experiencing minimal unhappiness in life"). So the real Felicitas, in Pliny's eyes, rests with Pedio, who died fighting for his country, and with Aglao, who lived an independent life and stayed at home as a farmer, producing enough for his own livelihood1 - whatever! thing beyond that is vanitas! If Pliny really shared this view, he might not have been too disappointed that later generations no longer considered most of his works "worth reading." The first 65 books mentioned above, from De iacululatione equestri to and including A fine Aufidii Bassi, have been lost with very few fragments, and even the 37 books of the Historia naturalis that have survived “do not sit comfortably under cover”2 and have a complicated history of textual transmission in the Middle Ages. Even the "star artist" among the earliest witnesses, Codex Moneus, preserves "large stretches" of only five books, HN 11-15, while the other major early manuscript, Codex Salmasianus, contains only extracts from HN 19-20.3 Other Extracts that have survived independently of HN include the anonymous Medicina Plinii, which may date to around AD 300. C. and contains more than 1100 pharmacological formulations, the great majority of which are taken from the HN,4 and the Collectanea rerum mirabilium or polyhistor by a certain Gaius Iulius Solinus,5 with three-fourths of the material after 1 Cf. Val . Max., 7.1.2 (is erat Arcadum pauperrimus, sed aetate iam senior terminos agelli sui numquam Excesserat, parvuli ruris fructibus contentus) and Paus., 8.24 .13, which connects Aglaus with Croesus of Lydia and adds: "It was proved that All his life he was happy, but he couldn't believe it." 2 Reynolds 1983, 307. 3 Reynolds 1983, 308–309. 4 Önnerfors 1964, xxxi; Brodersen 2015. 5 Mommsen 18952; Brodersen 2014a.

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the hn. In the context of this companion, the latter work is of interest, as a compact guide through the geography and wonders of the world that "gained almost unrivaled popularity in the Middle Ages a millennium." 7 "Since we still have Solinus's sources today, the Collectanea is materially irrelevant to us." 8 Statements like these, published in Pauly-Wissowa, typify the low regard Solinus enjoys in classical scholarship. He has been called a "retarded compiler." mental”9, the great Theodor Mommsen referred to the “ridiculous errors of the little master” (ridiculi magistelli errores);10 as was to be expected, the “pathetic” and “trivial work”11 was often criticized, and more often neglected12, despite their enormous influence over a millennium.This article was commissioned to challenge this neglect.1

Pliny's geography

In the four geographical books HN 3-4, Pliny arranges the material in a strict journey. His description follows the edges of the world, first through the 'inside', then through the 'outside', as he himself summarizes at the end of his Periplus (abunde orbe terrae extra intra indicato, HN 6.205).13 Pliny begins 'inside', in which Gades Strait, he follows the Spanish coast from Baetica and Hispania citerior (3.7-30) through Gaul (Narbonnensis, 3.31-37) to the Italian coast as far as Locris (3.38-75); He then stops to list the islands in the "first bosom" of the sea (3:76-94). Pliny resumes the journey, following the coast of Italy from Locris along the Ionian Sea to Ravenna (3.95-122), but interrupting it for a description of the interior beyond the Po River (3.123-128) through Histria, the Alps , Illyricum, Liburnia, Dalmatia, Noricum, Pannonia to Moesia (3.128-150) and for an overview of the islands in this "second bosom" of the sea (3.151-152). Again in strict tour mode, Pliny follows the coast from Epirus and Achaia (4.1–22) to Greece (4.23–28) and then to Thessaly, 6 Kimble 1938, 5. 7 Milham 1983, 74. 8 Diehl 1918, 828. 9 Weyman 1896, 911. 10 Mommsen 18952, viii. 11 Stahl 1962, 122, 137. 12 For a recent attempt to change this, see Brodersen 2014b. 13 For the following see Brodersen 2008, 229-31.

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Magnesia, Macedonia, and Thrace to the Hellespont, the "third bosom" of Europe (4:29-51); the islands it contains are again shown separately (4.52-74). Finally, the "fourth bosom" is described as the voyage from the Hellespont through the Propontis and the Bosporus to the Pontus (Black Sea) and beyond to Maeotis (Sea of Azov) (4:75-79). The Dacia hinterland to Scythia (4.80–91) and the islands (4.92–93) are again listed separately. Pliny next follows the "outer" oceanic coast of Europe from north to Germany and the "Gallic Ocean" (Belgium, Lugdunensis, Aquitaine, 4.94-101) and separately the islands lying there (4.102-104); then he follows the oceanic coasts of Gaul (4.105-109) and Spain (Hispania Citerior, Lusitania) to the Straits (4.110-118); Again, the islands are listed separately in Mari Atlantico (4.119–120). A brief passage on the dimensions of Europe closes Book 4. Pliny begins his description of Africa, like Europe, in the Straits, first describing the "inland" coast from Mauritania to Cyrenaica (5:1-40), followed by brief passages on the islands (5.41–42) and the interior (5.43–46). Egypt is given a continuous description, followed by the coast from the "inner" shores of Arabia to Syria (5:47-64), while the interior is described along the Euphrates (5:83-90). Returning to the coast, the Periplus goes from Cilicia to Troas (5.91–127) with a separate passage on the islands there (5.128–140) and beyond the Hellespont along the coast to Bithynia (5.141–150). interrupted by a paragraph on the islands (5.151) and along the Pontic coast as far as Maeotis and Armenia (6.1–25); again the interior is described along the line of the Cyrus and Araxes rivers (6:26-28) and extends to the gates of the Caucasus (6:29-31); a description of the islands concludes this part of the Periplus (6.32). Finally, Pliny follows 'out', from the Scythians to the Eastern Ocean (6:33-52) and beyond along Seres, India, Taprobane and Ariane (6:53-95), with an excursus of the route maritime to India. (6.96–106), completing the journey from Parthia through Mesopotamia (along the Tigris), Arabia, the Red Sea to Ethiopia (6.107–198); Here, too, the islands (6.198-201) and in particular the islands of the blessed (6.202-205a) are treated separately. An appendix (6.205b-220) presents unam Graecaeventionis scientiam ("a science of Greek thought") on theoretical aspects of geography. Pliny's linear arrangement (Periplus) of material along coasts and rivers has consequences: various regions are described twice according to which coastline is followed: this applies to Spain (3.7-30; 4.110-118) and Gaul (3.31-37; 4.105-109), but also for Mesopotamia (5.83-90; 6.25-28) and even the Hellespont (4.49; 5.141-144). A reader unfamiliar with maps14 will certainly not have perceived this as an imperfection, but it is clear that the 14 Cf. Dueck 2012, 99–110.

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El modo era, como dijo Pomponio Mela, cuya breve obra geográfica data del 43/4415 d. C. antes de Plinio y que él realente usó, lo expresó (1.1):16 impeded work and not at all capable of efficiency: for it consists almost entirely of the names of the nations and places and of their complicated enough order, which it is a long time to pursue rather than a kind matter ("one tarea difficile , y que difícilmente se presta a la elocuencia, ya que consiste principally en nombres de personas y lugares, y en su disposición dastante enigmática es un tema dastante unpleasant"). No es de extranar, entonces, que la opra de Plinio finally lost its status of "legible", while que la Collectanea de Solinus, que embellecía las fechas geográficas con res mirabiles, enjoyed great popularity. 2

Trabajo de Solinus

Solinus's work17 has been preserved in two versions. The first is presented in a dedication letter to a certain Adventus as liber ad conpendium praeparatus 15 Brodersen 1994, 1–2. Pomponius Mela declares that he will line up the shorelines in the order in which they lie and that, "having wandered over all that this sea touches, he will collect/read (lege) that which surrounds the ocean, until the course of the later work a voyage around of the inner and outer circle of the world returns to the starting point" (1.24). As a result, Pomponio Mela establishes his journey (circumvectio) from his native Spain along the Strait of Gades and follows the coast of Africa (1.25-48). , then that of Egypt through Asia to the Bosporus and beyond to the Pontus (Black) Sea) and the Maeotis (Sea of Azov) to the mouth of the Tanais, the River Don (1:49-117). From here it returns to Thrace, Greece and Italy (2.1–73), Gaul (2.74–84) and Spain to the Straits (2.85–96) via the Bosphorus to Pontus, then a separate description is given for the islands from Maeotis to the Spanish Islands (2:97-126).So far the intra part of the voyage, the extra follows the oceanic coast from the Straits (3.1-2) along along Spain (3.1–15), Gaul (3.16–24), plus Europe (3.25–45) and, again in a separate section, the relevant islands (3.46-58); thence through Asia (3.59–84) and finally Africa (3.85–107), ending again in the Straits. Due to the representation of space as circumvectio, Pomponius Mela treats Bithynia (1.97) and Thrace (2.16) in widely separate parts of his work, sharing the descriptions of Spain (2.85–96 and 3.1–15) and Gaul (2.74– 78). and 3.16-24), depending on whether he describes the intra or extra lands. 16 Trad. Romer 1998, 33. 17 The following text develops the arguments of Brodersen 2011 (as a shorter German version of Brodersen 2013), to which the reader is referred for detailed argument and documentation.

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It deals with "geographical features in their proper order, and adds information about exotic trees, the appearance and rites of distant peoples, and other important things." The second version, with another dedication letter, pretends to be a revision of Solinus himself, justifying the new title Polyhistor, 'know it all'. . . In both versions, Solinus fulfills his program as stated in the dedication of the first version; under "things to remember" he focuses on gemstones. There is no evidence of the author other than the work itself. The last Roman emperor mentioned (in 29.3) is Vespasian (imp. AD 69-79); We cannot positively identify the Adventus to whom the dedication letters are addressed. The earliest reliable ante quos terms for Solinus's work are citations in the works of Ammianus Marcellinus (AD 325/330 – after 391)18 and his contemporary Maurus (or Marius) Servius Honoratius.19 Solinus has been shown20 to use 140 words (of Solinus's total vocabulary of around 4550) that are "new" and that many more are used in new or previously unknown meanings.21 Depending on whether one considers Solinus a linguistically innovative author or an unoriginal compiler, one dates the first version of his work to the (later) third century22 or fourth century.23 While the linguistic argument may not be conclusive, the content may increase the probability of a third-century dating: Solinus' study of the history of calendar (1.34 -47) has a close parallel in Censorinus's De die natali 19-22, which is certainly dated AD 238.24 and Solinus' (not his main source e) comment that not only women, but also men "now" wear silk robes (L 3) can be linked to stories about the introduction of this innovation under the emperor Heliogabalus (imp. 218-22 AD It is also worth noting that, while Rome is celebrated in a very long chapter, none of the provinces of the Roman Empire rank as prominently as might be expected in a fourth-century work, nor does Antioch on the Orontes . as the seat of the praefectus of the diocese of the East formed in the years 290 AD. C., or Constantinople, consecrated in 330 d. C.26. It is true that none of these features in detail (nor the lack of a clear list 18 in Mommsen 18952, 243. See Cichocka 1975. 19 Serv. Ad Georg, 2.215. See Paniagua Aguilar 2007. 20 Hyskell 1925, 1. See Hyskell 1918 21 Brodersen 2011, 84–86, comments on innovative use of Mediterraneus and Oriens in Solinus 22 Hyskell 1925, Walter 1963 1969. 23 Schmidt 1995, 32–33 24 Brodersen 2012a, 14–15 25 Cf. 26.1.26 Solinus only superficially refers to Byzantium in 1.79 and 10.17 and does not use the name Constantinople.

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references to Christianity) can be used to date Solinus's work, the evidence collected may point to the late third century, at least for the first version.27 Solinus's work would become a very popular compendium in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It was used in the fifth century by Saint Augustine and Martian Capella, by Priscian to embellish his translation of Dionysus' Periegesis, and by Saint Isidore for his encyclopedic Etymologiae. Sixth- and seventh-century users of Solinus's work include Saint Aldhelmus and the Venerable Bede.28 All of these citations predate the earliest surviving manuscripts. More than 250 codices give an account of the work of Solino29 and are an impressive testimony of the importance that has been attributed to him for more than a millennium. The earliest printed editions of Solinus date from the 15th century, and all the earliest translations into modern languages from the 16th century: with few exceptions they remain the latest. There is no modern translation into English, French, or Italian.30 Theodor Mommsen's (1817-1903) most recent and enduring critical edition is based on studies pioneered by Karl Ludwig Roth (1811-1860) and Gustav Parthey (1798-1872). . ), in his own readings of three original manuscripts (sent to his private home in Berlin), and in compilations of many others by his extensive network of students. Despite Mommsen's little respect for Solinus, he produced two editions; his “act of self-denial”31 has not been repeated since then and would require a collaborative project and an innovative form of textual presentation, based on the reconstruction of an “Urtext”32 and presenting the different versions with their additions as “living”. text – note that one of these additions represents the oldest Latin text on the geography of Norway!33

27 The New Handbook of Ancient Latin Literature had originally dated Solinus between AD 117 and 284. after Sallmann 1997, 649; however, the corresponding volume is still pending). 28 Cf. the lists in Mommsen 18952, 243–49. 29 Brodersen 2014b, 201–208 lists more than 250 manuscripts with full, partial, or fragmentary text and various collations, epitomes, etc. 30 Note, however, the Spanish edition by Fernández Nieto 2001 and the bilingual Latin-German edition by Brodersen 2014a. 31 Weyman 1896, 911. 32 Cf. von Büren 1996; 1997. 33 Mommsen 18952, 236; Brodersen 2014a, 328–329.

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Sources de Solino

Solinus refers to 68 different authors as sources for the information he provides, certainly mostly secondhand.34 Two geographers are not mentioned, however, but have long been recognized as Solinus' main sources: Pomponius Mela (see above) and Pliny HN. The Dutch scholar Gerardus Iohannes Vossius (Gerrit Janszoon Vos, 1577–1649) observed in 1627 that Solinus "copied so much from Pliny that he deserved to be called Pliny's ape."35 This derisive description soon found its way into the first general encyclopedias.36 and I got stuck with the author. Of course, Solinus makes extensive use of Pliny's geographical books (3-6), condensing the material: Pliny's four books only have about 40,000 words, while Solinus's work has a total of only about 33. 000 words, and then Solinus gives extensive information, taken from him by Pliny's other books on men (7) and animals (8–11), on plants (12–13) and precious stones (37); books on cosmology (2), trees (16), garden plants (19), flowers (21), other plants (22), herbs (25) and on the medicinal use of human beings (28) are occasionally used. , animals (30) and sea products (31) and sea creatures (32), on metal (33) and on earth (35). By shortening the material, Solinus created a work that copyists and readers could handle more easily than the voluminous mass of Pliny's Naturalis historia. The wide distribution and numerous citations from the work spanning over a millennium attest to Solinus's success in this regard. So about three quarters are based on Pliny the Elder, what about the other quarter? We've already seen him use Pomponius Mela, but where did the other material come from? In the spirit of investigating 19th-century German sources, Theodor Mommsen argued that Solinus's work was based on a lost source, which he called the Chorographia Pliniana and considered to be composed of Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder, and some Ignoti. According to Mommsen, Solinus' main achievement was to copy the Plinian Chorographia and thus ensure his survival. and its source, an "ignota chorography" (also used by Pliny), was a Geographia Varro-Sallustiana (also used by Pomponius Mela).38 Hermann Walter, however, has the least complicated 34 Cf. the list in Mommsen 18952, 237 35 Vossius 1627, 720. 36 Hofmann 1698, 216; Zedler 1847, 586. 37 Mommsen 18952, xv. 38 Columba 1896; 1920. Expanded in Columba 1935, 171–349.

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the compilation and first and second editions are considered Solinus's own work.39 Since Walter's thesis is compatible with the evidence and is more parsimonious, we can assume that the third-century scholar Solinus was in fact the compiler and at least produced the first, if not both, versions of Collectanea. 4

Solinus innovations in spatial presentation

Is there more to Solinus than "Pliny's monkey"? I have argued elsewhere recently,40 and will not repeat here the lengthy argument that Solinus was in fact an innovator, adding information about neighbors that his source did not present and adding references to cardinal directions: Solinus repeats the information given by Pliny, but adds instructions for Italy (meridiem versus), for Cape Pachynus of Sicily (in meridianam plagam) and Cape Pelorias (adversa vespero), for Bithynia (ad partem solis orientis) and Carmania (occasui obiacet). However, we are now sufficiently familiar with the maps to know that the Danube is actually to the north of Thrace, Pontus and Propontis to the east, and the Aegean Sea to the south, that Bithynia is to the east of Thrace, and that Carmania also has a west coast, that is, it extends (unlike the current province of Kerman) to the Persian Gulf; but we also know that Italy does not lie directly to the south, Greece does not lie to the south, and Italy does not lie to the west of Sicily. So when Solinus adds to what he found in his source, he doesn't have in mind a voyage in which directions don't matter because they're given by the coastline followed, but rather seems to be considering areas that include their directions to which which refers. south, west, north and east. Furthermore, Solinus uses the term plague extensively, as an area not on earth but in the sky: unlike Pliny, the plagae caelestes or plagae caeli make for Solinus a significant contribution to the localization of the terrestrial areas described by Solinus. What these articles try to focus on is the innovative way of presenting geographic data. Unlike Pomponius Mela (1.1–24) and Pliny (HN 6.205b–220), Solinus does not present a summary of scientific geography. Rather, after a lengthy introduction to Rome and humanity (1), he states (2.1):

39Walter 1963; 1969. 40 Brodersen 2011; 2013; 2015b (on the term “barbarian”).

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I have said enough about man. Now, in order to return to our destination, the style must be directed to the commemoration of places, and so principally to Italy, whose glory we have already encountered in the city. "Ya he dicho suficiente sobre la humanidad. Ahora, para volver a nuestro plan, que la pluma se dirija a los lugares del recuerdo, ante todo a Italia, cuya belleza ya hemos visto en el pasaje de la Urbs [Roma]"). Then, Solinus adapts the Periplus de Plinio y la idea de los cuatro Sinus Europae, pero como Solinus no comienza con el Estrecho de Gades sino con Italia (2), este anfoque no funciona bien. Si bien más tarde el sine tertius (7.1 ) y el sine quartus (12.1) pueden encajar en el esquema de Solinus, la mención de un aegeus sinus (11.1), pero sobre todo la engorrosa referencia al sine primus y secundus (2.24) es dentro de la description de Italia no son compatibles con un Periplus. De hecho, Solinus rompe la idea de un periplo al final de su descripción de Italia cuando escribe (2:51-52) on the other side it continues along the Ligurian coast into the province of Narbonne ("La salida de Italia pasa po r los liburnios, que son una tribu asiatica, y sigue hasta el pie de los dalmatas… pero al otro lado sigue por la costa de los ligures hasta la provincia de Narbonense”). Both excursions from Italy, una hacia Dalmacia, la otra hacia Narbonense, se describen aquí y se ignora el modo periplo cuando la connexion con Narbonensis se da no como parte de un viaje lineal a lo largo de una costa sino como un viaje vecino a un lado Este viaje tiene aún no tocado y no está tocando ahora: la descripción de Italia de Solinus no está en el modo lineal de su fuente, sino que considera un area que tiene necinos ambos lados (also ex altera parte). Después de la Italia continental, Solino describes a continuation las islas en la vecindad occidental immediata de Italia (Córcega, Cerdeña, Sicilia, etc.; 3–6), but no, like Plinio, todas las islas en el primer seno. Luego se describe el Sinus tertius desde Molossi a través del Peloponeso, Grecia, Tesalia y Macedonia hasta Tracia y el Hellespontus (7-10), seguido no por el Sinus quartus sino por el Sinus Aegeus (11.1-2, no nombrado como tal) . por Plinio) y sus islas (11). Solo entonces se aborda el quartus sinus (12), pero nuevamento interruptido por una descripción de los países a lo largo del Hister (Danube; 13), los escitas (14-15) y la gente más allá de los escitas (16-17 ), finally a discussion of Ponto as origen del Mar Mediterráneo (18) and una isla en el Ponto (19.1).

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Solinus then continues his description through Oceanus septemtrionalis (19.2–5) and its islands (19.6–19), followed by Germany (20), all of Gaul (21), and Great Britain (22). Reversos ad continentem (23.1) Solino describes all of Spain, including the Balearic Islands (23), although they are not outside the ocean (and therefore would not be part of the journey). The coastal journey stops here, since the lands bordering the Mediterranean between the Strait and Italy, that is, Spain and Gaul, were already covered by the oceanic side, ignoring Pliny's traditional circumnavigation. Instead, Solinus of Hispania presents excursus in Libya (26.1), from the Atlas Mountains through Mauritania (24-26), Numidia (26) and omnis Africa (27), Syrten and beyond (28-29), ending with the island of Gauloe (29.8). An inland route is then used to describe Ethiopia (30), the deserts (31), and Egypt (32). The description then continues through Arabia (which Solinus, in contrast to Pliny, describes from the Mediterranean coast, 33), the Mediterranean coast from Cassius to Cassius (34–36), Mesopotamia (37), and Cilicia (38), followed by Lycia. (39), Asia Minor to Galatia and the Pontic coast (40-45) and then Assyria, Caspia and Bactria (46-49). Finally, Solinus explores the eastern and southern oceans from the Serae to Indi (50-52) and the island of Taprobane (53), and finally the southern and Atlantic oceans from Carmanica to Persis and Parthia (54-55). At the end of his description, the author's comment tempus est ad Oceani oras reverti represso in Aethiopiam stilo ("It is time to return to the oceanic shores, having pressed the pencil towards Ethiopia", 56.4) introduces the final round and finishes the job. with the islands of Gorgades and Hesperides, including the islands of the blessed (Fortunatae, 56.4-19). Thus, unlike Pomponius Mela and Pliny, he does not present a pure journey, a linear description of space, so he should put the descriptions of Gaul (21), Spain (23) and Mesopotamia (37) and should not describe the the Hellespont in two pages shares (10.21). Pomponius Mela and Pliny's linear description was replaced by a view of areas. So what is Solinus' achievement? First, he has managed to condense the material from his main source, Pliny the Elder's unwieldy Naturalis historia, into a manageable size, creating a work that is easier for copyists and readers to manipulate. The wide distribution and numerous citations from the work spanning over a millennium attest to Solinus's success in this regard. Second, while both Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder presented the geography of the world in their texts as a linear journey along internal and external (intra extraque) coastlines, and therefore had to divide the description of the areas having coasts on the seas of both "inside" and "outside" (Spain, Gaul) in two separate passages, Solinus uses a different one

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Description Type: At first glance, he appears to stick to a journey as a basic method of organizing material, but a close comparison of his descriptions with those found in his primary sources has revealed Solinus to be an innovative geographer: adding neighbors and adding cardinal points and emphasizing the concept of Plague, but above all abandoning the strict rules of Periplus. How are these innovations explained? It seems that the Periplus model, which Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder used extensively, led to several regions being described twice according to which coastline was followed; thus Spain, Gaul, Mesopotamia, or the Hellespont were not represented as entities. In contrast, Solinus allows his readers to imagine a map with cardinal directions, relative positions of areas to one another, and plagues as descriptions of large areas. However, on such a map, Italy runs directly from north to south (Solin. 2.19), Sicily has capes north of the Peloponnese and east of Italy (Solin. 5.2), and Crete lies between Greece and Cyrene (Solin. 11.4 ). The map marks the sine of Aegeus (11.1–2) and the sine of Creticus (27.1–2); it also marks the northern, western, and southern Plague, the Mediterraneus, and the Oriens. It is perhaps no coincidence that the first undisputed reference to a published map dates only to AD 297.41, and that Richard Talbert's recently proposed date for the "original" Tabula Peutingeriana is around AD 30042, as we have seen above, this is also the probable date of Solinus' Collectanea rerum mirabilium. While we can only speculate as to what kind of map Solinus or his readers envisioned, we have strong evidence that Solinus inspired later readers to introduce more than just illustrations into the work, such as the 11th-century Codex London, BL Egerton 818. . 2r, Solinus himself resenting the Adventus work),43 but also maps.44 In fact, using later medieval evidence, David Ross has argued that "there seems to have been a cycle of illustrations for Solinus going back to late antiquity", survives" in a "medievalized" form in several codices.45 Assuming a late antique cycle of illustrations 41 Eumen., De instaur. school (Pan. Lat. 9[4].20.2); see Brodersen 20032, 106-107 and Talbert 2010, 137-38 42 Talbert 2010, 136. 43 This codex was not used by Mommsen in 18952, cf. Glocke 1929, Ross 1963, 78–79, 104 n.417, Milham 1983, Munk Olsen 1985, 499-500 (ca. 37) 44 Cf the map in the 13th century Codex Ambrosianus C 246 bottom, discussed by Revelli 1927; Levi 1974; Cogliati Arano 1979. 45 Ross (1963, 78) argues that the “medieval” form of the Codex Ambrosianus C 246 inf is detectable, while "some traces" may be present in Codex London, BL Egerton 818 and its descendant Codex Vaticanu s lat. 3342.

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methodological risks of much later "copying", it is clear that later users of Solinus drew inspiration from his text to draw maps. It is certainly no coincidence that in the 13th century Christian Hereford Mappamundi it can be shown that more of the textual content of the "Map" can be attributed to Solinus, who was almost certainly not a Christian, than to any other source (Isidore of Seville, his only rival). , especially in Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean.”46 Ultimately, then, a careful study of Solinus's geography can show how the book that made Pliny's geography accessible through a text and that in the Middle Ages and in the early modern period it may also be related to the idea of representing the area on a map, although of course she did not use this type of representation herself, but in a compendium of many "interesting geographical features in their correct order and adding information about exotic trees, the apparitions and rites of the most distant Towns and Other Memorable Things". It is therefore quite moving that Solinus inserts a story from a different context in Pliny (HN 7.51, cited above) and focuses on geographical thinking47, right at the intersection between his account of Rome and humanity (in chapter 1 ) and its geographical chapters (2–55), which may have appealed to readers from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (1127): certe beatum cortina Aglaum iudicavit, qui in angustissimo Arcadiae angulo pauperis soli dominus numquam egressus paterni cespitis terminos invenitur . ("The Tripod [i.e., the Oracle at Delphi]) surely judged Aglao happy, who dwelt in the narrowest corner of Arcadia, possessed of poor soil, and was found never to leave the ends of his father's estate ").

46 Westrem 2001, xxx. 47 Note that Solinus Gyges, 'who was then the richest king in the world', Psophis, the fact that the land 'was largely sufficient for his yearly supplies', the description of Aglaus as 'a man of desires minimum, than an experience minimum level of unhappiness in life”, but adds the geographical term termini.

D. Cartographic Science in Alexandria

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CHAPTER 18

Ptolemy's "Revolution" Germaine Aujac At the end of the second century AD, the Geographike Hyphegesis (better known as Geography), written by Ptolemy in Alexandria, appeared as the last and decisive step in the development of the science called Geography by Eratosthenes. , some five centuries before . It collected the latest advances in knowledge about the inhabited world and aimed to not only map them, but also give anyone the ability to draw a map of the world or maps of any country of their choice. In his most important astronomical work, the Almagest, which surveyed the entire cosmos, earth and sky, Ptolemy had clearly foreseen what would be the main goal of his geography. These treatises were the last major treatises and the only complete survivors in the fields of astronomy and geography (i.e. cartography). Ptolemy's treatment of these subjects was so "revolutionary" that his influence lasted for many centuries and was thereafter perceptible to any scholar interested in the study of heaven and earth. one

Ptolemy, a noted scholar

The life of Claudius Ptolemy (c. 100-180) is largely unknown, apart from references to his observations in Alexandria between 125 and 141. After its conquest by Octavian (later Emperor Augustus) in 30 BC. Around 300 B.C. C., Egypt had become a Roman province, but Alexandria remained a busy center of commerce and an exceptional center of Greek learning, enjoying the good will of the Antonine emperors. Ptolemy chose the beginning of the reign of Antoninus Pius (138) as the time of his star catalogue. During the reign of Hadrian (117-138), another Alexandrian, Dionysius1 wrote a periegesis in 1187 hexameters. This poem, based mainly on Eratosthenes or Strabo and translated into Latin by Avienus (4th century) and Priscianus (early 6th century), was a great success for many centuries and taught many students ancient traditional knowledge about the inhabited world. . 1Jacob 1990.

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Ptolemy, his contemporary, concerned only with recent discoveries or new perspectives, never mentioned such an outdated manual. Ptolemy's first great work, Mathematical Syntax, later called the Almagest due to Arabic influence,2 was not composed before the year 150. In the prologue to this book, he affirmed the superiority of mathematical science, the only one "that gives its followers a solid and indisputable knowledge" (Alm. 1.1). He considered that mathematics, a science based on geometry and arithmetic, was the only one capable of providing reliable results. Thus, in his description of the cosmos he left no room for doubts or hesitations. He showed that the celestial sphere rotates daily around one of its diameters (the axis of rotation), with the center of this sphere occupied by a stationary terrestrial sphere. He specified the required spherical geometry (spherical was the first term for astronomy): "The earth is approximately a point compared to the radius of the sphere of the so-called fixed stars" (Alm. 1.6). But the balloon was a reality; therefore, it was regularly considered as a small replica of the celestial sphere.3 To facilitate the study of the conjectured rules that govern the movements of the cosmos, Ptolemy provided many geometrically fixed tables (Alm. 1.9), the method immediately explained for calculating them. . "Our goal is not only to create tables that can be used by people who know nothing about the subject, but to give everyone the possibility of easy verification through appropriate geometric proofs" (Alm. 1.10). Ptolemy the mathematician was also an excellent teacher, ready to give anyone the necessary data. In fact, comfort was one of his main concerns. When he was faced with extremely complicated problems, he always looked for a simpler and more convenient way to find the expected answer. He used the Greek adjective procheiros (or a word derived from it) extensively, which is often translated as "practical". In particular, wishing to provide mere hobbyists with a simpler tool than the voluminous Almagest, he published a revised version of the tables it contained as a separate work entitled Procheiroi Kanones, or Handy Tables, the format of which was more convenient for practical use than the earlier one. . relevant sections of the Almagest. This tendency to combine or alternate great scientific investigations and vulgarizing practices was a hallmark of Ptolemy's genius. Regardless of the topic he was dealing with, Ptolemy wanted it to be as complete and up-to-date as possible, but also easy to understand, so that each piece 2 Pedersen 2011; Toomer 1984. Most of the quotations from the Almagest are inspired by Toomer's translation. 3 Strab. 2.5.5: "Below each of the celestial circles falls the corresponding earthly circle, which bears the same name on earth as it does in heaven."

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of his work must become "a possession forever", as Thucydides had wished for his story. In astronomy, as in geography (ie cartography), he aspired (and generally succeeded) to be the unequaled standard for future generations. 2

A study of the land in the Almagest

Earth figured prominently in the early books of the Almagest. Ptolemy dealt with both the terrestrial and celestial spheres and considered the inhabited world as part of a quarter of the earth,5 a northern one bounded by the equator and a meridian. To give an overview of the main features of this quarter, he cataloged the parallels of the earth from the equator to the north pole and gave each its main features (length of longest daylight, distance in degrees from the equator, ratio of the gnomon to the shadows of the equinoxes and the solstice). These parallels were separated by a fraction of an equinoctial hour6 in the duration of the longest part of the day, so they were not equidistant7. The first 26 parallels were separated by a quarter of an hour, the next 7 by half an hour, the last being the parallel where the longest day lasted 24 hours, 66° 8' 40" north of the equator; 8 more 6 parallels were recorded , which are a full month away, the last being the place at 90° from the equator where the pole was at the zenith (Alm. 2.6) Starting from the equator, Ptolemy alluded to the widespread hypothesis, supported by Eratosthenes, Posidonius and Polybius, among others, from a more temperate (and perhaps habitable) equatorial zone: “It is said that the regions below the equator could be inhabited, since the climate must be quite temperate... But what are these inhabited places, we have no reliable basis for 4 Thuc 1.22: "They (this story) i It is not written as a prize-winning essay to be heard at the moment, but as a possession forever. 5 This was the traditional teaching. See Strab. 2.5.6. 6 The Greeks used provisional time for daily life, which varied according to the season. Scientists used the equinox, just like ours. The length of the longest part of the day was the usual indication of a place's latitude. 7 A few centuries earlier, Hipparchus had studied the astronomical properties of parallels separated by one degree of latitude, from the equator to the north pole. 8 Geographers generally used the round number 24° for the distance between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer or between the Arctic Circle and the Poles, but astronomers knew a more precise value. 9 For the Greeks, the principal circles of the sphere were initially celestial, the earthly their mere projection on the globe.

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say. Because they have not yet been explored by men in our part of the inhabited world, and what people say about them must be taken as conjecture rather than account” (Alm. 2.6). On this parallel (the equator of our earth) day and night always have the same duration. As for the parallels where the longest day exceeds 24 hours, Ptolemy was fully aware of their characteristics. The theory showed that where the North Pole is 90 degrees from the equator, there was only one day and one night of six months each; the main celestial circles, equator, horizon, circles always visible and always invisible10 coincided, as the geometry of the sphere taught long ago.11 In addition, Ptolemy's enumeration of the times of departure of the signs of the zodiac according to degrees of latitude reduced his investigations to eleven circles of latitude, from 0° to 54° (Alm. 2.8); He then made a "table of zenith distances and angles of the ecliptic" by latitude, considering only the seven principal parallels of Meroe (13h, at 16° 27' N), Syene (13h 1/2, at 23° 51'N , modern Aswan), Lower Egypt (14h, at 30° 22'N), Rhodes (14h 1/2, at 36°N), Hellespont (15h, at 40° 56'N), Middle Pontus (15h 1/ 2 , at 45° 1'N, our Black Sea), Borysthenes (16h, at 48° 32'N, modern Dnieper) (Alm. 2.12). This selection of seven main parallels, the seven "climates"12, was in constant use in antiquity and formed a kind of framework for the latitudes of the inhabited world. At the end of this "Table of Zenith Distances". . .” added Ptolemy, a note which clearly shows that he would later wish to do more or less for the earth (or rather for the inhabited world) what he had done for heaven. "Now the only pending issue." . . It consists of determining the latitude and longitude coordinates of the prominent cities of each province, using the calculations on the phenomena13 in each of these cities. As the exposition of this matter belongs to a special field, geography, we will present it by itself in a separate treatise; Taking into account the investigations of those who have worked the most on this subject, we will write down for each of the cities its distance in degrees from the equator, measured along its own meridian, and its distance in degrees along the equator from that meridian, east or west, from the meridian to the 10 circles visible and always invisible; its projection on the earth defined the main circles of the earth. Hence the usual formulation: people who live "between" in one way or another. 11 The mathematician Theodosius of Bithynia (ca. 150–70 BC), author of Spherica, had also written a peri oikeseon, or astronomical tables, for the main terrestrial parallels. 12 Cf. Honigmann 1929. A climate was the part of the earth between two degrees of latitude in which the duration of the longest daylight was about the same number of half hours. 13 The phainomena ("what is observed") were the astronomical data of each city.

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Alexandria, because we have established for this meridian the intervals of hours corresponding to the positions of the cities” (Alm. 2.12). Of course, the Almagest had heaven as his main concern; but dealing with heaven presaged dealing with earth in geography. As for the starry sky, Ptolemy compiled a huge list of more than a thousand stars grouped into constellations, twenty for the northern hemisphere, six for the northern zodiac signs (Alm. 7:5), six for the southern zodiac signs. , fifteen for the southern hemisphere (Alm. 8.1). For each star, he noted its ecliptic longitude and latitude: since the precession of the equinoxes discovered by Hipparchus and confirmed by him was doomed to quickly render the equatorial scheme (used by Hipparchus) obsolete, he decided to rely on the ecliptic for his catalogue. of stars could enjoy eternal life. In a following chapter, Ptolemy, as usual rightly, gave the rules to follow for drawing the constellations on a solid globe, so that everyone could easily recognize them: “The shapes of the individual constellations should be as schematic as possible, a single line , which includes all the stars in a constellation; Its color should not be too vivid against the general background of the world. It is important not to lose the benefits of the distinctions established between the stars; a variety of colors would destroy the likeness of the image to the original. It will be easier to remember the combined positions of the stars when looking at the sky directly, since we are used to the unadorned appearance of the stars even when represented on the globe” (Alm. 8.3). Although most of the Almagest was devoted to planetary motions, Ptolemy had already worked out the method to be followed if he had to deal separately with the terrestrial sphere, its inhabited part, and its representation on a globe or flat map. Furthermore, the Almagest had already shown many geographical terms. 3 Ptolemy's Geography Towards the end of his life Ptolemy carried out the project indicated in the Almagest of "determining the positions of longitude and latitude of the notable cities in each province" (Alm. 2.12). In this particular treatise,14 it would be limited to the terrestrial part of the cosmos, and in particular to the inhabited world and its representation on a globe or flat map. On 14 For the edition and translation of this treatise, see Stückelberger and Graßhoff 2006.

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Geographike Hyphegesis,15 in eight books, fulfilled this program. In the first book, Ptolemy discussed the amount of knowledge passed down by his predecessors, particularly Marinus of Tire (fl. AD 120), and set out his own ideas about the size of the inhabited world and the best methods for drawing maps. . The following ones, from the second to the seventh, were dedicated to an exhaustive catalog of all the towns or elements to be inscribed on the map, with their coordinates. The last book is a kind of summary and contains 26 regional maps to draw after the world. 3.1 Explanation of recent discoveries In the Almagest and later in his famous astrological treatise called Tetrabiblos (in four books), Ptolemy had adopted the usual concept of an inhabited world enclosed in one of the northern corners of the globe. But a recent geographer, Marinus of Tyre, who was doing his best to improve existing maps of the known world, had greatly stretched his bounds by considering various recent reports of military or commercial expeditions to southern Africa16 or eastern Asia. Septimius Flaccus, legatus pro praetore in Numidia, (probably after AD 76) had led his army into southern Libya; three months later he had arrived in Ethiopia. Then (ca. 83-92) Julius Maternus left Leptis Magna in search of rhinos and their ivory and went south with the king of the Garamantes17 for four months; He mentioned a strange African place far south of the equator called Agisymba. Thus Marinus took the winter tropics (24°S) as the southern limit of the known world. Taking the latitude of Thule (63° N) as the northern limit, he thought that the inhabited world was 87° wide. In Asia, the silk trade flourished thanks to the peaceful relations between Parthia and the Roman Empire (63-113). Towards the end of the first century, a Macedonian merchant, Maes Titianus, had sent his servants to the silk-producing lands held by the Seres18; they traveled through Central Asia for twelve months and at that time they reached a stopping point called Stone Tower and continued to Sera, the capital of the country. Marinus, and after him Ptolemy19, referred to 15 Berggren and Jones 2000, 4 suggested a more significant translation for the Greek title: “Guide to drawing a world map”. The quotations of the theoretical chapters of geography are mostly inspired by their translation. 16 See Desanges 1978, 197–200. Agisymba, reached by Maternus, was probably not as far south as Marinus and Ptolemy believed. 17 The capital Garama is located at 43° longitude and 21° 30'N latitude in Geog. 4. 6.30. 18 Mollat, et Desanges 1988, 118. 19 Ptol., Geog. 1.11.

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this unusual expedition. Based on this account, Marinus fixed the longitude of the inhabited world from the Blessed Isles (sc. Canaries) to Sera at intervals of 15 hours, or 225 degrees. The traditional notion of an inhabited world contained entirely in one of the northern quadrants of the globe, and allowing the possibility of three other unknown worlds20 in the remaining three quadrants, was finally shattered, both in latitude and longitude. Has Marinus, who so severely criticized his predecessors and made so many revisions to old maps, managed to draw a correctly corrected map? He probably even tried it, because Ptolemy accused him of having chosen the worst method for drawing plane maps (Geog. 1:20). But he was probably so interested in pointing out the supposed errors of previous cartographers that he did not have time to finish the job. In any case, Ptolemy criticized Marino's lack of coherence in his representation of the coordinates: "Parallels are drawn in some places and meridians in others, so that in many places one or another position is missing" (Geog. 1.18). Also, Marinus was not constant in locating him; He often varied from one review to the next. To remedy these deficiencies, Ptolemy proclaimed that he would provide both the coordinates and the longitude and latitude of each recorded location, and would offer a better method of drawing airplane charts that would be easier to read and more realistic. First Ptolemy corrected many of the distances in Asia or Africa reported by Marinus. He chided him for too easily turning days of sailing or marching into stadiums without taking into account the curves of the roads or the variability of the winds. At the end of countless calculations, Ptolemy drastically reduced Marinus's data. He limited the length of the oikoumene to twelve hour intervals, or 180°. As the southern limit of the inhabited world, he chose the latitude in the southern hemisphere opposite to that of Meroe in the northern hemisphere, that is, 16° 1/2S. Therefore, the total latitude of the inhabited world from this southern limit to the latitude of Thule (63°N) would be approximately 80°. This new size of the inhabited world, especially the 180° longitude, was much more convenient than that of Marinus for laying out all of Oikoumene on a flat map; Many complicated critiques of Marinus distances were probably aimed at achieving such useful results. Determined to maintain Marinus's corrections when he considered them legitimate, but also with the intention of introducing his own improvements, Ptolemy

20 Crates of Mallus (d. ca. 170 BC), the first director of the Pergamum library, had built a vast terrestrial globe with four inhabited worlds on each quarter of the globe, separated by two oceanic belts, one along along the equator, the other along a meridian (see Strab. 1.2.24 and 2.5.10). The only known world was "ours", as it was called.

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provided a comprehensive and practical catalog of provinces and satrapies21. “We make sure our account is convenient. Thus, for each province we have the details of its borders, its position in latitude and longitude, the relative location of the most important towns within it, and the exact location of the most notable features, cities, rivers, bays, mountains, and In fact, everything on a map must appear on Oikoumene. So we write the number of degrees of longitude (of which the great circle contains 360) that lie along the equator between the meridian drawn through the required location and the meridian marking the western boundary of the Oikoumene, and the number of degrees of latitude. along the meridian of the place, between the parallel drawn by the mentioned place and the equator” (Geog. 1.19). In fact, Ptolemy filled the second through seventh books with vast lists of provinces and satrapies; He marked his cities or notable features using coordinate pairs, using the principal meridian through the Blessed Isles. But what was the estimated size of the balloon? Eratosthenes,22 who had been director of the library of Alexandria five centuries earlier, had estimated the circumference of the earth at about 252,000 stadia using a geometric method. Hipparchus had adopted this estimate, "which does not differ much from the truth",23 so that an equatorial meridian or degree would be 700 stades long. Strabo, Geminus24, later geographers based themselves on this value of the circumference of the earth. However, Poseidonius (ca. 135-150), who had spent most of his life on Rhodes, had tried an astronomical (but unfortunately inappropriate) method of measuring the circumference of the earth25 and proposed two possible values for it, 240,000. stadiums or only 180,000 stadiums, "the measure of the earth in its smallest circumference" (Estrab. 2.2.2). Interestingly, without attempting his own research, Marinus and later Ptolemy accepted the figure of 180,000 stadia for the circumference of the earth and claimed (falsely) that this was the most commonly used value. long a convenient number for later calculations. However, while one degree of the meridian would be 21 , Ptolemy is referring to the administrative divisions of the Roman and Parthian empires. 22 Aujac 2001, 41–64. 23 Strab. 1.4.1. 24 Geminus of Rhodes (ca. 50 BC) wrote a manual of astronomy and mathematical geography entitled Introduction to phenomena. See Aujac 1975 or Evans and Berggren 2006. 25 See Cleomedes, Kuklike theoria meteoron 1.10.2 (Bowen and Todd 2004). 26 Ptol., Geog. 1.7.1; 1.11.2; 7.5.12.

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Always with a value of 500 stadia, the degree on the parallels varied in longitude, progressively shortening from the equator to the pole, where it reduced to a point. It had long been known that the parallel through Rhodes (36° N) was four-fifths of the equator long; If a degree on the equator was worth 500 furlongs, a degree on the parallel to Rhodes was only worth 400 furlongs, a round number that is very easy to use in arithmetic. This choice for a smaller Earth size had strange consequences. Since Ptolemy generally used the distances in furlongs27 suggested by his predecessors, he expanded all these dates by one-third. So, according to Ptolemy, the Mediterranean Sea was much longer than it really was, and so was the distance Blessed Islands - Sera. Whereas Eratosthenes had estimated the distance from Cádiz to India across the Atlantic Ocean at 2/3 of the parallel of Rhodes, Ptolemy's maps reduced this distance to less than half that latitude and Marino to only 135°. 3.2 Cartographic representation of the inhabited world on a globe or a flat map The catalog that Ptolemy would provide was intended to be a very practical tool for drawing a map. Of course, the resemblance to the real Oikoumene would be better if the map was drawn on a globe. Two hundred years before, the Crates of Mallus had built a globe whose surface was occupied by four symmetrical worlds, one of which was known and inhabited, while the other three were only assumed to exist. On a terrestrial globe, the map of the inhabited world, whose size could be that proposed by Marino or drastically reduced by Ptolemy, would still occupy more than a northern quarter of the globe,28 but much less than the celestial sphere, the visible one described in the upper part. from the sky of the Almagest. First Ptolemy explained how to draw a world map on a globe. He advised to draw meridians "every third hour from the equinox" (Geog. 1:23). Since the inhabited world was defined by Ptolemy in intervals of twelve hours in length, 36 meridians must be drawn 5° apart. As for the parallels, Ptolemy pointed out 21 of them to the north of the equator, at a distance of 1/4, 1/2, 1 hour in the maximum duration of daylight, from the parallel 4° 1/4 (" as approximately established by geometry demonstrations") to that of Thule, which Marinus and Ptolemy place at 63°N; two parallels to the south of the equator had to be added, with a difference of half an hour each. The first passed through Cape Rhapton (near of present-day Dar es Salaam) and Kattigara 27 If a degree on the meridian were 700 stades long, the stadion used by scientists would be about 158 m long; if it were only 500 stades, the stadion would be about 222 m high. 28 Since Ptolemy's Asia was not bounded by ocean, the continent extended to the east.

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(near Hanoi), at 8° 5/12S. The other is the southern limit, "as far south of the equator as the parallel through Meroe is north of it" (Geog. 1:23). In this short list of parallels to be drawn on the globe, the only geographic locations cited are Meroe, Syene (tropical), Rhodes, and Thule; they are all north of the equator; none are cited south of it. A globe that required relatively little space to draw the map would be unwieldy and difficult to read. Therefore, Ptolemy decided to deal primarily with mapping on a flat surface. He criticized Marinus for using the orthogonal scheme, in which meridians and parallels were drawn as straight lines and at right angles, each parallel corresponding to the one passing through Rhodes; he considered this procedure incapable of accounting for proportionality or spherical appearance.29 This type of orthogonal scheme was probably also used by Eratosthenes and supported by Strabo, who justified this choice: "Our spirit can be easily transferred to a circular surface and figure observed by the eye on a flat surface" (Strab. 2.5.10). Of course, using this method for an inhabited world that stretched mainly along the Mediterranean Sea was quite legitimate. But the maps envisioned by Marinus or Ptolemy were much larger.Therefore, it became mandatory to provide new types of flat maps that tend to preserve both proportionality and spherical appearance.First, Ptolemy calculated the relationships between the principal parallels that would be used to map the world. The parallel through Rhodes was known to be four fifths of the equator, but Ptolemy added: "If the great circle o on the globe is 5, the parallel through Thule is nearly 2 1/4, that of Syene 4 7/12, those of Meroe 4 5/6" (Geog. 1.24.17). These were the four parallels used to draw the world map; that through Thule (63°N) was taken as the northern limit of Oikoumene, that through Rhodes (36°N) was the central parallel on Eratosthenes' map, that through Syene (present-day Aswan, below the Summer Tropic, 24° N), the central parallel on the Ptolemy map drawn by Meroe (16° 5/12) had hitherto been considered the southern limit of the known world, a limit which Ptolemy transferred to the opposite one in the southern hemisphere. . This first way of mapping the entire inhabited world on a flat surface might be called a simple conical projection.30 A rectangle twice its width in length was traversed by a median line perpendicular to its base; the vertex of this median, well outside the rectangle, would represent the North Pole. With this dummy pole as the center point, four circles (or 29 arcs) should be drawn. See Geog. 1.20. 30 These so-called projections are only geometric procedures to obtain a convenient scheme. They are not to be confused with modern projection types.

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them) finding the parallels through Thule, Rhodes, the Equator and AntiMeroe. In addition, from the same notional pole, six straight lines (representing the meridians) must be drawn on each side of the central strip, spaced 4 units apart on the parallel that passes through Rhodes. Therefore, if the theoretical pole31 is 131 5/12 units from the base of the rectangle, the parallel must be drawn through Rhodes (36°N) with a radius of 79 units, which through Thule (63°N ) with a radius of 52 units, the equator with a radius of 115 units, and the one through Anti-Meroe (16° 30'S) with a radius of 131. Since the true anti-Meroe parallel was shorter than the equator, the meridians at the equator had to be broken and this parallel reduced to its true value. Other than this small area south of the equator, locating the points representing cities or other landmarks on the map would be quite easy: one could use a rotary ruler attached to the theoretical north pole and appropriately graduated. This simple conical projection, practical as it was, had one major drawback: breaking the meridians at the equator. So Ptolemy envisioned a different kind of conical projection that would make this flat map more like what you see on a globe: the meridians would be rounded, except for the central one, and the parallels slightly flattened, with the theoretical pole away from the center. the equator would be reduced by 181 units 5/6.32 to 180 units for being more convenient. The three parallels, proportional in longitude to the real ones, would be those of Thule (63°N), Syene (24°N, the middle) and Anti-Meroe (16°1/2S). This type of map, more like a globe, would be more difficult to create: the ruler could no longer be used, so the location of the various features to be inscribed on the map would have to be more or less localized by a assumption. Therefore, Ptolemy did not seek to eliminate the method of simple conics, which would obviously be preferred by the lazy who are always "prepared to stick to the most practical method" (Geog. 1.24.22). Among cartographers working during the Renaissance, some used the simple conical projection, while others preferred the modified one. Regarding the regional maps, which could have different sizes depending on the number of accidents to register, "it will not be very imprecise if instead of circles we draw straight lines and if, in addition, the meridians do not converge but are parallel to each other " (Geog. 1.24.22). So, for regional maps, Ptolemy advised to use the orthogonal scheme as it fits better with 31 . Ptolemy does not explain his choice of this number here. In fact, add 25 to the sum of 90 (the distance in degrees from the equator to the North Pole) and 16 5/12 (the distance in degrees from the equator to Anti-Meroe); the radius for the latitude of Rhodes at 54° from the true north pole is therefore 79 (= 25+54) long; etc. 32 Ptolemy obtains this result through a geometric proof (Geog. 1.24.10-13).

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relatively small areas. Some Renaissance cartographers opted for a trapezoidal scheme, forgetting the pertinent advice of Ptolemy. Ptolemy proposed a third method of drawing the inhabited world towards the end of his geography. For a long time the earth was known through the sky and it was considered that the terrestrial sphere was an image of the celestial sphere. Ptolemy, probably to emphasize this dependency, chose to represent the inhabited world within a celestial sphere reduced to a network of rings33 as found on an armillary sphere. However, since the map of the inhabited world had to be fully visible and easily readable, Ptolemy carefully calculated the appropriate size of both spheres and the correct position of the celestial circles so that the outline of the Oikoumene would not be partially obscured by the sky. . rings Some drawings made on the instructions of Ptolemy during the Renaissance give a fairly clear idea of what he intended. 3.3 Lists of places to be inscribed on world or regional maps Geography books 2 to 7 have been filled with the catalog of notable cities or features likely to appear on a world map. Each cited place has been precisely located by both coordinates, expressed in degrees, the degree of latitude north or south of the equator, the degree of longitude east of the meridian by the Islas Benditas (our Canary Islands), which is considered the prime meridian. In his earlier project, as stated in the Almagest, Ptolemy had already intended to use degrees for the coordinates, but later considered that the prime meridian was that of Alexandria, so longitudes would have to be recorded east or west. of that meridian. . It was more convenient to use the meridian through the Blessed Isles as the main meridian. Were these coordinates, expressed with such precision in degrees and fractions of degrees, as precise as they appear? It is very doubtful. Although Ptolemy was able to observe almost all the stars recorded in the Almagest while working in Alexandria, it is evident that he himself could not verify the location of so many terrestrial places recorded in the geography. However, being aware that in order to draw a map, each feature to be drawn had to be accurately identified by both coordinates, he never failed to give the latitude and longitude of each location for anyone, even a layman, to thank. he draw new maps from this catalogue, rather than copy the old ones, at the risk of making them more and more faulty. 33 See Ptol., Geog. 7.6.1-15 and Geog. 7.7.1-4. Solid spheres on which the constellations were drawn, and annular (or armillary) spheres, including a small terrestrial sphere within the principal circles of the celestial sphere, were instruments commonly used in Greco-Roman schools (see Gem. 16.10).

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However, fearing a possible misinterpretation of his work, Ptolemy had duly warned his readers. “The number of latitudes and longitudes of the leaked locations could be considered quite close to the truth because fairly consistent reports have been broadcast continuously; but for sites that have not been as well explored, the coordinates should be taken as rough estimates, due to scant and uncertain information, based on their proximity to more reliable positions or drawings. Our sole purpose was that none of the places to be included in the whole Oikoumene lacked a definite position” (Geog. 2.1.2). Thus, as Ptolemy himself had pointed out, it would be futile to rely on coordinates apparently so precise but really so approximate for any but the well-known places cited. Since this catalog was to be used to draw a map of the world, Ptolemy, as usual, looked for the most convenient way to facilitate drawing. “We chose an order of presentation that would facilitate the drawing; for example, we will always progress from left to right, progressing the hand from what is already inscribed to what is not yet. As the northern locations are drawn before the southern ones, and the western ones before the eastern ones, top always means the north, for the draftsman or the observer, and the right side always means the eastern part of the Oikoumene, either on the sphere or on the flat Map. Therefore, we first draw Europe, which we will later separate from Libya by the Strait of Heracles (Gibraltar) and from Asia by the successive seas between these continents, Lake Maeotis (Sea of Azov), the Tanaïs river (Don) and the Meridian más Far across an unknown land. We would then establish Libya and separate it from Asia first by the seas running from the gulf near Cape Prason (possibly Delgado) in Ethiopia to the Arabian gulf, then by the isthmus running from the other end of that gulf to the extremes from Heroopolis (near Suez), to our sea (the Mediterranean), separating Egypt from Arabia and Judea; Egypt, therefore, is not divided in two, as it happens when the Nile is used as a border34 (in any case, it is better to divide the continents as much as possible by seas than by rivers). Finally we will score Asia” (Geog. 2.1.4-5). The catalog was designed in accordance with these requirements. Going through the three known continents, Ptolemy deals first with Europe (2.2-3) and Libya (our Africa, 4), the western continents, then with Asia (5-7.4),35 of Strabo's 34 ( 1, 4.7) had extensively discussed the question of the border lines between the continents; In describing Egypt, he chose the Nile to separate Asia from Libya. 35 Geographers had different ways of traveling the Oikoumene. Eratosthenes, whose work has been lost, probably set out from the Far East. Strabo had successively described Europe, Asia, and then Libya. Pomponius Mela (fl. c. AD 40) traveled through his in his De Chorographia

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Oriental. Thus began the geographical catalog with the British Isles, first Ierne (Ireland), then Albion (England) and so on. More than eighty provinces or satrapies were taken into account. For each, Ptolemy first noted the main features of the sides that bound the area being described, then the important cities or special places contained within. Each place cited was precisely located by its coordinate pair, just as he had promised. Ptolemy added to this exhaustive description of Oikoumene a summary description of general data to facilitate mapping the inhabited world. He thus described its borders: unknown lands to the east and south, sea and unknown lands to the west and north. In addition, he introduced a new connection between Asia and Libya in relation to the three continents, namely "the unknown land surrounding the Indian sea" (Geog. 7.5.5). He then gave in stadia the longitudes of the principal semi-parallels36 to put on the maps: 90,000 for the equator, 86,330 for the southern latitude (Anti-Meroe), 40,000 for the northern limit (Thule), 72,000 for the latitude through Rhodes, 82,336 for those passing through Syene (Aswan, the Summer Tropics). In the last book (8) of his Geography, Ptolemy explained how to divide the Oikoumene map into regional maps so that the dates on them are arranged at a suitable scale, which would improve the readability of it. Consequently, he created a new, greatly reduced catalog to be used for drawing regional maps. Forgetting the eighty odd provinces or satrapies described in the previous catalogue, he chose 26 areas to match the regional maps: 10 for Europe, 4 for Libya, 12 for Asia; These 26 cards should fill the entire inhabited world. For each, he first gave the relationship between the longitude of one degree on the mean parallel of this map (which varied with latitude) and the fixed longitude of one degree on the meridian. He then explained the boundaries of the mapped area. When he came to the list of cities or features to be plotted on the map, he chose a different way of giving their coordinates. He neglected degrees and showed latitude by the longest daylight duration (as he had previously done in Alm. 2.6 and in Geog. 1.23) and longitude by distances expressed in equinoctial hours east or west of the meridian of Alexandria. (as he had planned in Alm. 2.12 and in Geog. 1.23). He would have liked to have added the fixed stars counterclockwise in the Mediterranean region, from Libya to Asia and Europe. Pliny the Elder (c. 24-79) had studied the inhabited world (NH 2-6), first clockwise for the northern half and then counterclockwise for the southern half. . Later, in his Perigesis, Dionysius of Alexandria (c. 125) described Libya, Europe, islands, and then Asia in hexameters. 36 Since the longitude of the inhabited world was limited to 180°.

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cross the zenith for each place named37 (as Hipparchus had done) if they had remained forever at the same distance from the celestial equator, but he had learned from Hipparchus and made sure that their distance from the equator varied over the centuries; it would not have been appropriate for him to include such variable dates in a work destined to last forever. 4

The descendants of Ptolemy

Ptolemy wished all his work eternal life and a living utility for future generations. In general, this wish was quite fulfilled. 4.1 Establishing indissoluble frameworks The Mathematical Syntax, translated into Arabic in the 9th century, was so appreciated by Eastern scholars that they called it "The Greater" (megiste in Greek) and it became the Almagest. The belief in a geocentric cosmos lasted for many centuries until Galileo and Copernicus removed the earth from its central location. But it is evident that at least the geocentric hypothesis had allowed Greco-Roman scholars to acquire a complete theoretical knowledge of the entire globe. The Star catalog became the solid foundation for all further research. Star names (very often by Arabic translation) and constellation numbers are still in general use; the newcomers only had to coin other names and figures for that part of the sky around the South Pole that had remained invisible to the Mediterranean countries. As for geography, it was such a recent and comprehensive achievement that for a long time it seemed practically incomprehensible. In contrast to many of Marinus's treatises, which had left most locations unexplained, Ptolemy's catalog was apparently so precise and complete, including so many cities and landmarks with their coordinates, that it quickly seemed out of the question. improvement or attempted improvement. The image of the inhabited world drawn by Ptolemy, despite his errors, remained unchanged for centuries. 4.2 A fruitful innovation: mapping techniques The greatest achievement in terms of cartography, besides the catalog of places with a whole range of coordinates, was the discussion of the various schemes capable of giving a tolerable idea of what is spherical. when drawn in a 37 Ptol., Geog. 8.2.2.

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flat surface. Strabo, inspired by Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, had somehow addressed this issue,38 which was of vital importance to cartographers. But Ptolemy, whose research in this area is the only one happily preserved, explained in detail how to proceed. Already the Greeks tried to produce material images of the inhabited world. Herodotus39 mocked the scholars who drew the Oikoumene as a circle; but he related how Aristagoras of Miletus (ca. 500 BC) used a map carved on a bronze stand to show the leaders of Sparta and Athens the way to Babylon. This type of circular world map has been in use for a long time. Geminus (ca. 50 BC) denounced this persistent bad habit of drawing circular maps of the world: "Those who draw circular maps err far from the truth, because there the length is equal to the width, which in nature is not is the case". . . The inhabited part of the earth is a definite segment of a sphere, the length of which is twice the width, and therefore cannot be delimited by a circle” (Gm. 16:4-5). Eratosthenes had been the first to try to draw a map to scale thanks to his measurement of the circumference of the earth. Strabo, who, despite his criticisms, is the one who trusts him the most, recommended drawing the world map "on a flat board of at least seven feet" (Strab. 2.5.10) to use a globe, a better imitation of which would also be reality. Complicated. We learn from Strabo that Eratosthenes' map of the world was built on a kind of orthographic scheme, with the straight lines representing equal parallels to those of Rhodes. Hipparchus, who criticized this scheme, had probably proposed a kind of conical projection to which Strabo alluded (Estrab. 2.5.10). However, Ptolemy was undoubtedly the first to detail all the calculations necessary to solve the simple or modified conic projection. His mapping of the inhabited world was truly revolutionary. 4.3 Geography throughout the centuries40 Ptolemy's geography had already been translated into Arabic and drawn accordingly in the 9th century. The 10th century Arab historian al-Masudi41 claimed to have seen brightly colored maps with red, yellow or green mountains, seas of various shapes and even the Strab of 38 in a probably Ptolemaic geography. 2.5.10: "Although the various meridians drawn through the pole converge at one point on the sphere, it will not matter on our flat map that the straight lines slightly converge, as for many this is not necessary, nor are the converging lines lines as easy to understand as the curved lines of the sphere". 39 See Hdt. 5.36 and Hdt. 5.49. 40 See Gautier Dalché 2009; Shalev and Burnett 2011; Talbert and Unger 2008; Talbert 2012b; pitcher 1999; Broc 1980. 41 See Barbier de Maynard and Pavet de Courtelle 1861, 183, 204.

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course of the Nile. But in the West geography seemed to have been more or less forgotten. After all, the learned monk Maximus Planudes (ca. 1255-1305) is said to have discovered a very old and neglected geography manuscript without maps in Byzantium; so he got it copied, adding maps drawn according to Ptolemy's prescriptions. The two oldest surviving manuscripts, copied at the end of the 13th century, Urbinas gr.82 (currently in the Vatican Library) and Seragliensis 57 (in Istanbul), decorated with 26 regional maps based on the world map, probably showed the result of your research and services. In the late 14th century, the Greek scholar Manuel Chrysoloras, fearing the threat of the Ottomans, brought many Greek manuscripts from Byzantium to Italy, including one on geography. He began by translating into Latin and then commissioned one of his students, the Florentine Jacopo Angelo, to carry out this task. In 1406 the Latin edition of the geography was completed and dedicated to Pope Alexander V42. Painters and cartographers, especially in Florence, rushed to read the Latin transcriptions of Geography (which Jacopo Angelo had titled Cosmography). They used both the planar projections and the modified conical ones for the world map, and for the regional maps the orthogonal scheme favored by Ptolemy or a trapezoidal one (the so-called Donis projection)43 which was considered more appropriate. The popularity of map making thanks to Ptolemy led some artists to propose modern maps of Spain, Gaul, Italy, the Holy Land, etc. with corrected coordinates, based on Ptolemy's maps. Bernard Sylvanus de Eboli proposed a world map at the end of his Latin edition of Geography (1511) showing a newly discovered part of the Americas in an equal-area pseudoconical projection similar to the later one by R. Bonne (1727-1795). Likewise, Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594) had already published the Latin text of Ptolemy's Geography and drawn the corresponding maps (1581) when he decided to build his own collection of maps (1595) with the type of projection that bears his name: this it was an orthographic projection, which was improved by increasing the distance between the south-north parallels, so that a straight line connecting two points on the map would intersect all meridians at the same angle, a very useful property for navigators.

42 In his dedication, Jacopo Angelo hailed Ptolemy as “the most learned of all mathematicians. He meticulously explained the nature of the earth and everything else without deviating from the mathematics” (Shalev and Burnett 2011, 227). 43 This type of projection was practiced by Nicolaus Germanus around 1460.

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In the fifteenth century, the heyday of Latin manuscripts and geography editions inevitably fueled the desire to expand knowledge of the world. The Genoese Christopher Columbus owned a copy of the 1478 Rome edition, in which he learned that the extent of the ocean between Iberia and India could be less than 180° according to Ptolemy, or even less than 135° if Marinus was right. It was a strong impulse to sail from Cádiz along the 36th parallel across the Atlantic Ocean; Columbus' voyage (1492) had to be interrupted by the presence of islands (Cuba and Haiti) close to the new continent, as Strabo44 had predicted some time ago. The discovery of new lands was an indirect consequence of Ptolemy's fame for mapping the world. On various geographical maps of the world, notably the Ulm edition (1482), the Indian Ocean was surrounded by a strip of land, that "unknown land encircling the Indian Sea" alluded to by Ptolemy (Geog. 7:5, 5). Based on this clue, the Royal Society sent James Cook in search of an Australian continent and its expected benefits;45 it took several voyages, from 1768 to 1775, to ensure that this continent did not exist; but thanks to this search many other unknown lands were discovered. 5 Conclusion Ptolemy was lucky or wise enough to preserve most of his writings. In each attempt and success he has known how to be not only exhaustive but also up-to-date, presenting a broad account of the scientific knowledge accumulated over so many centuries of research, and adding his own experiments and methods of transmission. Working in Alexandria, still an unrivaled center of learning, he rallied loyal students and later commentators and editors. Ptolemy's various achievements were probably responsible for the loss of many notable treatises and for the wise attempts of his predecessors. But luckily, Ptolemy wasn't just a good announcer, delivering a 44 Strab. 1.4.6. Having estimated the length of the inhabited world at 78,000 stadia on the parallel of Rhodes (which is worth 200,000 stadia), he was able to conclude: "If the immensity of the Atlantic did not prevent it, we could sail from Iberia to India by one and the other." same parallel on the rest of the circle when the previous distance (i.e., the length of the inhabited world) has been subtracted, which is more than a third of the entire circle." But Strabo disagreed: "In this temperate zone it could there may be two inhabited worlds or even more, and especially near the parallel drawn through Rhodes across the Atlantic.” 45 See Thomas 2003; Richardson 2005.

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scientific access to the knowledge about the cosmos, heaven and earth prevalent in antiquity, but also a first-class discoverer of useful new processes and techniques. Ptolemy, such an amazing scholar, was able to do all kinds of incisive research, but also to explain most of his procedures and results in a simple and practical way that should be available to any layman. In geography, his discussion of how best to represent on a flat surface what is actually found on a spherical surface, his requirement that both coordinates for each location be plotted on a map provided a solid goal for future generations. In the art of cartography, as in many other fields, he was an unparalleled innovator who started a kind of revolution that established his everlasting fame.

FIGURE 18.1

Ptolemy, Greek 1401, fol. 2 (courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris).

FIGURE 18.2 Ptolemy, Latin 4801. Fol. 74 (courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris).

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FIGURE 18.3

Ptolemy, Latin 4801. Fol. 75 (courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris).

333

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FIGURE 18.4 Ptolemy, Latin 4801. Fol. 76 (courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris).

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Part 3 geographic bounces

⸪

CHAPTER 19

The Peutingerian Tabula and ancient cartography Michael Rathmann 1

Ancient cartography from the point of view of recent research

For a long time, research uncritically repeated the belief that maps existed in ancient times and were comparable to modern maps in terms of appearance and, above all, function. Pietro Janni can be seen as the initiator of a constructive examination of ancient cartography.1 The refutation of his hypothesis that ancient cartography never existed brought productive questions to the forefront of the discussion: 2 What really is a map? What types of graphic illustrations of physical space are there? Were the maps only used by a small circle of academic elites, or were they also available to the general public? What are the reasons for the problem sources and poor transmission status? Can ancient specialist texts (eg Strabo, Pomponius Mela, Pliny) be read as map descriptions? Meanwhile, scholarly discussions have made it clear that the maps existed and were mainly available to the sociopolitical elites of Greece and the Roman Empire. However, they were largely ignored in political, administrative and military decisions and were not even taken into account when planning trips.3 There were travel routes for orientation. They were more practical, cheaper, and could be easily customized for each trip. Due to personal travel experiences, political decision makers certainly had some general knowledge of space (mind mapping). Geographical literature and maps probably served more as a supplement or to consolidate knowledge of the area. Taken together, these circumstances explain the current state of the source material and the history of the development of ancient cartography. "Scientific" maps, such as those we used for Claudius Ptolemy's Geography, which apparently pointed to scale representations of the Oikoumene and of

1 de enero de 1984; cf. Brodersen 20032. 2 Vgl. Prontera 2001c; Brodersen 2003; Talbert 2004; Mittenhuber 2009b; Rathmann 2013b. 3 Rathmann 2014b.

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large space.4 Due to their extreme production costs5 and their unsuitability for everyday use, they certainly only stayed in scientific circles. Significantly more common were map-like drawings, in which the focus was less on full-scale representation and more on the general visualization of the geographic area. The Tabula Peutingeriana (TP) also seems to belong to this second group. The purpose of these maps that are not to scale and the sociopolitical groups to which their owners and users belonged need further investigation. A hypothesis in this regard is presented at the end of this article: It is possible that maps that are not on a real scale were used as complements to chorographic works (for example, until ancient times we must always assume the unity of image and word.6 2

Name and history of the manuscript (Cod. Vind. 324)7

The first known owner of the TP was the humanist Konrad Celtes (1459-1508). He allegedly stole the parchment scroll from the library of the monastery on the island of Reichenau in Lake Constance, a fairly common occurrence among traveling scholars of the day.8 In the summer of 1507, Celts handed over the Rotulus to Konrad Peutinger (1465- 1547) in Augsburg and confirmed this donation in his will of 1508. Associated with this was the request for the release of the map. Peutinger therefore obtained an imperial printing license - in accordance with the legal regulations of the time - and also made two drawn copies of the first parchment sheet as a model. This is how Peutinger became the namesake of the manuscript, although he was ultimately unable to print it due to his numerous professional commitments. However, it is known that he enjoyed showing the scroll to his guests. If he was also responsible for the names, today almost illegible, "Regenspurg" and "Salzpurg" together with 4 Mittenhuber 2009a; Mittenhuber 2009b. 5 Maps, especially those with elaborate polychrome drawings, were difficult to copy. In addition to a scribe, a draughtsman was needed. It is therefore understandable that our medieval manuscripts often only contain monochrome, mostly very schematic, map-like sketches. The copyist of the text could probably create such simple drawings while he copied and he didn't have to call a draftsman. 6 Stückelberger 1994. See also chap. 5. 7 Miller 1916, XIII–XVI; Talbert 2010a, 10–71; Weber 1976, 9-10, 29-31. 8 Possible discovery sites were various monasteries in Switzerland and southern Germany (eg St. Gallen) and along the Rhine (eg Worms, Speyer, Colmar). A Reichenau island origin, as suggested by Lieb in 1974, has been widely accepted by researchers. See gross 1999.

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Regino and Ivavo remain uncertain. In any case, the Peutinger heirs showed little interest in the Tabula Peutingeriana. Only Markus Welser (1558-1614), a distant relative of Peutinger, published at least the first two sketches in 1591. This black-and-white print shows that Peutinger copied the tabula freehand. The first complete signed copy was published in 1598 by Welser in collaboration with Jan Moretus (1543-1610) under the title Tabula itineraria ex illustri Peutingerorum bibliotheca.9 Another descendant, Ignaz Desiderius von Peutinger (1641-1718), sold the parchment scroll so that it passed into the hands of Prince Eugene of Savoy for the respectable sum of 100 ducats in 1715 through the bookseller Paul Küz and in 1717 through the antiquarian Karl Gustav Heräus. After his death in 1737, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. his library As a result, the TP ended up in the Imperial Library in Vienna in 1738, where it is still kept today (Austrian National Library Cod. Vind. 324).10 3

State of conservation, dimensions, shape and dating of the parchment label

The poor state of preservation of the scroll with its eleven parchment leaves was soon recognized in Vienna. It was apparently mounted on canvas and rolled on a cylinder. This should make it easier to get in and out. Steady decline, however, led to the dissolution of Rotulus in 1863. The brittle parts were reinforced with paper and the eleven sheets have been kept separate ever since. In the 1930s, the sheets of parchment were sandwiched between sheets of glass, deteriorating the state of conservation due to lack of air. They have been replaced by chemically neutral perforated plastic panels. Since this didn't work either, the sheets were placed on cardboard and covered with a clear plastic sheet. In addition to its age, modern use, and temporarily inadequate storage, the parchment also suffered from the blue vitriol contained in the color green. 9 TP's first publication images from 1591 and 1598 in Weber 1976, figs. 3–4; Talbert 2010a, Fig. 3a/b, 4. 10 For a high-quality reproduction of the TP see: http://aleph.onb.ac.at/F/?func=findb&find_code=IDN&request=AL00161171&local_base=ONB06&adjacent=N ( 1.5 .2014 ). Earlier copies and editions include: F. Chr. von Scheyb, Vienna 1753 (cf. Fig. 1); K. Mannert, Munich 1824; E. Desjardins, Paris 1869-74; K. Miller, Ravensburg 1887 (color version of Scheyb's slightly revised edition); Weber, Graz 1976 (facsimile); Prontera 2003b (reprint of Miller's 1887 version). The first photographs were published in 1888.

FIGURE 19.1 TP Sec. II (Scheyb 1753).

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Based on paleographic evidence, the current TP must have been created around AD 1200. AD 435 according to Ekkehard Weber.11 Later minor additions may have been incorporated into the manuscript during the medieval copying process.12 Information on the number of stages of medieval copying is not possible. The length of the entire sign before its separation into individual sheets was 6.75 m, the height of each sheet varied between 32.8 cm. and 33.7 cm.13 On the left edge of the first sheet there is a somewhat wider margin, as well as a thicker black vertical line at the beginning of the drawing. From this we can conclude that by the year 1200 AD the copyist no longer had access to the original beginning of the Label. It is very likely that the missing beginning of the rotulus consisted of two or three sheets of parchment containing not only a praefatio but also the landmasses of West Africa, Iberia, Ireland, Great Britain, and other Atlantic islands.14 Weber's indication of That the poem is anthologia Latina 724 Riese may have been part of the praefatio of the AD 425 edition, seems plausible: Hoc opus egregium, quo mundi summa tenetur, Aequora quo montes fluvii portus freta et urbes Signantur, cunctis ut sit cognoscere promptum , Quidquid ubique latet : genus clemens, inclita proles, Ac per saecla pius, totius quem vix capit orbis, Theodosius princeps, venerando iussit ab ore Confici, ter quinis aperit cum fascibus annum. Supplices hoc famuli, dum scribit pingit et alter, Mensibus exiguis veterum momumenta secti In melius reparamus opus culpamque priorum Tollimus ac totum breviter comprendimus orbem: Sed tamen hoc tua nos docuit sapientia, princeps.

11 Weber 1976, 22–3; Weber 1989; on paleography see: Steinmann in Talbert 2010a, 76–85. 12 Gautier Dalché 2003. 13 Detailed information in Talbert 2010a, 74. 14 Cf. the attempt to reconstruct the beginning of TP in Miller 1887; also: Talbert 2007. Weber 1976, 13 it was already suspected that Rom could be located in the center of the TP, so there would be some 2 m missing at the beginning of the Rotulus. Thus the total TP would have been 8.75 m. long.

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The poem was bequeathed by the Irish monk Duicul and dates from the year 825 dC15. It confirms all the known parameters of the copying process: the scribe and the draftsman were different people (dum scribit pingit et alter). At the same time, the family doesn't seem to have been an expert. They copied from a single original or perhaps put several together (veterum momumenta seciti). This and the fact that they themselves made changes (reparamus opus culpamque priorum) would help to explain several errors. It also draws attention to the fact that choreographic aspects are explicitly mentioned (Aequora quo montes fluvii portus freta et urbes / Signature, cunctis ut sit cognoscere promptum, / Quidquid ubique latet), although information about a road network is lacking. Further statements on the lost commencement are not possible due to lack of source material. 4

Current state of research on Tabula Peutingeriana

Since Christian von Scheyb's work of 1753 (see Fig. 1), the TP has been the focus of research because it is the largest and best preserved map from antiquity. In 2007 it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Until now, it has been considered as communis opinio in the investigation that it is a Roman product.16 The TP, therefore, attests to Rome's claim to power over the entire orbis terrarum. Evidence of this are, for example, the cartoons of the great cities of Rome and Constantinople, which "rise over" the entire world. In the end, the discussion only varied on matters of detail.17 In what follows, a new approach to interpretation, moving away from the earlier communis opinio, becomes plausible: TP belongs to a chorographic tradition of cartography. Its archetype dates from the Hellenistic period and was only adapted to new circumstances in the course of centuries of copying process in its internal inscription with variable intensity and distribution.18 In contrast, the represented physical matrix of represented space 15 For Duicul's poem see: Lozovsky 2008, 172-73, Albu 2008, 113; see Talbert 2010a, 138–39. 16 Talbert 2010a, 149: "Overall, then, it is not surprising that Peutinger's map projects Roman world domination, nor that this path should project as far east as India and Sri Lanka." 17 Critical to the discussion: Arnout 1988; Bosio 1983; gross 1913; Kubitschek 1917; Kubitschek 1919; Levi and Levi 1967; Muller 1887; Muller 1916; Prontera 2003b; Salway 2005; Talbert 2010a; Rathmann 2013a; Weber 1976; Weber 1989; Weber 2012. 18 Gisinger 1938, 1408–10 was the first to hypothesize that the TP might have had a Hellenistic model, but he refrained from formulating any further consequences.

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surprisingly it remained unchanged. This opinion can be justified by the following points: 1)

2) 3)

The TP contains a myriad of elements (mountains, regional landforms, lighthouses, place names for rivers, lakes, islands, seas, and landscapes) that are incompatible with an itinerarium pictum or the cursus publicus. The concentration on traced roads in combination with the simultaneous marginalization of all graphic-topographic elements means a severe limitation of the variety of information contained in the PT. The map has numerous details that are inconsistent with its dating to the Roman Empire. The information derived from Hellenism is too abundant to be trivialized as anachronisms or anything else. However, the land masses shown correspond to the information available in the 3rd century BC. But some aspects are missing, although they would be expected in a cartographic representation of the Roman Empire. This is all the more true if the TP is to be seen in the context of Agrippa's map or interpreted as a map of the Roman Empire.19

Despite the brevity required, it will be necessary to express my opinion on the previous positions of a majority of researchers: (4.1) cursus publicus, (4.2) itinerarium pictum and (4.3) Agrippa's map. 4.1 The tabula and the cursus publicus Some scholars consider the TP to be a product of the cursus publicus.20 Consequently, the TP would have been a means of Augustus' infrastructural measures aimed at ensuring communication between Rome and the provincial capitals. As an aid, it would have served dispatchers in practice or the praefectus vehiculorum in general. However, this hypothesis is implausible. Not even almost all public roads and provincial capitals are marked on the TP, nor are distances along highways given in units of measurement that would have made sense.

19 In addition, a connection was often suggested between the TP and the anonymous cosmographer of Ravenna or the Dimensuratio provinciarum or the Divisio orbis terrarum. The objective was to situate the TP in a Roman-imperial context. See Weber 2005. 20 Talbert 1999, 304 with additional information.

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the practical application of the cursus publicus.21 Even in combination with a written itinerary, no cursus rider would ever have seen, for example, the villas on the Rome-Antioquia road.22 For government agencies, i. me. the praefectus vehiculorum, the rotulus with an original length of more than 8 m, could not have served any purpose either. Any structural information or administrative references required by the cursus publicus are missing.23 It is obvious that the red-marked road network has attracted the attention of researchers since von Scheyb and has therefore blocked any view of alternatives.24 In general I do not intend to underline the relevance of the marked roads and distances. They represent an indispensable source for research on viae publicae, but not on cursus publicus. 4.2 Is the tabula – an itinerary image? The situation is similar to 4.1 with the apparently safe second pillar of TP research: its labeling as itinerarium pictum.25 This hypothesis is based precisely on the roads marked in red, including the mass of information on the distances between the various places. . It is said that the local vignettes of different sizes (555 labels) showed the different furniture of the mansions.26 The authorized text document comes from Flavio 21 The use of measurement units along the streets is completely unsystematic. However, in Lugdunum we find the indication that since then it has been counted in leagues [TP sec. I 5: Lvgdvno capvt Galliar(vm) vsq(ve) hic legas] we learn nothing about the way of counting in Great Britain, Germania or even in the areas east of the Euphrates (Pasarangs?). No ancient traveler would have been able to navigate this jumble of distances, sometimes misaligned or lost altogether. These errors can hardly be attributed exclusively to Late Antique and Medieval copyists. 22 Although http://www.omnesviae.org/ (05/01/2014) does not meet the scientific requirements, this website makes it clear how limited the TP information potential is for travellers. 23 On the cursus publicus, see Kolb 2000. 24 Bosio 1983, 121–33; Weber 1984; Talbert 2010a, 108–122. Dilke 1987b, 238 is still fully committed to 19th century ideas: "The Peutinger map was drawn primarily to show the main roads, a total of about 70,000 Roman miles (104,000 km)." der Berge's presentation that the 'choice of color certainly only has a colourist, aesthetic, not factual reason', but at the same time failed to acknowledge that researchers were quite willing to attach importance to the red color of the sign on marked roads. See Talbert 2010a, 97–8. 25 In Levi and Levi 1967, Vegetius's theorem even appeared in the title of the book. Talbert 1999, 303–4 and Mittenhuber 2009b, 42 also list the TP in tabulae pictae. 26 Levi and Levi 1967, 197–211.

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Vegetius Renatus' book De re militari (3.6.4), which was written around AD 400.27 The term itinerarium pictum used in it has been applied to TP by scholars as an apparently ideal terminus technicus. However, there are already isolated indications in the literature that Vegetius referred to the use of drawn travel routes only in a theoretical connection to the achievements of particularly capable generals. Vegetius probably never actually saw such a Pictish itinerary.28 Above all, the TP as an itinerarium pictum offers very little information about roads (passes, bridges, lane widths, etc.)29 on the one hand and too many references without road context on the other. . Furthermore, it depicts an Oikoumene surrounded by the ocean, making it too large in scale and lacking in detail, making it unsuitable for guiding an army on land, as Vegetius imagines. The last point, and perhaps the most problematic, about the Vegetian notion is that it is exclusively attested here. Consequently, it cannot be used as a terminus technicus for the TP. 4.3 The Tabula and Agrippa's Map At first glance, it seems questionable that the existence of Agrippa's map can only be deduced from literary sources. Its shape and possible geographic-cartographic content are the subject of controversial debate.30 This starting point already reveals the problem of a hypothesis put forward by many researchers, according to which Agrippa's map is the prototype of the TP.31 For example, it is not it is convincing that the elongated shape of the TP in Agrippa's map, attached to the walls of Porticus Vipsania in 27 etiam viarum qualitate perdiscat, compendia, deverticula, montes, flumina ad fidem descripta Consideret usque eo, ut sollertiores duces itineraria provinciarum, in quibus necessitas gerebatur, non tantum adnotata sed etiam picta habuisse firmatur, ut non solum consilio mentis, verum aspectu oculorum viam profecturus elegant. See Brodersen 20032, 188. 28 Brodersen 20032, 188 with additional literature; also Kubitschek 1919b, 2126–32. 29 It is striking that there is only one entry of this type, namely the road tunnel near Naples (TP section V 4). 30 Brodersen 20032, 269–72 with an overview of all the suggestions for what Agrippa's map might have looked like. 31 On Agrippa's map see Arnaud's contribution to this volume; see also Hanger 2007 and Arnaud 2007–2008; Talbert 2010a, 144. A connection between Agrippa's map and the TP was, p. von Gross 1913, 87, Levi and Levi 1967 and Weber in all their publications. Criticism of this approach is as old as the attempt to establish a connection between TP and Agrippa's map: Cuntz 1894, 587.

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Mars field. Why shouldn't this august world map be several meters high, comparable to the forma urbis? We know at least the fragment of a marble city plan from the Via Anicia from the Julio-Claudian period, which with a height of about 13 m is structurally similar to the urbis form.32 Another vestige of a marble city plan comes from from the Forum of Nerva and can be attributed to the context of the find dating to the year 98 AD.33 Therefore, plans or maps several meters high were generally familiar to the Roman-city from the beginning of the first century AD. So nothing speaks against the assumption that Agrippa's map could also have been several meters high. In any case, the characteristic shape of the TP has nothing to do with a supposedly elongated map of Agrippa on the walls of the Porticus Vipsania. With its cuts and stretches, it is due more simply to the writing material, a scroll.34 There are also substantial objections to a connection between the TP and Agrippa's map, which show that we should not regard the TP as genuinely august or imperial. . roman product. For example, the physical space of Germania is missing, including the Elbe. This information would certainly be expected on an Augustan world map. After all, Augustus expressly aims for the submission of Germania in his res gestae.35 In return, the Germanic tribal names of the middle and late imperial period, which seem to have been added later on the narrow strip of land between the Rhine and the north Oceanus, impressively document that Germania to the Elbe was not foreseen at all in the TP (see Fig. 1). Also, one should wonder why the areas east of the Euphrates and all of Africa are mapped, when most of these areas were not part of the Empire. Instead, there is an explicit reference to the limits of Roman power over the Euphrates: "Are(a)e fines romanorum" and a little further down "Fines 32" Rodriguez-Almeida 2002, 43-9; Rosada 2007, 152-54; Talbert 2005. The fragment shows a district around the Circus Flaminius with the temples of Castor and Pollux (Vitr., De arch. 4.8.4). 33 Rodríguez-Almeida 2002, 61–66; Rosada 2007, 156. 34 As Kubitschek 1919, 2129 already pointed out, there must be a tradition of transferring drawn maps to scrolls. Finally, despite its many peculiarities, the Oikoumene has been successfully represented. All cuts and distortions seem to follow a specific method. 35 Augustus Res gestae 26. Corresponds to Strab. 7.2.2, according to which the Romans knew the country up to the Elbe. He also points out that at his time there was enough geodetic data to create an up-to-date image of the Oikoumene (2.5.1). Since he is speaking unequivocally of geodetic data, the target of the activity he describes can only have been a map. Surprisingly, Talbert 2010a, 149 completely ignores Rome's territorial claim to Germania.

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exercitus syriatic(a)e et commertium Barbaror(um)”36. These statements do not speak to a Roman cartographic claim to world domination. These points of criticism already show that the discussion of the TP's reliance on Agrippa's map is not constructive.37 Regarding the TP and Agrippa's map, the opposite picture is more likely: Agrippa's map as possibly the first illustration. Roman oikoumene belongs to a Hellenistic cartographic tradition. The archetype of the present TP not only represents the probably older version due to the drawn landmasses, but could even have been a kind of model for Agrippa's map.38 This hypothesis is supported by the fact that, according to with our current state of knowledge - Rom did not have its own cartography until the beginning of the principality and that a general transfer of knowledge from Hellas to Rome can be verified. So why shouldn't the creators of Agrippa's map have used a Hellenistic map as well? Compare the following diagram:

FIGURE 19.2 Archetype of TP (courtesy of M. Herchenbach / M. Rathmann).

36 TP Sec X2; on this: Weber 2006b. 37 Looking at the fragments of Agrippa collected by Riese, GLM pp. 1–8, one can only agree with Brodersen 20032, 270, according to which Agrippa's map did not necessarily contain roads. 38 Cf. infra chap. 7.

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New approach to the historical and content processing of the Tabula Peutingeriana

In order to fully understand the TP, including its meaning and historical context, some aspects of ancient cartography must first be clarified. This brings to the fore the question of what kinds of maps were known in antiquity. Next, the existence of different types of letters is proven, for which there are even special terms in the written sources. My starting point is the investigative controversy mentioned at the beginning, which Janni sparked through her study of ancient maps and travel routes. The expansion to the second dimension in the form of cards did not go beyond the beginning for him. In doing so, he questioned the traditional notion of generalized cartography, as reported in reference works and articles in the Realencyclopedia of classical antiquity.39 Kai Brodersen sharpened Janni's critical interpretation of map material.40 Maps in the modern sense they became more cartographic in a Very small circle geographers are not used. He justifies his hypothesis with the lack of a “concept of scale” 41, which prevented the generation and dissemination of maps suitable for daily use. Without wanting to discuss the existence of ancient maps in detail, it can at least be noted, as mentioned at the beginning, that a synopsis of all available sources certainly reveals a genesis of ancient cartography from Anaximander and Hekataios from Miletus to Claudius Ptolemy. 42 In general, a fundamental revision of ancient cartography and an answer to the question of what role maps played in the daily lives of people or among political decision makers are still lacking. But what is meant by an ancient map? Ptolemy gives a first clue in the introduction to his Handbook of Geography.43 In this second-century text he presents geography as a science with a double aspect. 39 For example: Aujac 1987a; Aujac 1987b; Dilke 1987a; Dilke 1987b; Kubitschek 1919b, 2100. Cf. Brodersen 20032, 22–23. 40 Brodersen 20032; see Brodersen 2003. 41 Brodersen 20032, 289. 42 Stückelberger 2009; Rathmann 2013b. 43 1.1.1: Ἡ γεωγραφία μίμησίς ἐστι διὰ γραφῆς τοῦ κατειλημμένου τῆς γῆς μέρους ὅλου μετὰ τῶν ὡς ἐπίπαν αὐτῷ συνημμένων· καὶ διαφέρει τῆς χωρογραφίας, ἐπειδήπερ αὕτη μὲν ἀποτεμνομένη τοὺς κατὰ μέρος τόπους χωρὶς ἕκαστον καὶ καθ' αὑτὸν ἐκτίθεται, συναπογραφομένη πάντα σχεδὸν καὶ τὰ μικρότατα ἐμπεριλαμβανομένων, οἷον λιμένας καὶ κ δή ΔUAL On Ptolemy see Aujac's contribution in this volume.

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He contrasts geography with choreography. For him, geography means cartography, which he understands as a method of representing the Oikoumene to scale.44 As far as we know, this cartography was practiced and developed by an elite group of scientists from Dicearchus of Messana to Hipparchus and Ptolemy.45 In con In all likelihood, this cartography was further developed, aimed at the most realistic representation possible of the Oikoumene, which had begun with the Ionian maps of Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus46 and which the protagonists further explained through accompanying texts. The unity of image and word, as Stückelberger called it, has survived from the beginnings of cartography to Ptolemy.47 To put it bluntly, one might venture the hypothesis that a map without accompanying text was not intended at all. Interestingly, the two branches of geography cited by Ptolemy are already mentioned by Strabo, who also refers to different types of maps for both (2.5.10; 2.5.17).48 Strabo's first passage describes a representation of the world that it is as true to scale as possible in the sense of Ptolemy's Cartography.49 The second quote from Strabo, on the other hand, presents a chorographic cartography that deals with the visualization of regional geographic features.50 The paraphrasing of the chorography Strabo's choice is similar to Ptolemy's and very well adjusted, also in 44 Ptol., Geog. 8.1.2 and 5; Vitr., Dearch. 1.2.2. 45 On the influences of astronomy, see the contribution of Geus in this volume. 46 Eratosth. F I B, 5 Berger = Strab. 1.1.11; on this: Berger 1903, 25–43; cf. Agathem., Geogr. Info Keyword 1. 1. 47 Stückelberger 1994. A symbiosis of text and image seems to have existed since the time of Hecataeus (FGrHist 1 T 12 = F 36a, FF 37–369, cf. Hdt. 5.49). The limited potential of the available writing materials (papyrus, parchment), especially in terms of height, may have played a role. Much of the information simply could not fit on the map and therefore had to be reserved for accompanying text. 48 The term ὁ γεωγραφικὸς πίναξ is also found in Strab. 1.1.10; 2.1.2; 2.5.13. It remains to be examined whether the combination of γεωγραφία and πίναξ as a more accurate version of the older term περίοδος γῆς goes back to Eratosthenes. For the choreography in Strabo, see: Arnaud 2007–2008, 89–91; Prompt 2011b. Furthermore, it remains to be discussed whether the term pinakographia was also coined by Eratosthenes as a terminus technicus for the graphical implementation of geographic information (F III A, 11 Berger = Strab. 2.1.10). 49 2.5.10: Νυνὶ μὲν οὖν ἐπιγεγράφαμεν ἐπὶ σφαιρικῆς ἐπιφανείας τὸ χωρίον, ἐν ᾧ φαμεν ἱδρῦσθαι τὴν οἰκουμένην· καὶ δεῖ τὸν ἐγγυτάτω διὰ τῶν χειροκμήτων σχημάτων μιμούμενον τὴν ἀλήθειαν ποιήσαντα σφαῖραν τὴν γῆν, καθάπερ τὴν Κρατήτειον, ἐπὶ ταύτης ἀπολαβόντα τὸ τετράπλευρον ἐντὸς τούτου τιθέναι τὸν πίνακα τῆς γεωγραφίας. 50 2.5.17: Πλεῖστον δ’ ἡ θάλαττα γεωγραφεῖ καὶ σχηματίζει τὴν γῆν, κόλπους ἀπεργαζομένη καὶ πελάγη καὶ πορθμούς, ὁμοίως δὲ ἰσθμοὺς καὶ χερρονήσους καὶ ἄκρας· προσλαμβάνουσι δὲ ταύτῃ

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otherwise, the information we receive about it in the sense of descriptive regional studies.51 Of particular interest is the fact that Strabo, unlike Ptolemy and all other sources dealing with chorography, also explicitly knows maps of the specific geography of this country. It can only be speculated that Ptolemy did not mention these chorographic maps because to him they were not "real" maps, but only geographical drawings in a broader sense.52 That Strabo speaks unequivocally of chorographic maps as a type in their own right should not be put into question. doubt due to the coupled terms geography or chorography and pinax (ὁ χωρογραφικὸς πίναξ).53 A passage from Vitruvius also fits into this discussion. In relation to his observations on winds, rain and river courses, the architect states in a somewhat confused argument (8.2.6) that he took the information on a chorographic map (quae orbe terrarum chorographiis picta itemque scripta). 54 To understand this point, Prontera pointed out on 8.2.8.55. Here Vitruvius speaks of in orbis terrarum descriptionibus and makes it clear that he can distinguish between a graphic and a literary description of the earth. Therefore, when writing 8.2.6, Vitruvius must have had a map in front of him, or at least mentally referred to it. It is crucial that Vitruvius 8.2.6, in addition to Strab, give us a second test. 2.5.17 - the existence of a chorographic cartography. Ptolemy's narrow definition of a map thus receives a conceptual extension: chorography did not exclusively produce texts. The text was apparently sometimes flanked by visual representations of the treated region, which – καὶ οἱ ποταμοὶ καὶ τὰ ὄρη. Διὰ ὰ τῶν ἤπτων ἤπειροί ἔ ἔἔ καὶ πόλεων θέσεις ὐ ὁ ὁ ὁο & κ Tone π π καὶττττides & es κοοvent & κ is κ eg. 51 Cf. Prontera 2011b. To this we should add: Divisio orbis terrarum 1: Terrarum orbis dividitur tribes nominibus: Europe, Asia, Libya. Quem divus Augustus primus omnium per chorographiam ostendit. Does the choreography mentioned here allude to Agrippa's letter? 52 The συναπογραφομένη in Ptol., Geog. 1.1.1 in no way excludes anything drawn in connection with the choreography due to the γράφειν contained therein. From a semantic point of view, this would only be very unlikely if they only mean a drawing of the Earth in the previous prayer in geography (γεωγραφία μίμησίς ἐστι διὰ γangang ῆς τοῦ κατειένους τς τοῦ ... see bow Suoi occhi the chorographìa è a pseudo-cartografía perché dispenses totally from the beginning of mathematics, which alone can render account of the rapporto spaziale fra totalità dell'ecumene e le sue partizioni –22 Nicolet 1988, 134-35 Brodersen 20032, 26-7 Prontera 2011b , 96-7 January 1994/1995, 57-9 Mostly Arist., Mete. 1.13.350a-c is cited around the passage to be explained by Vitruvio 55 Prontera 2011b, 98.

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According to Ptolemy (1.1.1) tratado con τὰ μικρότατα τῶν ἐμπεριλαμβανομένων, ον λιμένας καὶ κώμας ήαὮ δΰν ώ τ. Not only the physical-mathematical branch of geography destined for map production, but also the neighboring discipline of chorography. One of the reasons why this piece of literary information on chorographic cartography has yet to be appreciated by scholars is probably that there has not been any convincing evidence that such a distinct type of chorographic map actually existed in antiquity. Since the 1990s, we have had a map-like graphic in the Artemidorus Papyrus (P. Artemid.) as our missing link.56 In addition to the unfinished map-like drawing, the papyrus provides five columns of text and numerous drawings that detail it. The label was originally intended to be a deluxe edition for geographers. However, the copy project was canceled at the initial stage due to unknown reasons. The papyrus scroll itself was used secondarily. Despite the fragmentary state of preservation, the author can be identified: it is the chorographic geographer Artemidorus of Ephesus. This is evident from a comparison of lines 1 to 14 of column IV in P. Artemid. with Artemidorus F 21 robes. According to Martian of Herakleia, the apogee of Artemidorus dates from the Olympiad 169 (104-101 BC).57 The papyrus, which according to scientific analyzes originated around the year 80 d. C., confronts us with one of those renowned Hellenistic geographers.58 For our discussion , the large map-like drawing on the front of the papyrus immediately to the left of text columns IV-V is of central importance. This neat juxtaposition of chorographic text and cartographic map must be seen as a deliberate unity. Unfortunately, the illustrator stopped his work in the early stages. Nevertheless, enough clues can be seen: the unfinished illustration offers simple lines that can be interpreted as streams or paths, and double lines that can be explained as larger paths or rivers. In addition, geographical details such as mountains or a building (temple?) can also be recognized. Large vignettes seem to represent cities and the numerous squares smaller vici or mansions.59 Although the whole sketch is stagnant in its infancy, it resembles the structures of the TP. Another interesting data can be derived from the comparison between P.Artemid. and 56 Gallazzi, Kramer and Settis 2008. The debate about the authenticity of the papyrus can be considered resolved: Hammerstaedt 2009; Marcotte 2010a; Rathmann 2011. 57 Epi. By. Menipp. 1.3 (GGM I 566). On the life and work of Artemidorus: Gallazzi, Kramer and Settis 2008, 98-110. 58 Gallazzi, Kramer and Settis 2008, 66–71. 59 See Forward 2012; Gallazzi, Kramer and Settis 2008, 63–77; Talbert 2009; Talbert 2012 .

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right TP: The representation of settlements using stereotypical patterns (vignettes) seems to have been common in antiquity, because vignettes can also be found, for example, on the so-called Dura-Europos shield, on the Madaba mosaic map or on the surviving maps by Ptolemy in various manuscripts.60 The crucial conclusion for our discussion is that obviously the works of a chorographic author like Artemidorus of Ephesus were provided with maps for a better understanding of the text. Since Artemidorus was definitely a choreographer, the unfinished diagram on the papyrus is obviously one of those choreographer diagrams mentioned by Strabo and Vitruvius and circumscribed by Ptolemy. The choreography, then, was intended not only to create a mind map in the reader's mind, but also to occasionally offer tangible geographical sketches to aid the imagination. Above all, these must convey a clear idea of the region under discussion with its essential physical characteristics. Such maps were not used for orientation in space, therefore they were much inferior to travel routes and periploi in practical aspects, and therefore less common. In addition, they were lost much faster in the receiving process due to obstacles in the copy process. The Artemidorus Papyrus combined with the written sources presented above makes it clear that in addition to scientific scale maps such as those of Ptolemy, the ancients also accepted maps with distortions and foreshortenings for display to represent a desired area on existing writing material. . It was crucial that the map could give the reader a picture of the region discussed, in addition to the text. Following Podossinov61, therefore, we should distinguish three types of maps in antiquity: 1)

Theoretical-scientific maps of physical-mathematical geographers closely related to astronomy (for example, Marinus von Tyrus, Claudius Ptolemy). 2) Cards illustrating a text to create an idea of space, which, according to the above facts, should be called chorographic cards (for example, card in P.Artemid.). 3) Religious-decorative maps, which first appeared in Mesopotamia, but also among the Greeks and Romans in the form of wall paintings or mosaics, and again in the Christian Middle Ages. This last type of card has not been discussed here, since it clearly emphasizes the decorative aspects.

60 Mittenhuber 2009b, 62. On the TP cartoons: Levi, and Levi 1967, 197–211. 61 Podossinov 1993, 38.

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6 The Peutingerian Tabula – a product of chorographic cartography Now it should be my task to explain the meaning of the newly defined map types and the chorographic map in P.Artemid. for the TP. The editors of the editio princeps of P. Artemid. I have already pointed out that the papyrus map showed certain similarities with the TP, without commenting further.62 Two questions remain to be answered: Can the TP, detached from the previous state of investigation, be assigned to one of the three newly defined? types of cards? How late can the TP archetype be dated?63 This second question is dealt with in Chapter 7. At this point once again the results already determined: As it could be shown, the Vegetius-derived term is itinerarium pictum for the TP. On the other hand, the label "chorographic map" attested by Vitruvius and Strabo offers us a new suffix that can be used for maps in which aspects of the visualization of space are emphasized. The sketch of the unfinished map in P.Artemid. it acts as an important missing link in the discussion about the applicability of this new technical term to be introduced in research. The only difference between the unfinished chorographic map in P.Artemid. and the definition of a chorographic map in Strabo on the one hand and the TP on the other hand is that the TP is not a map of a so-called "middle space" but of the entire oikoumene. This gives rise to a definitional problem, because, following Strabo and Ptolemy, geography means the process of cartographic mapping of the earth (ge) and chorography means the "middle space" (chora). The TP does not fit into this apparently clear scheme. But is it really possible to draw the terminological boundary between cartography proper and its chorographic version as clearly as hinted at in particular by Ptolemy and, to a lesser extent, by Strabo? First of all, even Ptolemy knew physical-mathematical maps for the middle space, the twenty-six maps of countries. 63 Since the fixation on this dependency dominated the debate, no dating proposal existed beyond the Augustan period (≈ Agrippa's Map; Weber 1976, 12). Talbert tried to interpret the TP with unconvincing arguments as a product of the Diocletian era (Talbert 2010a, 133-36; see also: Weber 2012). See Albu 2008 and Salway 2005, 119: 'It is impossible to pin down an exact date or place for the emergence of the archetype, but the cultural point of view represented on the map is undoubtedly ancient, Latin and Western.' 64 Ptol., Geog. 8.3-28. Mittenhuber 2009a, 130; Mittenhuber 2009b.

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the space in between also existed for him. In return, Vitruvius 8.2.8 speaks of a chorographic map representing the orbis terrarum. Consequently, the choreography was by no means limited to the "middle room" illustrations. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that these maps of different "sizes" (oikoumene versus "half space") existed not only in scientific mapping but also in chorographic mapping. The decisive difference between the two manifestations of map making has nothing to do with the question of whether the earth (ge) or the "middle space" (chora) was drawn. Rather, it was the question of whether the product needed to meet scientific requirements or whether it was primarily for basic room display. As a result, we can state that the TP can be called a chorographic map without any terminological problem. Undoubtedly, his main intention was to visualize space as defined by Strabo. For a differentiated understanding of the chorographic maps, the parallels of the Map of Artemidorus and the TP, as well as the additional information in the text of P. Artemid. (columns IV–V) are of interest. Taken together, both tests illustrate what information a chorographic map could provide. Both the TP and the Artemidorus map contain a road network as an internal structure, various city symbols of different sizes, and topographical information. Regarding the traffic infrastructure of the TP, which was always considered dominant, it should be noted at this point that the visualization of the road network was obviously already common in chorographic maps of the Hellenistic period. Fixed geographical points, borders, and nomenclatures mentioned in the Artemidorus text (col. IV-V) but no longer dealt with in the drawing can be found in many places in the TP. In this way, topographical locations such as the altars of Alexander the Great at the eastern end of the Oikoumene65 or chorographic information such as the names of the landscapes are made available to us. In addition, there are explicit indications on the Tanaïs (Don) and Nile rivers that they share continents.66 There are also a large number of regional landforms that document that this is a chorographic map. 67 65 In addition, the two painted altars are inscribed with the following text; segment TP XI 4-5: Hic Alexander Responsvm accept Vsq(ve) qvo Alexander; cf. the parallel tradition in Arr., Anab. 5.29.1; Little. 9/3/19; diode. sic 17.95.1; Pluto, Alex. 62.4. TP XI segment 3: Ara alexandri. The entry probably refers to the Dionysus altars mentioned by Curt. 7.9.15. 66 TP Seg. VII 5-VIII 2: flumen Tanais, qui divide Asiam et Europam; sec. VIII 1-4: fluvius Nilus, qui divide Asiam et Libiam. 67 Selection: TP Seg. X 2: in his locis scorpiones nascuntur; sec. X 2: Campi Deserti et inhabitabiles propter aqv(a)e inopia; sec. VIII 5: Desertvm v(bi) qvadraginta annis erraver(vn)t filii

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Like the text in P.Artemid. (columns IV-V) further testify that the chorographic charts could obviously also have a pariplus-like description of a coast. At least one hint of this is preserved in the TP: In sec. V 1 in the Peloponnese we find the indication Traiectvs Stadio(vm) CC. Due to the top line, the two CCs can definitely be interpreted as indications of distance and probably refer to the distance between Boiai and the opposite island of Kythera.68 Which also speaks of a voyage inserted into the primary table, which was almost completely lost when copying, are the two surviving headlights69 and the indication Pirata (sic) in sec. XI 5. It remains to be discussed whether the TP was also provided with an accompanying text in an Ionic tradition, as was probably common from the time of Hecataeus and was again confirmed by P. Artemid. Without new discoveries in the future, it is unlikely that a satisfactory answer will be found. A possible scenario would be a combination of the TP with a text similar to the one offered, e.g. by Strabo. 7

Recent research on the Peutingerian Tabula

After the new terminological classification of the TP, it is now appropriate to devote a second reflection to the problem of their dating. It is shown that the TP is based on a chorographic archetype from the time of Eratosthenes of Cyrene, which was enriched with various information in the course of its reception process with numerous copying steps until its final revision -especially in late antiquity. - in Roman times and not for all regions equally. Since the TP was never completely and uniformly modernized at all information levels at each step of the rejuvenation, traces of the previous version remained. In this sense, the TP in its current copy contains different chronological levels. Let's start with the dating of the original image of the tabula: The chronological classification of the original TP in the 3rd century BC. BC or the time of Eratosthenes is generally – as indicated at the beginning – after isrl(is) dvcente Moyse; sec. VIII 1: Fossa Facta P(er) Servos Scvtarvm; sec. I 5: Tvcca fines affrice et mavritanie; sec. XI 4: In his locis elephanti nascvntvr. See Kubitschek 1919b, 2131. 68 Weber 1976, 24 also suggested that the difficult to read “ASICE SARDINIA” of sec. III 1 as Sic[ilia] Sardinia(m) [usque ——]. 69 Alexandria TP Sec. VIII 3; on top of Chrisoppolis [sic; = chalcedony] TP sec. VIII 1; on this: Seidel 2010. Levi and Levi 1967, 155 ff., do not want to rule out an interpretation of the column next to the Constantinople cartoon as a beacon.

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that the amount of land mass represented corresponds to the state of knowledge at that time. The following six features of the TP are typical of the cartographic worldview in the era of Eratosthenes: 1.

The Caspian Sea is depicted as the Gulf of the Northern Ocean (see Fig. 4). 2. The Taurus Mountains are an unbroken chain of mountains from Lycia through all of Asia.70 3. The physical space "above" the Rhine and Danube rivers is almost completely absent (cf. Fig. 1). 4. The eastern boundary of Oikoumene is marked by the altars of Alexander. Furthermore, the "eastern edge" of Oikoumene represents the level of information from the early Hellenistic period (Megasthenes, Daimachus); (see Fig. 4). 5. The Indian and African forms are identical to those attested for Eratosthenes (compare Figs 3 and 4). 6. The Oikoumene is completely enclosed by an Oceanus. The following aspect should be added to Eratosthenes: The Mediterranean Sea and all other waters are drawn in green. This unusual choice of color has been repeatedly mentioned in the literature, but never appreciated, although Egyptian sources commonly refer to the Mediterranean as "the great green" (wAD-wr). The combination of these facts argues for an origin of the prototype tabula in Egypt, possibly in Alexandria.71 This evidence may already be sufficient for the re-dating, according to which the TP as a chorographic map is based on the available information of the 3er. century BC. The main table, therefore, dates from the time when the first mathematical and astronomical influences on cartography were already noticeable with Dikaearch and Eratosthenes and information from the time of Alexander and the early Hellenistic period caused lasting changes to the maps of the world, but when cartography was still in a phase of revision of Ionian cartography.72 The exciting question of to what extent the text of Massalia's Pytheas

70 McPhail and Hannah 2011/12. 71 In some respects, the choice of color is probably not as arbitrary as Kubitschek 1919b, 2135 suspects. See Talbert 2010a, 97–98. 72 for Strab. 2.1.34 = III B, 11 Berger, Eratosthenes was one of the decisive turning points in cartography. Although he does not specify what he means by "older maps", it is likely that he had maps in mind from the days of Hecataeus of Miletus. A throwback to

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may have been displayed in the original TP, unfortunately it cannot be answered due to the loss of the start of our TP. The chronological assignment of the archetype to the 3rd century BC. Chr. allows first conclusions. First, it is now possible to give a reasonable explanation of the cartographic shape of the TP. The drawing on a scroll (the height of the writing material!) explains the enormous distortions and foreshortening,73 but not the amount of land drawn. In any case, the basic geodesic torso of the primary tabula remained almost unchanged at all copy levels, only the internal labeling being adapted to the new conditions in many places.74 The strangest case of preserving the cartographic model while Modernizing the internal labeling is the Sera Maior entry for China in Segment XI 5. The name was added to the far east of the world, but without adding the corresponding geographic area on the drawing. As already mentioned, the same applies to the name suffixes of various Germanic peoples on the Rhine and the Danube. Their names were written between the two great rivers and the northern Ocean, but the corresponding settlement area was not even rudimentarily recorded.75 In fact, copyists were selectively informed about the cartographic innovations, but were unable to adapt them due to lack of information. competence in cartographic implementation of these new findings.76 As simple copyists, they could only modify or add to the photo caption. The Ionian mapping in the TP could be the connection of Lake Maeotis (Sea of Azov) with the Northern Ocean through a waterway (TP Section VIII 2). 73 Cf. Cuntz 1894, 591–96. The extreme stretching of the TP could perhaps also be related to the fact that Eratosthenes himself called Oikoumene Chlamys, i. me. an elongated Macedonian military tunic (Strab. 2.5.6; 2.5.9; 2.5.14; 11.11.7). 74 As the more detailed description of the Campania coast and the Bay of Split (Spalato) implies, only selective improvements to the drawn image of one area were possible. 75 Miller 1916, 613 already pointed out: “The table gives the marginal towns of the Rhine and the Danube, several times in 2 layers, one closer, the other further back. Generally it is the towns that are mentioned in the wars of the Romans in the 3rd and 4th centuries. The following Germanic peoples of the Rhine (see Fig. 1) and Danube are listed in the TP: sec. I 1: CHREPSTINI (sic); sec. I 1–3: CHAMAVI QVI EL PRANCI (sic) [= Chamavi, qvi et Franci]; sec. I 2: HAVI [= (C)ha(u)ci]; sec. I 2: VAPII; sec. I 3: VARII; sec. I 4–5: FRANCE; sec. II 1: BVRCTVRI; sec. II 3: SVEVIA; sec. II 4-III 1: ALAMANNIA; sec. III 2: ARMALAVSI; sec. III 3-4: MARCOMANNI; sec. III 3-4: VANDVLI; sec. III 5-IV 1: QVADI; sec. III 5-IV 2: IVTVGI; sec. IV 3: BVR [= Bur(gundi)]. 76 It is also conceivable that there was no pressing interest in this, since ultimately these are land masses outside the Oikoumene Mediterranean and thus outside the

FIGURE 19.3 Reconstruction of the oikoumene map of Eratosthenes (courtesy of F. Mittenhuber / M. Herchenbach).

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In addition, the reinterpretation of the TP allows for the explanation of various anachronisms and other inconsistencies in the labeling. If we roughly date the archetype around 250 B.C. 425 AD and assuming that they are copied every 50 years, this would allow about thirteen chronological levels. This means that copyists theoretically and practically had thirteen times the opportunity to make changes in the copying process. These temporary intermediate stages can be identified in the TP by the following aspects: 1.

Gaul is still referred to as Gallia Comata (TP sec. I 3), familiar from the last days of the Republic,77 and near Massilia we find a probably even earlier reference to the settlement of the Greeks (TP sec. II 1: Gretia [= Graecia ]), while Lugdunum was informed that leagues were counted from here (TP sec. I 5: Lvgdvno capvt Galliar(vm) vsq(ve) hic legas).78 This information cannot be having entered a higher version of our TP before the middle of the second century AD 2. In the TP segment. I 2 a copyist gave a reference to an older place name: Gesogiaco qvod nvnc Bononia.79 3. We have a similar case, although politically much more important with the entries Constantinopolis (TP sec. VIII 1) and Byzantini (TP sec. VII 5 -VIII 1). This doubling is an anachronism that probably arose in the copying process after Constantine had chosen Byzantium as his new capital in AD 324. and would have given it his name.80 4. The coexistence of the cities of Stabios (TP sec. V 5) and Pompeii (TP sec. V 5), destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 AD. C., and the cities of Aqvileia (TP sec. III 5) and Ravenna (TP sec. IV 1), represented by striking vignettes of cities as residential cities of late antiquity. another case of entries from two different chronological phases. 5. The many names of provinces or countries come from very different times. This is how the Cotii Regnvm (TP sec. II 3) is recorded, which was incorporated into the empire under the Julio-Claudian emperors, as well as the province

Spatial perception of those ancient peoples who used chorographic charts of the TP type at all. 77 Cic., Philippians 8:27; see Tac., Ann. 9.23.1; Tallow, July. 22.1. On this: Miller 1916, 140. 78 The reference to Lugduno caput Galliarum recalls Strabo’s information on Agrippa’s road-building measures in Gaul (4.6.11), but is not compatible with the counting by leagues from the beginning of the 2nd century AD. On this: Rathmann 2003, 20-22, 115-120. 79 Cfr. Flor., Epit. 2.30; Casserole. Latin 7.5; Eutr. 9.21.1; Cod. Theod. 11.16.5. 80 The Geographica of Guidoni p. 136.3-6 Schnetz: Byzantium, where once was Constantinople, urbs regia and insignis, new Rome.

FIGURE 19.4 TP Seg. X-XI (Miller 1887).

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of Iepirvm novvm (= Epirus nova; TP sec. VI 3-4), which was first established under Diocletian in the Balkans. The four Christian notes probably belong to the youngest chronological level of the TP: AD S(an)C(tu)M PETRUM near Rome (TP sec. IV 4) and MONS OLIVETI near Jerusalem (TP sec. IX 1) as well the two entrances of the Sinai Peninsula: Hic legem accepervnt i(n) mount Syna (TP sec. VIII 4) and Desertum u(bi) quadraginta annis errauer(un)t philii isrl(is) ducent Moyse (TP sec. VIII 5 ). ).81

Most of the 4,000 or so place names in the TP (of which only 555 have a cartoon) will certainly elude exact dating. However, it is important that future researchers turn to the chronological classification of these place names, certainly also in combination with other dateable information in the TP, to clarify the genesis of the TP from its original form to its final Late Ancient edition. . A scientific comment on the PT is in any case a research desideratum. 8

Potential owners or users of the Tabula Peutingeriana

Last but not least, it is worth asking who could have been the possible recipients of such chorographic cards. The few maps of the physical-mathematical geographers certainly remained in the scientific community.82 As for the chorographic maps, which attract the public and create space, there is a small but possibly significant reference to the Flavian period. For the year 91 AD. C., Suetonius reports that Domitian had the senator Pompusian executed because, among other things, he had a map of the world in his library.83 Beyond all the topoi of tyrants, we are interested in the aforementioned parchment map (depictum orbem terrae in membranes ). Behind him, we can probably assume a TP-style scroll-shaped card. Apparently world maps were not entirely rare in the libraries of Roman senators, the text says. Because just because such possession was something completely normal, the fact that a charge of high treason could be made becomes a tyrannical act of Domitian. 81 Weber 2006a. 82 As an example, I would like to cite the map of Aristotle's disciple Theophrastus, which is expressly mentioned in his testament (Diog. Laert. 5:51). 83 Suet., Sun. 10,3; The Cass passage is almost identical in content. Gave 67.12.4. On this: Arnaud 1983.

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Suetonius therefore supports the aforementioned assumption that the expensive tickets were, unsurprisingly, the property of sociopolitical elites. These groups not only had the necessary means to set up a library, we can also suppose that they had a certain geographical interest, to which Cicero attests. On the other hand, we can consider words and images by their formation.85

84 Cic., Att. 2.4.3; 6.2.3 = Cube search. F79 Mirhaddy. See Eumenius' allusion to a card in the school of Autun around 300 AD (Pan. Lat. 9[4].20.2) 85 My thanks to Irmgard Meyer-Eppler as well as to Alfred Stückelberger, Michael Herchenbach and Janine Fries- Knoblach.

CHAPTER 20

Geography and Religion: The Thearodokoi Lists* Emilio Galvagno “Well, how could they do that? First, they (the Athenians) must celebrate more festivals than any other Greek city”, this statement of Athenaion Politeia1 of Sal. Xenophon can be applied to the Greek world in general. Festivals were held in all cities. Some of them acquired a meaning that transcended the confines of the polis and became important moments of contact and religious expression for all the Greeks.2 In fact, the festivities of Olympia became honorable for Zeus, those of Delphi for Apollo, and those of Delphi for Apollo. from Argos to Hera for general. Hellenic festivals, as well as the regional festivals of Athens, the Panionion of Delos, Plataea, and many others of no less importance.3 Before the festivals, part of the ritual was to send sacred messengers (theoroi) in time4 to invite communities to participate . the games. However, the designation of Theoroi was given both to the delegates who announced the festival and to those designated by the states or cities to represent them officially, names that we know in most cases thanks to epigraphic documentation. The latter term is used to indicate these two. * The Doric form is preferred to better follow the epigraphic documentation. 1 Ps.Xen., Ath. Pole. 3.2: "πῶς ὰν καὶ ἷ εἶεν, οὕστινας πρῶτον μὲ ἑ ἑορτάσαι ἑορτὰς ὐ & is ἑν ἑ & μ; ἑλ & ässes ἑλ & lgres ί &; 3 Rutherford 2013, 77–79, who is also referenced in his many other works on the subject 4 An Athenian inscription confirms that the Pythian messengers were sent to Athens in the month of Busios, that is, six months before the start of the games (IG II2 1126; Syll.3 145; Daux 1949, 1 note 1). If this is plausible for nearby cities, it seems less likely for more distant cities such as western ones. Therefore, it would be more likely that the festivals they were generally announced a year in advance, as was done on the occasion of the great Panathenaic festivals and those of Epidaurus (Boesch 1917, 138 n.2; Perlman 2000, 72).5 On Theoria and Theoroi and Boesch 1908, 26– 28; Tire 1934, coll. 2228; 2239-2244; see Dillon 1997, 11-17; Perlmann 2000, 13-14; Kowalzig 2005, 42-45; Dimitrova 2008, 9-11; Gehr ke 2013, 41–43; Rutherford 2013, 4-8.

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Citizens who housed the holy delegates of the deities and those who were destined to represent their own state or city during the festivities.6 The offering of hospitality must have been a highly sought after function, since it had religious value, since it was directed by divine delegates. On the other hand, it is very difficult to define the tasks of the Thearodokoi. In fact, it seems very myopic to imagine that they were limited to housing only the Thearoi.7 Considering that some of them were important figures in the cities, such as Dion and Heraclid of Syracuse and the Ptolemaic official of the city of Karpasia in Cyprus or Queen Cleopatra in Epirus, the hospitium could take on not only sacral but also political significance.8 The Thearodokos showed their influence in this way and during the same period assumed responsibility for the accommodation, food, transportation, and care of the delegates. of the clergy. as they were on the territory of the city.9 It was also their duty to make a submission to a convention or to the city magistrates to make the eangelia public. This function,10 not mentioned in the literary tradition, is only known to us by epigraphs. In fact, five inscriptions have come down to us, found at different times and of dissimilar composition, coming from sanctuaries and therefore linked to religious phenomena and elements. These inscriptions are lists in which the names of the people are noted in addition to the city. These documents have attracted a lot of attention from epigraphers and historians of religions, but the indication of more or less known places has raised the question of whether these lists can be useful to deepen the knowledge of geographical dates and, in particular, if they represent a route of travel.11 In any case, these inscriptions were often used in archaeological research to identify ancient sites.12 This inevitably raises the question of the relationship between some 6 And Boesch 1908, 105–106; Robert 1938, 6 and Guarducci 1969, 350, recently Dillon 1997, 12; Perlman 2000, 13; 37–39, according to which the term in its second meaning was not used until the end of the 3rd century BC. seems to happen; Rutherford 2013, 82-84. 7 - Perlman 2000, 46. 8 - Robert 1946, 510; Manganaro 1996, 133; Dillon 1997, 14; Perlman 2000, 37-45; Neer 2007, 229-30; Jaquemín 2012, 227; Rutherford 2013, 84. 9 Daux 1949, 2; Charneux 1966, 168; Guarducci 1969, 351; Rutherford 2013, 85. 10 The Suda encyclopedia only has ὁ τῶν θεορικῶν χρημάτων ἐπιμελούμενος in the entry Θεοροδόκος. The author of the entry, who relies mainly on literary sources, was probably unaware that the term was used in a religious context in classical Greece, especially from the fifth century onwards. 11 Infra No. 31. 12 Faraklas 1996, 82–86; Mil 1999b, 302; Perlman 2000, 31.

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Sanctuaries and geographic knowledge. The most symbolic case would be that of the Delphi sanctuary, which according to tradition was a signpost for the Hellenes who wanted to leave their homeland and settle in distant places. Among the most important cases we can cite Archias and Myskellus for the foundation of Syracuse and Crotona, who were both in Delphi at the same time to receive news of their fate, and then there is the case of Battus for the foundation of Cyrene. This supposes, of course, that Delphi thus became a center of geographical knowledge of the Mediterranean world. What contribution Delphi made to the consolidation of the "colonial" movement from the 8th century onwards is still a hotly debated question.13 However, considering that we are dealing with a formation of late tradition, probably from the 6th century onwards. The sanctuary goes beyond the religious element and becomes an important point of communication and meeting for peoples from the entire Mediterranean basin, including, as the Herodothean episode about the Agyllei14 attests, the non-Hellenic population. In this context, the analysis of the epigraphic texts related to the Thearodokoi seems more complex, since they are usable documents for the geographical knowledge of the Greek world. As it happens with this type of documentation, the material we have is inevitably incomplete, because luck wants it and even with new acquisitions it will not be easy to obtain a complete image, also due to the serious difficulties of partial reading prepared. There seems to be no doubt that these documents follow a geographical classification principle characteristic of a journey,15 and possibly represent the routes of the paths followed by the sacred messengers during the Evangelia, with the cities visited presented in an order and in a geographical context. .16 Although Homer's catalog of ships has been found to closely match the Delphi Thearodokoi list,17 attempting to determine whether it represents a set of genuine travel routes followed by Thearoi remains highly problematic.18

13 On Delphi and colonization, see also Malkin 1987, 17–22, to whom reference is made for a discussion of earlier studies; more recently Londey 1990, 117 ff.; Rougemont, 1992, 173-178; Wilson 2006, 48-51; Scott 2014, 59-63. 14 hours 1.167.1-2. 15 Siewert 2006, 48; Gehrke 2013, 47. 16 Cabanes 1976, 116; Perlman 2000, 39. 17 Giovannini 1969, 52–58; against Nachtergael 1975, 45-48. 18 Perlmann 2000, 31–32; Rutherford 2013, 73.

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Inscriptions relating to thearodokoi, which have occasionally, and not always entirely, come down to us, have been found at Argos, Nemea, Hermione, Epidaurus, and most importantly, because they are the longest, at Delphi. Perhaps more should be added to these lists, as individual decrees have been found which seem to imply the existence of Thearodokoi lists. This is the case of Lousoi in Arcadia, who had instituted a festival in honor of Artemis Hemera19 and from here there are five decrees on the granting of Proxenia and Thearodokia to five characters from Charadro, two from Kyparissia, one from Pharaoh20 and perhaps one from Orchomenus. 21 These documents, dated between the end of the 4th century and the beginning of the 3rd century,22 suggest that these cities had also sent Thearoi who probably visited the regions of Messenia, Achaia, Ozolian Locris up to Aetolia, Acarnania, Epirus, and reaching even further to Pamphylia and Troas.23 The same situation can be assumed for Samothraki, Kos, Delos and other festivals,24 although it is very likely that not all gambling centers took place and found it useful to publish such lists. Despite the fact that the institution of Thearia dates securely from the Archaic period and the earliest manifestation at Olympia has been found in the period when the sanctuary was under the control of Pisati25, the epigraphic documentation dates from the 4th century and, with the exception from Delphi, dates back to the present day exclusively from the Peloponnese and more specifically from Argolis, although the first known document on Thearodocia is found in Olympia and refers to a decree of honor for Kleandrus and Sokles of Sicyon, which can be dated to 365 –363,26 declaring them proxenoi and thearodokoi.27 All the lists that have come down to us are certainly characterized by a geographic criterion.28 As a general rule, the name of the city or state was entered, followed by the name or names. of the Thearodokoi. Early 1999, 370–371. 20 IG V. 2, 389–392; 394. 21 Pretzler 1999, 67, 74; Perlmann 2000, 157 note 2. 22 Perlman 2000, 158. 23 Perlman 2000, 160. 24 Zu Samothrake Dimitrova 2008, 16 ff.; Rutherford 2013, 282–285, for Cos, Herzog Klaffenbach 1952, 22; Manganaro 1964, 416; for Delos et al. Rutherford 2013, 286–288. 25 Perlman 2000, 64; Siewert 2002, 362-363. About the rule change about the Olympic Games and Cataudella 1964, 66-74, more recently Kȏiv 2013, 320-325. 26 Perlman 2000, 175. 27 Very often, one person performed both functions. On the related problem Perlman 2000, 20-21. 28 More recently Gehrke 2013, 47.

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enumerates the region visited by the holy messengers: thus in the Argos inscription in line 20 it reads [Ἐν Πελοπ]οννάσωι καì Κεφαλλανíαι, in the Epidaurus inscription in line 1 Θεαροδόκοι ἐπα followed by l.' 8 of Ἀκαρνανíα.29 The same happens with the great list of Delphi, dating from the end of the 3rd century, which always has the list of cities preceded by the region and where the order of the names of the polis could suggest an itinerary of travel.30 Of the lists of the Peloponnese that we have received up to now, the oldest seems to be that of Epidaurus, whose games -of uncertain provenance- have been shown to be active towards the end of the 6th century by some Pindaric compositions. 31 These games took place between late spring and early summer32 in honor of Apollo Maleatas and his son Asclepius, but they took the name of Asclepieia. This could lead us to suppose that the paternal deity was introduced later in a co-titular form.33 Two lists of Thearodokoi have been found so far, dated around the middle of the 4th century, exactly between 360/59 and 356/5.34 The presence of the city Data (l. 32), founded by Callistratus of Aphidnae in 360/59 and becoming Philippi in 356, sets a very precise time limit, confirmed in the mention of Dion and Heraleidas as Thearodokoi in Syracuse (ll. 39–40), who returned to their city after the banishment ordered by Dionysius II in 357 and 356 respectively. To this must be added the mention of Terina (f. 45) in Magna Graecia, destroyed by the Bruttii in 335, while the mention of Cassandreia (f. 41), founded by the Macedonian king Cassander on the site of Potidaea in 316, must be added must be added indicates that the original list has undergone additions or revisions,35 as have the three references to Sicily and the second Syracuse citation (line 61), where the Thearodokoi are the 29 IG IV2. 1, 94/95. 30 Robert 1946, 506 ff.; Manganaro 1964, 420; Guarducci 1969, 354 ff.; Gauthier 1979, 126ff.; Manucci 2005, 108; Jaquemín 2012, 230; against, Daux 1949, 20 n.1; Rougemont 1992, 190; Cut 1999, 79; Mil 1999b, 302; Perlman 2000, 31; Pilhofer 2009, 958-970; Rutherford 2013, 73. 31 Séve 1993, 304–305; Perlmann 2000, 67 nos. 1-2 32 On this issue, more recently Perlman 2000, 87–95. 33 Seve 1993, 305; Perlman 2000, 69-74. 34 GI IV2. 1, 94/95; Faraklas 1996, 71; Corten 1999, 69 et seq.; Perlmann 2000, 69-73; Rutherford 2013, 73. De Sanctis considered dating between 356 and 354, De Sanctis 1911, 290 ss., followed by Plassart 1921, 31 n.1; for a slightly earlier date 365: Faraklas 1996, 71 or 363: Rigsby 2007, 112–113. 35 Seve 1993, 308; the additions appear to belong to three different phases and three different descriptors, ranging up to 340/38, Perlman 2000, 78-80.

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Unknown Aristarcus and Glaucus, who replaced Dion and Heraleidas after his death. After the fourth century, however, no addendum seems to have been made.36 Linking the institution of Thearodokia to Epidaurus with the work of rebuilding the temple around 370, also for the purpose of soliciting a contribution, seems highly problematic. 37 We should add a third Add inscription to these two38 containing twenty decrees, eleven of which concern the granting of Proxenia and Thearodokia and only nine of Proxenia. This, which can be dated to the third century39 and refers to individual decrees issued over a period of seventeen years, cannot be considered here because it does not follow any geographical criteria. Supplements and allowances for individual decrees, which depart a few hundred years from earlier inscriptions,40 show that the lists were only exceptionally written on durable material. The two inscriptions are somehow related as they represent two complementary paths. In the first, Thearoi visited Megara, Athens, Boeotia (Thebes, Thespiae, Koroneia, Orchomenos, Lebadeia(?)), Thessaly (Pelinna, Pharkadon, Adrakos, Gyrton, Larissa, Homolion), Macedonia (Pydna, Methone) and Chalkis Thrace (Aeneia, Dikaia, Potidea, Kalindoia, Olynthos, Apollonia, Arethusa, Arkilus, Amphipolis, Berga,41 Tragila, Stagirus, Akanthos, Stolos, Aphytis, Skione, Mende, Neapolis, Abdera, Maroneia, Ainos, Thasos and Data) . Then there are some city addenda, including Petaliai (Euboea), Pythion (probably in Perrhaebia), Cassandreia (Chalcidice), Ormenion (Thessaly), Ainos, which as addenda are discarded to determine if they are capable itineraries. In fact, if for the settlements mentioned up to Macedonia it can be affirmed that we can be in the presence of a route,42 this seems difficult in relation to Chalcidice and Thrace, where, for example, Dikaia is mentioned near Maroneia instead of in the nearby Potidea and the same observation can be made for other settlements. If this is an itinerary, it really is a distorted one. 36 Perlman 2000, 80, according to which two appendices must be dated 340–338; a third until shortly after 316. 37 On this issue, see Perlman 2000, 68–73, according to which a temporal connection is unlikely. 38 GI IV2. 1, 96. 39 In Guarducci 1969, 351 the epigraph must be dated to the first half of the third century; for Sève 1993, 308 in the middle of the 2nd century. 40 Seve 1993, 307; Perlman 2000, 88. 41 On the identification of Berga with Neos Skopos Serron, Bonias 2000, 235. 42 Perlman 2000, 74.

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In the second they visited Corinth, Delphi, Amphissa, Oianthea, Naupactus, Calydon; then the Acarnania (Oiniadai, Stratos, Phoitiai, Koronta, Medion, Astakos, Euripus, Thyrreion, Echinos, Torybeia,43 Alyzeia, Leukas, Palairos, Anactorion, Pandosia, Cassope, Ambracia, Argos),44 Thesprotia with Poionos, Corcyra, Epirus , which is in the list between Anactorion and Pandosia (Chaonia, Artichia, Acripos), where we find the genus Molossia, Aetolia (Hyporeia,45 Therminea, Phyleia, Proscheon). They then continued towards Syracuse and then back through southern Italy with the cities of Locroi, Croton, Thurii, Tarentum, Terina. Then follow the addenda to Sicily (Syracuse, Leontinoi, Katana), Epirus and Sicily again (Messana, Gela, Akragas). The list of cities in the Peloponnese, Hellespont and Asia Minor is missing. Probably this is due to the state of epigraphic findings, as demonstrated by the third inscription, in which the citizens of Megalopolis, Cyme, Cydonia, Phalasarna, Lacedaemon, Aigai, Berea and other cities46 are recognized as thearodokoi, cited in a sequence that it does not represent a geographical order, as the document refers to the grant of the Arodokia, often accompanied by the Proxenia47, performed at another time with religious and political criteria. The list of Epidaurus seems to follow directions which in some parts might suggest the continuation of an itinerary.48 However, the position of Terina, a southern Italian city on the Tyrrhenian coast, is mentioned after Lokroi, Croton, Thurii and Taras , takes us there. to think that the holy messengers made an improbable return journey through the Straits of Messina. In addition, the sequel to Acarnania, where Medion is strangely located between Koronta and Astakos, remains difficult to understand, as an itinerary would have suggested a mention between Stratos and Phoitiai, although this followed

43 Tyrbeion according to Perlman 2000, 120. 44 An analysis in Faraklas 1996, 71–86; Perlman 2000, 69; 119-1 45 Probably on the border between Epirus and Aetolia. 46 Thegeas, Taucheira, Argos, Crete, Alea, Cleitor, Pheneos, Pellanes, Pergamum, Messene, Phlius, Derion, Thera, Heraia, Aegina, Cos, Corinth, Stymphalos, Megara, Mantinea, Chaeronea, Thespiae, Tanagra, Cnidus, Troizen , Platea, Kallion, Astypalaia, Cardia, Lampsacus, Cyprus. 47 IG IV2 1, 96. 48 Perlman 2000, 74. 49 Corsten 1999, 74–75.

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in geographical order, the list may correspond to districts rather than a true itinerary.50 The Argos and Nemean lists are not much later. The Argos list found in 1953, whose editio princeps Charneux is to be appreciated,51 can be classified chronologically in the reign of Alexander the Great. In it, Queen Cleopatra is named as Tearodocus of Epirus: daughter of Philip II, she was married to Alexander the Molosser, who in 334, appointed by the Tarantinos, left his wife as regent and went to Italy, where he died around the 331/. 0 he in Pandosia. Olympias assumed the regency in 325.52 However, it seems that Cleopatra became regent in 330, until she was succeeded by her mother Olympias in 324.53 This suggests a somewhat earlier date.54 This list is inscribed in two columns. The first begins with the cities of Acarnania,55 followed by Epirus with the city of Phoenicia, then Corcyra, Apollonia, and then jumps to Cyrene. Then there must have been the list of cities in the Peloponnese and the island of Kephallenia, in which the condition of the stone does not suggest integration. The second column contains the list of Micrasian cities56 to which another list of Arcadian cities57 was later added, incomplete due to the nature of the stone, so it seems unlikely that the Argos list corresponds to a true and correct itinerary. Miletouteichus is mentioned before Iasos, followed by Cyme and Tenedos.59 Some important places such as Priene,

50 Farraklas 1996, 82; Corsten 1999, 79. 51 Charneux 1966, 157. 52 Charneux 1966, 178–179; Court 1999, 70; 90; Strasser 2007, 342. 53 Hammond 1980, 473–475. 54 Perlman 2000, 102. 55 Medion, Anactorion, Thyrreion, Palairos, Alyzia, Tyrbeion, Leucas, Argos (Amphilochian), Ambracia. On the assumption that the lists relating to Acarnania refer to the districts, Faraklas 1996, 82; Corsten 1999, 92–93 integrates l.4 with [Σόλλιο]ν instead of [Θύρρει]ον and l.7 with [Τορύ]βεια instead of [Τύρ]βειον. 56 Clazomenae, Erythrae, Chios, Theos, Lebedos, Notion, Ephesus, Pygela, Naulochus, Magnesia, Miletus, Andros, in turn Chios, Bryllion, Miletouteichus, Iassos, Cyme, Tenedos, Thasos. 57 Cleitor, Pheneus, Stymphalos, and Alea. 58 Pallantion, Athens, Megara, Messene, Epidaurus, Lampsacus, Thrace, Rhodes, Mantinea, Ptolemais, Myndos, Sicyon, Smyrna, Corinth, Thegea, Seleucia (Cilicia), Alexandria (Troad), for relative epigraphic relationships, Perlman 2000, 2005; 208-2 59 Charneaux 1966, 1966;

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Samothrace, Lemnos, and Imbros are inexplicably absent.60 If the absence of the two islands can be explained by being thought to be Athenian, that of Samothrace can only be attributed, albeit with some difficulty, to the state of the stone, the political situation of the city. , or the recording by sacred messengers of simultaneous itineraries.61 Finally, the mention of Cyrene to Apollonia certainly remains inexplicable, although it is probably an addendum.62 In any case, the current state of the inscription seems to indicate that the lapidaries or the Lapidaries they were not organized by continuations of itineraries followed by the Thearoi. The list63 found by Miller in 1978 and published some ten years later belongs to the same period, probably dating between 324 and 313,64 coming from Nemea, where the games in honor of Zeus had been held since then65 Archaic Period. The presence of the thearodokoi Diocles of Palairos in Acarnania, Daimenes of Leucas, and the Corcyran Aischrion66 in both the Argos and Nemean inscriptions confirms that the two lists are connected. Thus, Perlman has confirmed that the Nemean List became a sort of partial update of the Argos List, which was almost certainly the main list, and that it was a supplementary list.67 According to Charneux, this was written in change for the same decree for both the Nemean and Hera games. The only difference between the two lists is chronological.68 Almost certainly from the annexation of Cleonae by Argos, the dating of which is highly problematic,69 60 Charneux 1966, 234. 61 Perlman 2000, 104. 62 Perlman 2000, 100. 63 Miller 1988, 148. 64 Miller, ad loc., dated 323/2, but for 315–313 chronology, Perlman 2000, 149, according to which supplements must be dated no later than 280; however, Knoepfler 2001, 190, based on the identification of Aristono de al. Bl. 24 with a person associated with Alexander the Great tends to date between 320 and 316/5, followed by Strasser 2007, 343, which considers 319–317; for dating between 314/3 and 311/0, Corsten 1999, 90. 65 Tradition points to the start of the games around 573, Perlman 2000, 131 note 138. 66 or Col. I ll. 5, 8 and 13 in the Argos list; Col. i l. 17 and Sp. i l. 17 and column III. 6 and 4 in the Nemean list. 67 Perlman 2000, 150. 68 Charneux 1987, 412. 69 Perlman 2000, 132; 138-149. Cleonae remained independent until the end of the 5th century; but about the annexation of Cleonae by Argos in the early fourth century Kritzas 2006, 427–429; for dating the merger of Cleonae and Argos to the late fourth century, before 323, Strasser 2007, 336–338.

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The games experienced a kind of unification. However, from the year 315 there are individual decrees that attest that the granting of Thearodokia occurred both to Zeus in Nemea and to Hera in Argos, although it cannot be ruled out that this custom actually dates back to a much earlier time70. Nemea List was also inscribed in two columns. Column A mentions cities of Cyprus71, the island of Serifos followed by the cities of Acarnania;72 in column B Corcyra, Leucas, Macedonia73 and Hellespont.74 In fact, only Lampsacus belongs to this last region, while Stratos and Eretria are completely out of place, especially if the latter is Euboea.75 However, as some coin finds in Nemea attest, many of these cities on the list have left traces of their presence in the games.76 A singular case provides the list, the most recent of those found in the Peloponnese settled at Hermione77, a non-secondary city in the Argolis, bordering Epidaurus and Troizen to the north. The inscription, which unlike the other lists bears first the names of the Thearodokoi and then the origin of the city, seems to date from the last quarter of the 3rd century and would probably be related to the games in honor of Demeter Chthonia78, whose effigy was made found on city coins when the city seemed to gain greater autonomy in the period between 350 and 322. The games in this city don't really compare to those in nearby Epidaurus. The cities of Troizen, Argos, Phlius, Corinth, Pellene, Aegina, Aigion, Dyme, and Thelpousa mentioned in the inscription, to which Messene and Tegea have been added laterally, do not extend beyond the borders of the Peloponnese. This list not only follows a geographical order, but seems to have the sequence of an itinerary. This conclusion seems to be hampered by the mention of Aegina inserted between Pellene and Aigion. Since the photograph of the island appears to have been taken by another hand,79 70 Perlman 2000, 99–100; Strasser 2007, 343. 71 Salamis, Kourion, Soloi. 72 Palairos, Anactorion, Echinos, Thyrreion, Euripos, Limnae, Oiniadai, Stratos, Derion, Medion, Phoitiai, Koronta and Astakos. 73 Amphipolis, Lete, Allante. 74 Lampsacus, Cyme, Stratos, Eretria, Notion and the island of Chios which, with the exception of Lampsacus, do not belong to the Hellespont. 75 Knoepfler 2001, 189 note 538: according to which there is no geographical order, because the Eretria in question is Euboea, not its Thessalian namesake. 76 Knapp and Isaac 2005, 45. 77 IG IV 727. 78 Perlman 2000, 162–166. 79 Perlman 2000, 161.

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it cannot be ruled out that we have made a mistake with a later error on the part of the enroller. However, if, as the order of the list suggests, we follow the outline of an itinerary, we notice that between Pellene and Aigion lies the city of Aigeira, which must figure on the list of Delphi, as confirmed by an inscription and that the Thearoi received from Kos, both inscriptions are almost contemporary with the list of the city of Argolis80. If, as seems likely, we are to assume the presence of Aigeira instead of the more famous island, even very briefly, then Hermione's list represents a true and correct itinerary. The most important document in this regard, also in terms of its length . , is that of Delphi, where the Pythian Games sung by Pindar took place. After escaping the threat of the invasion of Galatia in 278, the games were named Pythia and Soteriai.81 In fact, in the sanctuary, which together with the Olympian sanctuary represented the most religiously and historically famous Panhellenic center, three Thearodokoi lists, which belong to three different periods and therefore allow analysis from both a synchronic and a diachronic point of view. The oldest, published by Pomtow and later critically revised by Daux, is inscribed in a cippo and probably dates from the mid-fifth century.82 It consists of only 16 lines and refers to both Peloponnesian cities, especially Achaia and Arcadia, and cities from Boeotia. The most recent, a very fragmentary marble stela inscribed on two sides and dated to the middle of the 2nd century, must have been part of a list of which only 33 lines can be traced, 14 on one side and 19 on the other. As for the first page, we can only state that it must have been about Macedonian cities; in the second we can certainly read the cities of Epidaurus, Buthroton, Arsinoe, Ktimene, and almost certainly Assos. As already mentioned, this document does not represent regional uniformity.83 The most important of these lists is undoubtedly the second, since it is the longest and is therefore called the “big list” and on the main page and four columns there is a fifth inscription on the left side panel with 80 FD III: 4,419; SEG XII 371, 41–57 dated 0/251-8/249 and 242, respectively, not far from the chronology of Hermione's list. 81 The founding of the new games should be dated between 276 and 260 (most recently Sanchez 2000, 305) annually (Nachtergael 1977, 241–243) or triennially (Knoepfler 1995, 152–153), and then 246 (Nachtergael 1977, 265 –266) or 248 (Sánchez 2000, 307). 82 Daux 1949, 5, correcting the chronology of Pomtow 1918, 1, which dates it to around 420. 83 Daux 1949, 27-30. But this scholar had given some clues in his work on Delphi from 1936 17 AD. 2.

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650 lines in total, not all of them legible due to pauses. It bears the names of some 300 cities, large and small, covering almost the entire Mediterranean basin, from southern Gaul to Syria. The numerous fragments of the temple terrace were found and published in different periods until the publication edited by Plassart in 1921, which despite new finds and numerous later integrations, which cannot be discussed here, still constitutes the base text.84 The temporary Identifying such a document with any degree of certainty seems somewhat problematic, especially in the fifth column, which was successively supplemented. Therefore, an attempt is made to fix at least one date for the first inscription, which fluctuated between the last quarter of the 3rd century and the first quarter of the 2nd century85. The bulk, therefore, does not allow us to delve into the notable problems it poses here, also because the inscription, almost certainly, must have mentioned almost all the Greek centers of the Mediterranean world, although with some "oversights". As in the other documents, there is a reference to the region of origin before the list of cities where the Thearoi stayed. For this reason the inscription is very useful to identify many cities of ancient Greece, although not all are mentioned. In this scheme he begins with the eastern Mediterranean, specifically the cities of the island of Cyprus, which must be followed, as indicated by the mention of Aradus on the Syrian coast, the only legible city between lines 10 and 26.86 the list of the cities on the opposite coast. Then follows the Ionian district with the cities of Euboea87, followed by Andros, perhaps Tenos,

84 Awaiting a new edition announced by J. Oulhen, author of an unfortunately unpublished doctoral thesis, a very short edition with a small commentary on Boeotia, Peloponnese, Magna Graecia and Sicily, in Jacquemin 2012, 227–231. 85 For the last twenty years of the III century Nikitsky 1902, 31; Daux 1949, 21–24 suggests 235–221 as the chronology; for a date around 220 Rougemont 1992, 190; Hatzopoulos 1998, 1193; at 220-210, Oulhen 1998, 224 followed by Rutherford 2013, 73; for the first quarter of the 2nd century: Syll3 90; Pottow 1918, 4; Plasart 1921, 41; Roberto 1939, 156; ID. 1946, 514; Rigsby 1986, 355-356; Mil 1999b, 302; Manganaro 2003, 134: between 220 and 167. 86 Some attempts at reinterpretation in Savalli-Lestrade 2006, 176–181. 87 In column. I. 31 we read ἐν Ἀθῆναις, which, despite some perplexity and considering the regional scheme, is almost certainly not Athens of Attica, but Atenae Diades in northwestern Euboea, known to us from epigraphic and literary sources (Bousquet apud Daux 1949, 20 A.D. 1). If so, it is difficult to suggest that the list follows an itinerary (Daux ad loc.).

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Cythnos,88 Keos,89 Kos and the cities of Caria with the insertion between Bargylia and Kaunus of Iasos and Cnidus, which are not Carian. The reading of lines 58–75 of column I was possible thanks to a new finding published by Robert and taken up by Daux.90 In this new fragment there are Microasiatic cities,91 followed by those of Lydia,92 Aeolis, Mysia and Troad. On lines 99 to 130, the city names are illegible due to a break in the stone. As can be seen from the mention of Heracleia,93 Chaleion and Ipni in the first 15 lines of Column II, this must have been the list of the cities of Ozolic Locris or a nearby district. Although many lines are broken due to the condition of the stone, the list of the cities of Boeotia, Peloponnese and the southwestern islands follows.94 The mention of Boeotia Platea between Doureon95 and Phryxia and Tanagra between Tritaea and Crane seems very strange in this ready. . The last two lines, which repeat Orchomenos and Chaeroneia, could be appendages. Pharai and Helice, present in the 5th century list, are absent, but may have been in the lost lines. In any case, the order of the sequence makes it unlikely that it can be explained as an itinerary.96 In the third column, the list continues with four cities in Arcadia, followed by those in Thessaly and Macedonia.97 The order of the cities in some cases could indicate an itinerary suggestion. However, some towns would be off the route: Sciathos (an island just above Euboea) and the Euboean Oreos, the 88 Daux 1965, 661. 89 In l. 38 Plassart read Κορη[σíαι. But Daux 1965, 660 was of the opinion that the reading of the name of the city should be Κάρθαια. 90 Robert 1946, 511–522; Daux 1949, 18. 91 Among these we find mention of Oroanna, an otherwise unknown city, which Robert 1946, 521 considers to be a misform of Oroanda of Pisidia, but which according to Mannucci 2005, 112 is the Hellenistic name of Kyrbissos, near of the Locate the present town of Orhanli. 92 column I D (a) l. 1 Plassart 1921, 48 believing that Sardi must have been in it. 127 integrated with [ἐ]ν Σ[αι]δ[ηνοῖς corrected to Σ[ι]δ[ούσαι by Daux 1949, 12 and by this scholar (Daux 1965, 659) then integrated with Σ[άρ]δ[ησιν. 93 Plassart 1921, 48 n.9 thought to be Heraclea Trachinia. 94 A new reading, albeit partial, in Jacquemin 2012, 229, presenting readings other than Plassart: l. 24 Thebes instead of Kopai; I 32 Corinth repeats, foul in Plassart. 95 Almost certainly the Messenian Dorion, Plassart 1921, 50. 96 Thousand 1999b, 302. 97 For a comment on this part of the list, more recently Pilhofer 2009, 956–970.

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they lie between Thessalian Gonnoi and Homolion, and beyond Ichnae, Thessaloniki, Neapolis. Above all, the continuation Lysimacheia, Bisanthe, Perinthus, Byzantium cannot justify being considered an itinerary.98 If we exclude a list of cities related to Thessaly, Aetolia, and eastern Locris, found at the end of the third column and certainly additions or the additions constitute supplementary lists,99 the list of Crete entered at the end of the third column and at the beginning of the fourth column could, instead, lead us to think of an itinerary that goes from west to east after the route of Cythera . Then it continues through North Africa to start again with the list of cities that goes from Acarnania to Phocis, Epirus, 100 Aetolia due to the breaking of the stone. Among these, however, are Massalia and Elea, whose position could be justified after being suppressed as an addendum.101 The position of Laodicea is also incomprehensible if we want to identify this city with the Syrian one.102 The western part of the Mediterranean also follows to Corcyra, Magna Graecia and Sicily. The order of Sicilian cities can tempt you to think of an exact street layout.103 Under these conditions, an attempt was made to integrate lines 111–114, where sometimes only the first letter of the city can be read104, resulting in in several attempts, to identify the cities. In any case, in this part of the list it is disconcerting the absence of important cities like Metapontum, Croton, Thurii, Henna, Agyrium, while less important cities like Helorus and Taisia appear. This gives a well-founded explanation 98 Plassart 1921, 55-56; Pilhofer 2009, 958. 99 Jacquemin 2012, 231. 100 Here the interval in the mention of Dodona and Fenice may be due to two moments of inscription, Gauthier 1979, 126. 101 Jacquemin 2012, 230. 102 Plassart 1921, 66, 143. Manganaro 420; ID. 1996, 132; Facella 2006, 195. 104 for l. 111, where only the initial M is read, Manganaro 1964, 436 integrated with Mytistraton because Morgantina would imply a setback in the route followed. Facella 2006, 193 instead thinks of the latter city. for l 112, where the initial is K, several solutions have been proposed, including Kephaliodion, Kale Akte and Kapition, the latter with greater agreement, Manganaro 1996, 136; Facella 2006, 194. Between Kapition (?) and Halaesa, at least two other cities must have been visited, of which not even the first letter can be read. Regarding the suggestion that we are here in the presence of an itinerary, some hypotheses for the sequence Kapition-(Amestratus)-Kale Akte-Halaesa (Manganaro 1996, 137) or Kapition-Herbita(Amestratus)-Halaesa (Facella 2006, 1959 ) which, if the premise were ever disproved, would be mere exercises.

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very problematic for political reasons. Therefore, it seems extremely difficult to define the criteria adopted by the Thearoi in Epanghelia in the various cities. Finally, in the fifth column we find some additions that seem to indicate the renewal of the thearodokia or the modification of the thearodokoi, and therefore are ineffective when establishing an itinerary. However, as can be deduced from the two decrees concerning the cities of Brundisium and Ancona105, other cities probably also appeared on the Delphi list. This would lead us to believe that the lists that have come down to us are not complete, as some decrees regarding the granting of Thearodokia to cities not included in the lists seem to attest, and as does the list of concessions of Proxenia and thearodokia attested to in a Epidaurus inscription.106 The lists were probably not always up to date. In any case, these documents represent an indispensable tool for the regional geography of Greece and the Mediterranean area inhabited by Greeks, and are also a very important element for understanding road networks and connections between cities. The order of the regions (Cyprus, Syria, Islands, Caria, Ionian Islands, Asia Minor, Lydia, Aeolis, Mysia, Troas, Ozolic Locris, Boeotia, Peloponnese, Thessaly, Macedonia, Crete, Africa, Acarnania, Phocis, Epirus, Aetolia , Corcyra, Magna Graecia, Sicily) is certainly based on a directional movement. However, it seems to be a more complex operation to determine if and where we are in the presence of a real itinerary. Some regional analyses, such as the case of Acarnania in the Epidaurus list, do not seem to support the hypothesis,107 although it cannot be ruled out that a return route is due to the fact that the Thearia could have divided into various groups108, to visit neighboring cities. at the same time. It could be an itinerary, though not strictly speaking. Decrees on the grant of Thearodokia109 have reached us from many other cities where festivals were held, but no list has yet reached us. However, setting aside the difficulties of the Peloponnesian lists, with the exception of Hermione's list, which is a special case even given the brevity of the inscription, we can note some inconsistencies. In Propontis, the southern part is linked to 105 , about which Manganaro 2003, 134–138. 106 supra, notes 48–49. 107 supra nn.50–51. 108 Faraklas 1996, 80–81; Jacquemin 2012, 230. 109 For all this see as an example the case of Lousoi, where a festival was held in honor of Artemis Hemera, according to Perlman 2000, 158-160.

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the Ionian, the northern part with the regions of Thessaly, Macedonia, Thrace and Hellespont.110 In addition to the cities of Sciathos and Oreos, which were erroneously classified among the cities of Thessaly,111 the cataracts of Erythrae and Clazomenae, located between Cyme and Myrina, 112 to add. In the second column, Plataea in Boeotia is inserted after the Messenian Doureon. Phrixia follows on to Elis and Samikon on the Triphylia coast, only to return to Messenia with Cyparissiae113. After a few lines in Lasion, Opous in Elis and Tritaea in Achaea follows Boeotia Tanagra114. Located between Pronni, a city on the island of Cephallenia, and Zacynthos, Aegina. Then come Ali, unknown, Cleonai, in Argolis to continue with the Boeotians Orchomenos and Chaeroneia115 and return to Arcadia with Paroria at the beginning of the third column. A region, Athamania,116 is inserted below the cities of Thessaly, where the scribe has 'forgotten' the city of Argithea, present in the appendices of the same column and in the fifth column.117 Among the Macedonian cities, the sequence Ichnae , Thessaloniki , Skapta Hyle, Bisanthe, Perinthus and Byzantium make it difficult to consider this as an itinerary.118 The lists, however, retain great importance mainly due to those cities that are not known in other documents, such as Oroanna, Sykea, Pelkini, Orthos , Ortha , Oikyleon, Psilaina, Lilaia, Kynia, Laphros, Apomphos, Thareida (?). Thanks to this documentation it is possible to identify at least the regions to which they belonged. Explaining the absence of large cities is complex, especially when compared to the presence of small, almost unknown cities. The absence may indicate that the city was not visited by the Thearoi or that it could not have had a Thearodokos, also because for Delphi it does not indicate a severance of ties with the sanctuary by these cities.119 Therefore, they do not appear in the list quite difficult to explain that many cities have been omitted from the lists because they use geographic criteria, but not 110 Last, Jacquemin 2012, 230. 111 Contra, Robert 1946, 507 because these centers were visited by Thearoi, who had gone to Thessaly, but in this case the regional scheme fails. 112 Column I D(a) ll. 2-5; Plassart 1921, 47 wrote about disorder. 113 column II ll. 85-90; Plassart 1921, 50. 114 column II ll. 126-130. 115 Col. II ll. 142-150. 116 Column III l. 34. 117 column III l. 132; Col. VDl. 5. 118 or col. third 63–66 to Ichnae and Thessaloniki; I 94-99 for the others. 119 Oulhen and Rougemont in Rougemont 1992, 190.

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appear to be a specific geographic document. Therefore, they cannot be comprehensive120 because their purpose was not to give an image of the cities of a region and the inclusion or exclusion of cities depended on other criteria. The hypothesis that the absences are due to purely political reasons121 seems, therefore, ruled out122. In fact, when drawing up the lists, several factors seem to come into play, which go back to propaganda and “advertising”123. From this perspective, the main one seems to be The aim of the lists is not to be geographical, although the traces of some kind of itinerary are undeniable. We cannot rule out, in fact it seems likely, that the Thearoi used maps or "road maps" in their movements, which were taken into account when making the lists. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that there was a document presenting a viable sequence of road connections that could not always take into account the regional structure. If, as seems likely, the Thearoi traveled in groups not always traveling uniformly, it is very likely that the 'registration' of city and Thearodokoi naming was done respecting order and at the same time grouping Cities according to regional criteria. Therefore, these lists may have been made when the groups met, after each of them had made their own eangelia. As the case of Doureon, an Acarnania city present on the Nemean list but absent on the Epidaurus list, shows, for example, each group of Thearoi followed their own route. Therefore, it does not seem irrelevant to ask what and for whom these documents were useful. The protagonists were the Thearoi and Thearodokoi with their respective cities, who in turn were interested in compiling these lists out of concern for their own prestige and that of the sites. In fact, the lists constituted a service designed to give resonance to the websites related to the contests and highlight the role played by the people or groups that took advantage of them. Therefore, the function of these documents can explain the erroneous "Itineraries", sometimes unconnected, with presences and absences devoid of logic, a secondary factor compared to the priorities of the protagonists. in the Sicilian list Manganaro 1964, 425; Manni 1966, 175 et seq. 122 Jacquemin 2012, 230. 123 The lists certainly meet the visibility requirement (Strasser 2007, 343), which, however, as the presence of historically significant names shows, must also have had political value. inside the cities

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and the centrality of the motives that characterized their actions. It should not be neglected that these documents are mainly of a religious nature and served to publicly honor the city and the figures that had housed the holy messengers124, probably taking into account some economic-sacred aspects highlighted in the missing lists125 perhaps because they were felt superfluous. So lists are more like registries or gazetteers. However, they are essential documents both because of the regional geography and because they indicate the existence of secondary roads or different connections between different cities, which otherwise would probably not be known from other sources.

124 Rutherford 2013, 73. 125 An inscription from Argos (IG IV. 617) contains a list of cities in Thessaly and Macedonia (Heraclea Trachinia, Hypata, Echinos, Oreos, Pagasai, Pherai, Pharsalos, Larissa, Kierion, Gomphoi, Pelinna, Phalanna). , Homolion, Gonnoi, then three indecipherable cities, and finally Edessa, Atalante, some cities near the Europos river, Cassandreia, Philippi) where the Euboeos Oreos are found, as in the great Delphi inscription, and figures that have offered Argos a amount in Aeginetic or Alexandrian coins. The inscription, dating from 316–293 (Perlman 2000, 128), has been linked to Thearodokoi lists, from which the plan appears to have been borrowed from him. However, it seems extremely problematic to determine if they are sacrifices to the deity, an Ekecheiron (Perlman 2000, 127-130) or rather of a religious nature (Charneux 1987, 413 no. 609). The presence of individuals would suggest that they are not forms of imposition, but rather free offerings intended to honor the deities. This last interpretation seems to find its confirmation in the different behavior on the occasion of the arrival of the Thearoi of Cos between the Camarinians, who limited themselves to hospitality, and the Geloans, who sent silver for the festival in honor of the 10 minas of el god Asklepios (Manganaro 1964, 417-418). It was probably an offering, as an inscription from Chios suggests, where the Theoroi receive 400(?) drachmas to participate in sacrifices, specifically to purchase a ὡς κάλλιστον (Robert 1936, 17; Nachtergael 1977, 358). Perhaps we cannot rule out that the publication of the lists not only referred to the Xenia, but also implied the offering for the cult and the festival, although this was not specified. This could also explain the absence of some cities on the list.

CHAPTER 21

Eusebius and the Representation of the Holy Land Jan R. Stenger 1 Introduction The reader may be surprised to find Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, in a companion book devoted to ancient geography; for he is less famous as a geography scholar than as an influential and often controversial figure in church history in the time of Emperor Constantine and beyond as the inventor of church history. Given the Christian orientation toward heaven and the afterlife, it is not immediately apparent that geography was important to the early Church Fathers. However, this chapter will argue that Eusebius was instrumental in the Christian movement into geographic space during the fourth century. In fact, as Christianity gradually spread throughout the Roman Empire and became increasingly concerned with worldly affairs, geography served the special needs of its devoted followers. My goal is to examine how Eusebius helped shape Christian attitudes toward geography. Eusebius was probably born around 260 in Caesarea Maritima, where he later became a bishop.1 The city was already gaining a reputation as a center of Christian learning after the theologian Origen had taken biblical studies to new heights there, his successor Pamphilus, and that he was able to expand further as head of the city's theological school, textual revision, and historical exegesis of the Holy Scriptures. Sometime after 313, Eusebius assumed the episcopate of Caesarea, the dominant episcopal see in Palestine, and played an important role at the Council of Nicaea in 325. He soon found himself embroiled in doctrinal disputes, the so-called Arian controversy, which rocked the church. during his reign constantine The turning point in Eusebius's career came when he met this monarch who transformed the religious landscape by accepting Christianity Patrich 2011. 2 See Grafton and Williams 2006, especially 15–21.

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as legitimate religion. Eusebius enjoyed Constantine's favor and became his spiritual "spokesman" when he delivered the speech on the Emperor's 30th birthday and celebrated him as a champion of the Christian faith in the Vita Constantini, a laudatory biography.3 Eusebius died on May 30, 339 before he could finish this work. Eusebius's view of the close relationship between the Roman church and state was also the quintessence of his pioneering work, Church History, written in the 320s, which was to become the seminal work of a new literary genre.4 Closely related to this effort was his influential Chronicle, Index to World History, and the Palestine Martyrs, which preserved the memory of the Christians of that region during persecution by Roman authorities. Not only these writings, but also his other productive works testify to the scientific training that Eusebius received at the school of Pamphilus. Everyone talks about the great learning of him and enormous learning of him, for which posterity held him in high esteem. Of immediate importance in this connection is that both his life and a considerable part of his writing were deeply rooted in the Holy Land; This geographical location marked in a striking way what Eusebio was up against. Palestine, the region where the major Biblical events occurred, under the rule of Constantine experienced an increase in religious activity that did not go unnoticed by Christian scholars.5 However, its ancient capital, Jerusalem, then known by the Roman name of Aelia , as Eusebius himself informed us6, as Eusebius himself informed us, it was at that time to appeal to all Christians to clearly see signs of Christian life and worship in the country; Various Christian communities had sprung up throughout the region, and Christian interest in Palestine had begun before Constantine. But it was only with the official tolerance of Christianity and the pilgrimage of Constantine's mother, Helen, to the Holy Land in 327 that Christian attention in the cities and in the countryside intensified. Helen visited the places where Jesus lived and suffered in search of relics, and after her trip, an increasing number of believers traveled to Palestine to seek spiritual edification through physical contact with the holy places.7 The emperor himself also took 3 For Eusebius' relationship with Constantine, see Barnes 1981. 4 Louth 2004. 5 Cf. Siwan 2008, especially CH. 1. 6 Euseb., Palestine Martyr 11:9–11. 7 For the early Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land, see Hunt 1982; Wilken 1992a, 108-122; BittonAshkelony 2005, especially 17-26.

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Birth in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.8 A short time later, the first monasteries were established in Palestine, encouraged among others by the father of the church Jerome. Thus, Constantine not only created the framework for the spread of the Christian faith, but through his policies he also contributed to accelerating the process of reconquering the territory of Palestine as a Christian space. After the degradation of the physical world and the earthly city by Christians, also noted by Eusebius,9 a new interest in Palestine, now officially supported, gained ground among Christians.10 The Bishop of Caesarea, as a vocal supporter of Constantine's religious agenda, joined these efforts to put the Holy Land back on the religious map. His geographical studies fueled this ideological conquest of physical space. 2

Eusebio and Geography

Eusebius' interest in the geography of Palestine is evident in his historical account of Christian martyrs in the period before Constantine ended persecution and oppression. On the one hand, the scope of his Palestine Martyrs itself testifies to the author's roots in the territory of his homeland, as he seeks to delineate Palestine as a distinct region in the landscape of martyrdom. Not only is the subject of the report from him geographically defined; Likewise, Eusebius places a geographical grid in his work by connecting the martyrs with their places of activity. He occasionally disputes whether any of the people referred to in his account were actually native Palestinians.11 In doing so, Eusebio weaves history and geography together, suggesting the memory function of physical space. This historical dimension of geographic space is also manifested in the history of the Church, particularly in the first two books, where allusions to topography and geography are particularly frequent12. However, in works dedicated to praise, the Holy Land acquires a new importance starting with the first Christian emperor. There are the sites of Christ's life, Bethlehem and the Mount of Olives, which figure prominently when Eusebius praises Constantine's church-building program; Interestingly, the speaker of this eulogy not only mentions that the emperor showed reverence for the places of Christ's appearance, but adds that the embellishment with buildings 8 Hunt 1982, 6-27; Wilken 1992b, 741-745; Bitton-Ashkelony 2005, 22-24. 9 Clearly indicated, p. B. in Euseb., Palestine Martyrs 11.9-11. 10Wilken 1992a. 11 See, for example, Euseb., Palestine Martyrs 2.1; 2.5. 12 See also Euseb., Hist. Church 7.18, where Eusebio points out the memorial character of Caesarea Philippi.

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he made the sites monuments and symbols of salvation for all mankind.13 Later, in his Life of Constantine, the Church Father noted that imperial policies had helped transform Palestine into a memorial landscape.14 With the building of churches , underlines the description of Eusebius, Jerusalem could be recognized as one of the places connected with the life and work of the Savior. What is striking about Eusebius' concern with geography in these writings is that he propagated a specific notion of space that would leave subsequent generations with a clear idea of a sacred landscape. His references to places and sites in Palestine testify to the fact that the geography could be used for religious and even political purposes. It makes clear that the scene of Christ's acts was important to contemporary Christian thought as evidence of salvation history and the superiority of pagan superstition. It was Eusebius who first spread the concept of a "sacred place", that is, a religious topography, and through his literary efforts made Palestine a "venerable land", with all the fatal consequences that would follow, but which Eusebius could not foresee. . 15 The distinctive profile of Eusebius's interest in the geography of Palestine, then, is that it did not focus on a systematic study of the region or geography per se, but was limited to occasional references to sites and places, albeit with a character decidedly religious. Background perspective. He alerted Late Ancient Christians to the potential of geography as a vehicle for promoting faith. This, in turn, required a proper approach to geography, for which Eusebius drew on a variety of sources of inspiration. This specific interest in the geography of Palestine later influenced a major undertaking of Eusebius, albeit with a marked change in focus. Inspired by a request from his Paulinus companion, bishop of Tyre, Eusebius set out to undertake a multipart exploration of the Holy Land, covering various aspects of geography and topography. In the preface to its only surviving part, he describes the stages through which his project took shape:16 Ὥσπερ ἐν προοιμίῳ τῆς ὑπὸ σοῦ προτεθείσης ὑποθέσεως, ἱερὲ τοῦ θεοῦ ἄνθρωπε Παυλῖνε, ἐν τῷ πρὸ τούτου τὰς ἐπηγγελμένας ὑποθέσεις ἀποδούς, καὶ πρῶτα μὲν τῶν ἀνὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην ἐθνῶ ἐ ἑἑ ἑλάδα φωνὴ μεταβαλὼ ἐ ῇ ῇ & eses ὀ & eses ὀὀ & eses ὀὀ & eses adWor ὀὀ & ὀ ὀνό & γ & ὀ & ὀ & ὀ & 14 Euseb. konst. 3.25-42. 15 See Euseb., Vit. konst. 3.30 and 42. Cf. Wilken 1992a, 98–99; Wilke 1992b. 16 Eusebius, Onom. p. 2.3-17. The critical edition is by Klostermann 1904. Modern English translations of the Onomasticon are Freeman-Grenville et al. 2003 and Notley and Safrai 2005; his translation of Eusebius's Preface is incorrect.

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Judea is convinced by all the Biblical records, and the clergy in it, of the twelve tribes, and yet, as in the Scriptures in the manner of the ancient Diaboeta of their metropolis, I say to Jerusalem that in that holy place you have carved the image with a citation of the Admonitions in places, then in this and then in that, as if for the good of the whole case, having anticipated the intention that I have attached to you, the mother tongue of cities and towns, the meaning what country it was from and how we named it, whether it changed in ancient times, similarly or not, suspended. As an introduction to your proposed project, Paulinus, holy man of God, you recite the plans in the prelude after first translating into Greek the names of people throughout the world who in the divine Scriptures have Hebrew names. then, having completed a list of ancient Judea from the entire Bible, and also distinguished in it the attributions of the twelve tribes, and besides the image of its ancient and famous metropolis, I mean Jerusalem, and of the carved temple in a With reference to the places, in order and following these preliminary preparations, as if for the use of the whole project, I enclose his proposal establishing the names of the towns and villages used by the Scriptures in the language of the ancestors . , which region they belong to and how our peoples call them, either similar to the ancients or differently. Despite the somewhat awkward wording of the passage and the use of ambiguous terms, it is still possible to roughly estimate what Eusebius accomplished from his commissioned studies: First, he translated the Bible's Hebrew names of people living outside of Palestine. . In all likelihood this must have been a catalog or list based on similar efforts by earlier authors. Then the Father of the Church gave a description of ancient Judea, dealing with the division of the territory among the Twelve Tribes of Israel; however, the term catagraphs used here by Eusebius does not make it entirely clear whether this part of his project was a written account or rather a graphic map.17 Scholars tend to assume the former, since there is no clear evidence that there was one drawn. Representation. The third part consists of a plan or a 17 Elsewhere Eusebius uses this term to refer to a written description. Eusebius, Hist. community 6.8.4; 4/10/29; FROM 3.5.95. See Di Segni 1999, 115–116, who argues that the onomasticon was based on and accompanied by a graphic map; also Wilken 1992b, 754; Stenger 2013, 225. Grafton and Williams 2006, 222 assume that this part contained a drawn map.

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Description of ancient Jerusalem and the Temple, and again it is difficult to say how that could have been. These three phases, which Eusebius mentions in his dedicatory prologue, appear to have been only preliminary work for the fourth and central component of the entire project. This is the only surviving work that allows us to study Eusebius's geographical endeavors. Its title, according to the manuscripts, is The place names of the Scriptures, and this indicates the nature of this work. Instead of a sequential description of the area, it consists of an encyclopedic list of place names found in the Bible. Given the vague wording of the preface, scholars are divided as to whether or not this list was originally accompanied by a map of Palestine, but there is no indication in the text itself of a graphic representation.18 In addition, a detailed map of a small geographical region without clear precedents in antiquity, so it can be assumed that its author intended the work as we know it. The shape of an index may seem quite unusual for the topographical record of a region, but it is quite related to Eusebius's other compilation, the chronicle. Regarding the date of the Onomasticon, we can conclude that it was edited by Eusebius in the 320s, since the preface refers to the bishopric of Paulinus and the list of place names does not indicate any historical event after that decade.19 But it is It is impossible to determine how long the Church Father collected the information, so a date in the 290s has even been suggested for composition.20 It is likely that Eusebius collected and added his information bit by bit to each site over many years. 3 The Onomasticon What is the surviving work? As the common title Onomasticon suggests, it presents a list of names, that is, place names. To give an idea of its size, Eusebius compiles a total of almost 1,000 entries, of which 800 are actually 18 Di Segni 1999, 115–116 presents the view that the Onomasticon manuscripts were accompanied by a map; Freeman-Grenville et al. 2003, 11 (in translation); Grafton and Williams 2006, 222; pace Isaac 1998, 289. 19 Paulinus probably held the see of Tire from 313 to 326. Eusebius also dedicated Book 10 of Church History to him. If Eusebius had compiled the Onomasticon list in the 330s, one would expect him to mention the churches of Constantine at Jerusalem and Bethlehem, or the discoveries of Eutropia and Helen at Mamre and Calvary. See Wolf 1964, 73-74; Carrier 2003, 39; Taylor in Freeman-Grenville et al. 2003, 3. 20 Barnes 1975 and 1981, 110–1 suggests a date earlier than ca. 300. However, this is clearly ruled out by the dedication to Bishop Paulinus. See Louth 1990, 118-120.

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they refer exclusively to topographical sites and cities in the Holy Land.21 Of the approximately 200 remaining entries, around 80 of them cover personal names in the Bible that Eusebius’ sources have erroneously confused with place names. Although in the preface he claims to have reviewed all of Scripture, the information he gives is drawn mainly from the Old Testament, in particular from the Pentateuch and the Prophets, while he examines the Gospels only superficially and omits other books. The lemmas are arranged according to the Greek alphabet and within the alphabetical classification according to the headings of the biblical books in the Septuagint; if there are few entries, Eusebius often combines two books. A sample passage from a series of briefer entries may clarify the character of the onomasticon:22 Ἀπὸ τοῦ Δευτερονομίου. Θόφολ. effects Θαάθ. σταθμὸς τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ. Θαρά. σταθμὸς τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ. Not τοῦ ηησοῦ. Θαφφοῦ. . . . . . . . . Θανάκ. κλλιιν κησεν ηησοῦς, ννννα κηλέα ννελών, έ γέ & ggr; νε φυλῆς mανασῆ, λευ & more ωρsto. καὶ νῦν ἐστιν ἀπὸ δʹ σημείου τῆς Λεγεῶνος. Deuteronomy Tophel. A place in the wilderness "beyond the Jordan" where Moses writes Deuteronomy, opposite Jericho. Tahat. A camp of the Israelites. terá A camp of the Israelites. Joshua Tappuah. A city that besieged Joshua and killed its king; belonged to the tribe of Judah. It was also mentioned earlier as Beth-Tappuah, a border between Palestine and Egypt. Tanaj. A city that besieged Joshua and killed its king; it belonged to the tribe of Manasseh and was intended for the Levites. It is now on the fourth mile of Legio. 21 Wolf 1964 and Notley and Safrai 2005, XI–XXXVI provide a useful general description of the basic characteristics. 22 Eusebius, Onom. p. 98.1-1

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Although Eusebius' geographic project focused on the territory of Palestine, the Onomasticon also includes some place names outside those limits, for example, mottos on Mount Ararat, Eden, Babel, and the Euphrates River; in fact, the two longest entries, on Ararat and Babel, exceed the geographical limits of the Onomasticon, their length being due in part to quotations from the Jewish writer Josephus.23 The longest, on Palestine itself, is that of Beersheba, with about eleven lines in the modern Edition.24 In general, Eusebius adheres to his principle of including only the place names given in the Bible, with more recent settlements such as Caesarea, Legio, and Neapolis added solely for the purpose of locating Biblical sites. The entries vary considerably in their information from him, some presenting all the relevant details found in Scripture, others giving the simple name of a site.25 Obviously, Eusebius was not even aware of all the sites and localities he extracted. . Likewise, the geographic coverage shows some inconsistencies; while the onomasticon is most detailed in the Galilee hills and coastal plains, the regions on the outskirts of Palestine are covered in patches.26 Not surprisingly, a compilation of this magnitude, compiled without the aid of modern electronic tools, contains almost 100 duplicate entries, few of which were noted as such by the author himself.27 Furthermore, in addition to misunderstandings of the Biblical text, the Onomasticon contains various errors in the information given or inconsistencies in presentation. In view of the abundance of detail, such inaccuracies can hardly harm Eusebius's scientific achievement. In general, Eusebius's catalog shows a great deal of detail about Biblical places. Conspicuity, which seems to have been a central concern of the author, is the identification of ancient places. In most of the entries, Eusebius tries to locate the name of the place that a reader of Scripture encounters and give it its current Greek name. These identifications are generally based on phonetic and etymological similarities, which are still practiced in modern biblical archaeology.28 Furthermore, as mentioned in the preface, Eusebius regularly mentions the tribe in whose territory the site was located; east 23 Euseb., Onom. p. 2.23-4.25 (Ararat), with information from Joseph., AJ 1.90-95; 40.7–19 (Babel), with Joseph., AJ 1.118. 24 Eusebius, Onom. p. 50.1-12. 25 Entries consisting solely of the place name are, for example, Beth-makaah (p. 56.17) and Schur (p. 152.6). 26 Freeman-Grenville et al. They provide detailed maps of Palestine with the locations included in the onomasticon. 2003 and Notley and Safrai 2005. 27 See, for example, Euseb., Onom. p. 72.26-27; 84.16; 108.3-4. 28 For the use of extant place names and their boundaries in the historical geography of the Holy Land, see Elitzur 2004. He bases his work on Eusebius's Onomasticon.

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Information that he, of course, took from the Bible itself. In many cases he also includes details about the boundaries between different regions or discusses the identities of the inhabitants and other notable features related to the natural environment. For example, in the Jattir entry he mentions the Christian population that lived there in his time; and when it comes to Bela near the Dead Sea, he even considers the cultivation of date and balsam palms noteworthy.29 Contrary to what might be expected, evidence of the religious affiliation of present-day inhabitants is relatively scant;30 this is both the more surprising since Eusebius as bishop of Caesarea must have been very familiar with the religious landscape of Palestine. In contrast to these more random indications, indications of Roman roads and their distances are a fairly common part of Onomasticon entries; Eusebius refers more than 30 times to 20 different military roads in the provinces of Palestine, Arabia and Syria, giving distances between cities by landmarks to increase the precision of their location.31 We also find references to 11 Roman garrisons, including the number of legions .32 The Father of the Church did not want an exhaustive treatment with this level of detail and could not have done so, since he did not pursue a systematic vision in a tour of the Holy Land. The depth of information in the slogans is also not uniform; sometimes, when Eusebius had no additional knowledge, he simply repeated what he could find in the Bible, while in other cases he provided first-hand knowledge of the contemporary situation. The nature of the information contained in the onomasticon then suggests that the work is a gazetteer in modern terms, that is, a gazetteer combining a list of place names with details of physical features, location, and population. What is special about Eusebius' effort is that he does not base the onomasticon on the situation of Palestine in late antiquity, but rather he takes a historical period as a starting point to map this state on contemporary territory. The spatial and temporal dimension are intertwined,

29 Eusebius, Onom. p. 108.1-4 on Jattir; 42.1-5 on Bela and the date palms and the balsam around them. For further details on the physical aspects of individual locations, consult the lemmas on Beth-anat (pp. 52.25, Healing Baths); Beth-zatha (pp. 58.22–25, twin basins and their waters); Gadara (pp. 74.12-13, thermal baths) et al. 30 11 entries refer to Jewish population, 4 to Christians (pp. 26.13-14; 108.1; 112.14; 172.1-3) and 1 to Samaritans or Ebionites. 31 Isaacs 1998, 293–296; Notley and Safrai 2005, XXIII. 32 For example. Eusebius, Drinker. p. 42.2-3; 96.20-2

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as Eusebio also alludes in his preface to the memory function of his company.33 The nature of the information depended, of course, on the sources available to Eusebio. Although he had the opportunity to gather information about his travels through his diocese, he decided to base his gazetteer not so much on autopsies but mainly on written sources. As he makes clear in the introduction, his geographical project was based primarily on the Scriptures; the Pentateuch and the Prophets provided the textual framework and determined which place names were to be included in the list. Despite his claim to have flipped through the entire Bible, Eusebius actually focused on the Old Testament, while the Gospels contain only 23 place names. Also, these entries have a different style of presentation, so we can assume that Eusebius added them after the fact. the use; References to various Greek translations of the Old Testament show that he drew his extracts from Origen's Hexapla.35 In addition to Scripture, Eusebius sought geographical information in the works of the Jewish historian Josephus, whose antiquities are cited in a dozen places.36 It is it is also likely that he had some Jewish compilations in mind when he was working on the Onomasticon; this is supported by the fact that most of the holy site traditions are Jewish in origin.37 Furthermore, the Jewish scholar Philo in the first century AD. Similar lists of Biblical names had been compiled by C. and Origen, so it is reasonable to assume that Eusebius based them on preparatory work.38 The extent to which he also had access to the official files and maps that were available from the Roman administration in Caesarea, the capital of the province of Judea/Palestine at the time.39 To a lesser degree, the onomasticon

33 See the quote above, page 385. 34 For the Gospel entries, see Notley and Safrai 2005, XXVI–XXX; Timm 2010, 504-532. 35 Timm 2010. 36 See for example the entry on Ararat in Euseb., Onom. p. 2:23-4:25 with direct quotations from Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews (AJ 1:90-95). Eusebius also draws on the works of Josephus in other writings. See Carriker 2003, 157-61; Inowlocki 2006. 37 Notley and Safrai 2005, XXX. 38 Barnes 1981, 109-10; Wilken 1992b, 754. 39 Barnes 1981, 108–109; Isaac 1998, 292-303; Carriker 2003, 287.

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Information about the characteristics of Late Antique sites and cities appears to derive from Eusebius' autopsy and accounts of people who lived in the area from published works. The nature and sequence of many entries reveal that Eusebius made excerpts while reading the Bible, collecting and rearranging existing material, and then adding occasional entries from the Gospels. One passage may illustrate that in some places the Onomasticon amounts to a mere rearrangement of what occurs in a linear reading of the Old Testament:41 Masogam. Land of Moab, like Jeremiah. mysore Land of Moab, like Jeremiah. Moffat. Land of Moab, like Jeremiah. Miphaath is also at the top. maon Land of Moab, like Jeremiah. Molhom. Idol of Amun, like Jeremiah. masogam. Moab region according to Jeremiah. Mishor. Moab region according to Jeremiah. Mepha-ath. Moab region according to Jeremiah. He was also previously mentioned as Mephaath. Bethmaon. Moab region according to Jeremiah. Milcom. An idol of the Ammonites according to Jeremiah. All this raises the question of what Eusebius's original contribution to his geographical enterprise is and whether he should apply the concept of authorship to his compilation of the place-name list. Some scholars dispute that Eusebius can be considered the author of the Onomasticon in the strict sense, seeing him rather as a slavish extractor and a collector with no right to achieve anything original.42 Even if we dismiss this judgment as too harsh, the debate has continued unabated. However, he concluded that the Onomasticon is primarily a fruit of learning and scholarship. 40 An entry like that of Batanaia (Onom. pp. 52:24-26) with the phrase “there will be spas” makes it clear that Eusebio did not intend a first-hand inventory, but based on other testimonies. 41 Eusebius, Onom. p. 134.12-17. 42 The view that the Onomasticon was simply a revision of a Jewish source was advanced by Melamed in several articles published in Hebrew (summarized by Wolf 1964, 85–89); see more Notley and Safrai 2005, XV–XVIII. Barnes 1981, 106-116 paints a more favorable picture of Eusebio's achievement.

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Eusebio's use of the source material also indicates the intellectual profile of his geographical project. What prompted him to undertake this time-consuming task was not a genuine interest, much less a deep love for his homeland. Instead, the scope and scope of the Onomasticon was determined by the fact that a number of texts accepted as canonical by the Christian community had already paid notable attention to geographical issues; The history of the Jewish people and its record in the Bible were inextricably linked with geography. The provision of information on the geographical background of the Biblical story was intended primarily as a tool to help the reader understand the Scriptures and clarify the historical level of the Biblical narrative. In a sense, we can see the Onomasticon driven primarily by an antiquarian impetus, as Eusebius focused on compiling the realia of the scriptural account. This scientific approach shaped the form of presentation. By adopting the established style of an encyclopedia, particularly by presenting relatively short entries in alphabetical order, Eusebius made it clear that he intended the onomasticon to be a carefully researched collection of detailed information on a clearly defined topic.43 Evidence from the outset his readers point to in this direction when he exalts the typical encyclopedic size of the Onomasticon. The nature of the individual entries, their schematic character, the recurring style, and the categories suggest that the author has closely followed the encyclopedic pattern. Since Eusebius' geographical encyclopedia was based on one text, geography was conflated with lexicography in the sense that the onomasticon was a kind of commentary on the Bible, albeit in alphabetical order, not arranged parallel to the text. Consequently, the presentation of the material itself reveals that Eusebius cast the eyes of a scholar rather than a curious traveler in the Holy Land from his study. This scholarly perspective also suggests where to look for models of Eusebius when compiling his gazetteer. Certainly, exploring the territory of a region was the task of ancient geographers, but it is evident that the Onomasticon did not follow in the footsteps of Ptolemy's mathematical geography, nor in the footsteps of the geographers.

43 Similarly, but with a focus on earlier literary works, the Preparatio Evangelica presents the encyclopedic ambitions of Eusebius. 44 See the quote from the foreword above. 45 For encyclopedic literature on tradition and knowledge in imperial times, see König and Whitmarsh 2007.

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descriptive geography like Strabo.46 On the other hand, he used Homeric philology as a model. In Hellenistic Alexandria, for the first time, philologists carefully researched canonical texts and produced commentaries and glossaries to explain their meaning to contemporary audiences. Not only did they strive to produce an authoritative text of the Homeric epics as a result of exhaustive textual criticism, but some of them also developed an interest in Homeric geography. The grammarian Demetrius von Skepsis wrote in the second century BC. A complete historical and geographical commentary on the catalog of the Trojan forces in the second book of the Iliad. His contemporary Apollodorus of Athens went to great lengths to provide a detailed commentary on the Iliad's catalog of ships, sketching Homeric Greece and explaining the place names contained in the epic catalogue.47 Later ancient writers in the field of geography worked in encyclopedia publications, for example, Diogenianus in the 2nd century AD; his encyclopedia, as the title presumed, purported to cover the cities of the world.48 Although it is not known whether Eusebius was actually familiar with such works, there is no doubt that he was following the tradition of ancient philology and lexicography had delved and knew how to apply his methods to their biblical studies.49 In addition, Origen had set a clear precedent when he compiled a Biblical lexicon of names that Jerome later translated into Latin.50 Origen revised and expanded there an earlier Jewish lexicon of names attributed to Philo of Alexandria to explain the meaning of Hebrew names in the Old Testament to his Greek-speaking audience. With this help to the Bible commentator, he paved the way for applying the techniques of Greek philology to a new subject, and Eusebius did the same. Eusebius's onomasticon was thus firmly rooted in the tradition of historical exegesis of Scripture as practiced by his admired predecessor Origen; from this type of biblical scholarship, which was indebted to Alexandrian philology, he drew the inspiration for his encyclopedic enterprise. 46 On the two types of geography in antiquity see Dueck 2012, 20-98. 47 Dueck 2012, 21–22 on the Hellenistic study of Homeric geography. 48 His work is mentioned in the entry for him in the Suda Lexicon (δ 1140). This parallel is drawn by Barnes 1981, 109. 49 It is at least evident that Eusebius made considerable use of the works of the scholar Alexander Polyhistor (1st century BC), known for his geographical writings in almost all ancient lands. See Carriker 2003, 139–141; Adler 2011. 50 Jer., Liberinterpretationis Hebraicorum nominum. Wolf 1964, 73; Barnes 1981, 110; Wilken 1992b, 754.

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By looking at the learning tradition in which Eusebio placed his Ono-masticon, we can better appreciate what his project was aiming at and what audience it was intended for. Turning their attention to the Onomasticon and exploiting the list to locate Biblical sites in the Holy Land, modern scholars were quick to argue that Eusebius had in mind to provide late-antique travelers with a useful guide, a Baedeker in all but name, for their journey through the sacred land; the coincidence of the composition of the onomasticon and the rise of early Christian pilgrimages seemed all too convincing.51 Just as Biblical archeology had relied successfully on the experience of Eusebius since the 19th century, ancient pilgrims, according to this view, they would use the onomasticon to locate the sites of Biblical narratives in the Palestinian countryside. However, with research examining the nature of work more fully, this view has come into question. For an ancient traveler, a guidebook consisting of an alphabetical listing would have been of limited use.52 What would a pilgrim wandering the countryside do with entries that often contain the mere name of a place? Looking at the example of Origen, it seems much more likely that Eusebius also intended his catalog to be a tool for exegesis.53 However, he notes in his foreword that the entire project owes its existence to the reading of Holy Scripture.54 Go to Through the text of the Bible, the Christian reader, armed with the gazetteer next to the Scriptures, could quickly consult what was known about a place, its history and location. In the vein of the biblical scholarship of Origen and Eusebius, then, the onomasticon served as a tool to explain the historical meaning of Scripture.55 However, it can be argued that the Church Father had other purposes as well. Modern readers are struck by the fact that the Onomasticon is largely devoted to the books of the Old Testament and has little to say about the Gospels. This observation must be placed in the context of Eusebius's other writings. One of the main goals of early Christian thinkers was to argue that Christianity replaced the Jews in the role of God's chosen people and 51 Wolf 1964, 89; Grafton and Williams 2006, 222. 52 In contrast, Late Antique pilgrim reports present their material in the form of perihegesis. See the Itinerarium Burdigalense and the Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta de Egeria. 53 Barnes 1981, 110; Walker 1990, 42-43; Taylor in Freeman-Grenville et al. 2003, 1-2; Bitton Ashkelony 2005, 20. 54 Euseb., Onom. p. 2.19-20. 55 See also Jerome's remarks in his preface to the Book of Chronicles (PL 29.423): “He who has seen Judea with his own eyes, and knows the memories of ancient cities and the names of places, whether they are the same or changed, you will see the Scripture more clearly.'

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to give reasons for this change in divine favor.56 In their discussions it was important to prove that the Old Testament had already predicted the coming of Christ and to claim these books for the Christian religion. Eusebius was no exception to this line of reasoning. Much of his work tells of his apologetic efforts to bring historical depth to Christianity and refute Jewish claims; these discussions naturally centered on the Old Testament writings.57 In this context, it is reasonable to assume that the onomasticon also had an apologetic purpose. Drawing a virtual map of the Holy Land implied that the history and territory of ancient Palestine were part of the Christian heritage. Furthermore, by mapping Old Testament times in physical space, Eusebius indicated that the Christian claim to antiquity was firmly based on material evidence and could still be experienced in the environment. Having taken up the dimension of time for apologetic purposes in his chronicle, he now turned to geographic space.58 For this persuasive goal, it held more promise to impress the reader with a supposedly comprehensive and well-researched body of geographic information than to impress him to equip him with a handy vade mecum. Associated with this was the search for Christian identity. The appropriation of the Holy Land was not exclusively a fight against other religious groups; it was also an effective strategy for Christian identity work. As mentioned at the beginning, the material world in all its facets gained relevance among Christians in late antiquity. The tombs and relics of the martyrs attracted crowds of believers eager to come into contact with the saints; the first pilgrims traveled to Palestine; The Fathers of the Church and the clergy dealt with the daily problems of urban life; asceticism drew attention to the human body.59 Eusebius played a role in this development when he drew the attention of his readers to the physical locations of biblical history. Many mottoes in his gazetteer emphasize that a place was yet to be shown and could be seen.60 In other words, Eusebius emphasized that historical memories are tangible and can be experienced in the contemporary material world. In doing so, he introduced the idea of a memorial site into Christian thought; henceforth palestinian

56 For Eusebio's response to the Jewish claims and questions, see Ulrich 1998; Johnson 2006, 94-125. 57 Johnson 2006; Inowlocki 2006. 58 Groh 1985, 29 understands the onomasticon as an apologetic work. This point of view is rejected by Kofsky 2000, 37 and Bitton-Ashkelony 2005, 21. 59 See Brown 1981 and Miller 2009. 60 Euseb., Onom. p. 12.7; 12.18; 12:22-23; 16,26 et al. The schematic expression is "still shown". Another important expression in this context is “. . . it is still now’, for example, p. 18.2.

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it was to be read as a treasure of the Christian past and identity.61 The contribution of the onomasticon to the creation of a Christian memory was related to, and at the same time nurtured, the Christian desire for contact with the sites, expressed in the building program of Constantine and early pilgrimage. Eusebius was well aware of this desire to touch and feel the Christian faith in material reality, as various entries in the Onomasticon show. The motto on Bethabara is a good example of this (58.18-20): Bethabara. "where John the Baptist was", "on the other side of the Jordan". and reference is made to the place where most of the brothers receive their beloved bath in the current year. Betabara. "Where John baptized", "on the other side of the Jordan". It shows the place where many of the brothers are still waiting for a bath today. The usefulness of the Gazetteer lies not so much in each individual entry, but rather in the overall picture it creates. Only when the reader has before his eyes the geographic inventory of the Bible in an accessible representation will he be able to form an image of the territory of Palestine and recognize it as a coherent and well-defined space inscribed with Christian memories. In a way, Eusebius makes the geography of the Holy Land legible. Viewing the Onomasticon from this perspective, it becomes clear how Eusebius understands geographic space. His main concern is clearly not exhaustive coverage of a region with a wide range of information about its physical nature. Rather, the space for Eusebio consists mainly of places that have special meaning for the intended audience. In this conception, places assume the role of signs or signs, since they point to something else and represent something else, namely the biblical story. Elsewhere, when discussing Constantine's appropriation of places related to the life of Jesus, Eusebius makes it clear that he sees the places as gnorismata, signs, that is, embodying a specific meaning.62 Regarding the discovery of the Holy Sepulchre, Eusebius affirms that this place serves as "clear and visible evidence of the miracles of which this place had been the scene, a testimony of the resurrection of the Redeemer clearer than any voice could give". Halbwachs, in his work The Legendary Topography of the Gospels in the Holy Land, examined how Christian collective memory was linked to the physical space of Palestine since ancient times (halbwachs 1992). See Stenger 2013. 62 Euseb., Vit. konst. 3.28; see Lauds Constantini 18. See Wilken 1992b, 743–745. 63 Euseb., Vit. konst. 3.28.

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it is then a space interspersed with visible evidence of the historicity of the biblical record. It is imperative, therefore, that this evidence be material and still perceptible to Christians in Eusebius's time.64 Thus, while the onomasticon is primarily intended as an aid to exegesis, it promotes a notion of the geographical anchored in the space of Christian experience during late antiquity. He develops a vision of sacred space to offer Christianity a landscape of memory. With this approach to geography, Eusebio stimulated the Christian movement to rehabilitate material space. Not that he was the first Christian to become aware of the physical world, but the vision of the Holy Land presented by the Onomasticon took a decisive step towards a truly Christian geography. His exploration of Palestine was not so much an end in itself; rather, it functioned as a vehicle for a religious agenda. Compiling his encyclopedic list, Eusebius redrawed the Mediterranean and placed the territory of Palestine at the center of the Christian mental map. 4 Life after death Eusebius's view of religious geography seems to have attracted other Christians of late antiquity. For example, the implicit message of the Onomasticon was not lost on Church Father Jerome when he translated the record into Latin around 390.65 As great changes had begun to transform the Palestinian landscape, Jerome felt the need to adapt the Onomasticon to his own time. In addition to the actual translation, he updated the list by adding references to church buildings that had been erected in the Holy Land in the interim. Here Jerome emphasized that the Biblical land would be reconquered by Christianity. In addition, other Latin translations circulated the image of Eusebius of Palestine, and a Syriac translation survives.66 This suggests that his geographical project must have met contemporary needs. It is also not unlikely that the Onomasticon, despite its academic character, was used by later Christian pilgrimage routes. However, it is difficult to determine whether the parallels between these travel books and the Onomasticon are due to direct influence or simply to the identity of the subject. It is equally controversial whether the famous map of 64 emphasizes this point of Eusebius himself, when right at the beginning of the speech on the church of Tire he emphasizes that the architectural space can be taken as material evidence that what is written in Scripture in memory is faithful and true (Hist. eccl. 10.4.5-6). 65 Cf. Weingarten 2005, 251–263; Siwan 2008, 252–253. 66 Edited and translated by Timm 2005.

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Madaba in Jordan shows traces of the influence of Eusebius.67 This large-scale mosaic, created in a church in the sixth century, covers roughly the same area as the onomasticon. It shows the territory of Palestine with numerous cartoons of cities and even images of animals. Despite the obvious similarities, the connection between Eusebius' record and the map is disputed, as the mosaic differs from the Onomasticon material.68 In any case, it is clear that Eusebius' geographical project struck the right note among Christians. of his time. However, its appeal did not end with antiquity. As interest in Holy Land sites grew in the mid-19th century and the discipline of Biblical archeology emerged, it became immediately apparent that the onomasticon provided a wealth of geographical detail that was still useful in locating Biblical sites. This topographical and onomastic approach dominated the reading of Eusebius's inventory until the end of the last century, when cultural approaches revealed more layers of meaning, particularly the role of the onomasticon in generating the idea of a memory landscape. Biblical sites have yet to much to Eusebius's geographical efforts and often mention his former "predecessor". This is because Eusebius gives unmatched geographic coverage of a region of the Roman Empire. No other area in antiquity was treated in such detail. And despite its rather limited scope and shortcomings, the Onomasticon proved fit for various purposes ranging from Biblical scholarship to religious surveying. Although far removed from the popular biblical atlases of our day, Eusebius' Onomasticon left Christianity in modern times with a vision of the geography of the Holy Land that inspired archaeologists, travelers, and the imagination in general. This undertaking thus assures the Father of the Church a place in the history of geography.

67 For the Madaba map see Piccirillo and Alliata 1999. 68 Avi-Yonah 1954, 31–2 argues that the mosaic artist relied on the onomasticon; see more Isaac 1998, 289-90. Di Segni 1999 challenges this assumption and highlights the differences. 69 Groh 1985; Strictly 2013.

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