Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/61

 INDIA. mans). (Strab. xv. pp. 711 — 714; Clom. Alex. Strom. I. 131.) A<;ain Daimachus, who lived for a lon<; time at Palibothra (Strab. ii. p. 70), wrote a work upon India, which, tiiougli according to Strabo full of fable.s, must also have contained much valu- able information. Patrocles, whom Str.ibo evidently deemed a writer of veracity (Strab. ii. p. 70), as the admiral of Seleucus, sailed upon the Indian Ocean, and left an account, in which he stated his belief that India was the same breadlii that Me- f^asthenes had maintained (Strab. ii. p. 69. xv. p. 689) ; but also that it could be circumnavigated — an erroneous view, which seems to have arisen from the idea, that the Caspian Sea and the Northern Ocean were connected. (Strab. ii. p. 74, xi. p. 518.) With the establishment of the mathematical schools at Alexandria, commenced a new aera in Grecian geography ; the first systematic arrangement of the divisions of the earth's surface being made by Eratosthenes (b.c. 276 — 161), who drew a series of parallels of latitude — at unequal distances, however — through a number of places remotely distant from one another. According to his plan, his most southern parallel was extended through Taprobane and the Cinnamon coast (theSE. end of the Arabian Gulf); his second par.allel (at an interval of 3400 stadia) passed though the S. coast of India, the mouths of the Indus and Meroe; his third (at an interval of 5000 stadia) passed through Palibothra and Syene ; his fourth (at a similar interval) con- nected the Upper Ganges, Indus, and Alexandria ; his fifth (at an interval of 3750 .stadia) passed through Thina (the capital of the Seres), the whole chain of the Emodus, Imaus, Paropamisus, and the island of Khodes. (Strab. i. p. 68, ii. pp. 1 13 — 132.) At the same time he drew seven parallels of lon- gitude (or meridians), the first of which p.assed tiirough the E. coast of China, the second through the mouths of the Ganges, and the third through those of the Indus. His great geographical error was that the intersection of his meridians and lati- tudes formed riffkt angles. (Strab. ii. pp. 79, 80, 92, 93.) The shape of the uduabited portion of the globe he compared to a Macedonian Chlamys ex- tended. (Strab. ii. p. 118, xi. p. 519; ]Iacrob. Somn. Scip. ii. 9.) The breadth of India between the Ganges and Indus he made to be 16,000 stadia. Taprobane, like hia predecessors, he held to be 5000 stadia long. Hipparchus (about b. c. 1 50), the father of Greek astronomy, followed Patrocles, Daimachus, and Meg.isthenes, in his view of the shape of India; making it, however, not so wide at the S. as Era- tosthenes had made it (Strab. ii. pp. 77, 81), but much wider towards the N., even to the extent of from 20,000 to 30,000 stadia (Strab. ii. p. 68). Ta- probane he held not to be an island, but the com- mencement of another continent, which extended onward to the S. and W., — following, probably, the idea which had prevailed since the time of Aristotle, that Africa and SE. India were connected on the other side of the Indian Ocean. (Mela, iii. 7. § 7 ; Plin. vi. 22. s. 24.) Artemidorus (about b. c. 100) states that the Ganges rises in the Montes Emodi, flows S. till it arrives at Gange, and then E. by Palibothra to its mouths (Strab. xv. p. 719): Ta- probane he considered to be about 7000 stadia long and 500 broad (Steph. B.). The whole breadth of India, from the Ganges to the Indus, he made to be 16,000 stadia. (Plin. vi. 19. s. 22.) The greater part of all that was known up to his INDIA. 45 time was finally reduced into a consistent shape by Strabo (li. c. 66 — a. d. 36). His view of India was not materially different from that which had been the received opinion since Eratosthenes. He held that it was the greatest and most Eastern land in the world, and the Ganges its greatest stream (ii. p. 130, XV. pp. 690, 719) ; that it stretched S. as far as the parallel of Meroe, but not so far N. as Hipparchus thought (ii. pp. 71, 72, 75); that it was in shape like a lozenge, the S. and E. being the longest sides. Its greatest breadth was 16,000 stadia on the E., its least 13,000 on the W. ; its greatest length on the S., 19,000 stadia. Below the S. coast he placed Taprobane, which was, in his opinion, not less than Great Britain (ii. p. 130, XV. p. 690). Pliny the Elder and Pomponius Mela, who were contemporaries, added somewhat to the geographical knowledge previously acquired, by in- corporating into their works the results of different expeditions sent out during the earlier emperors. Thus, Pliny follows Agrippa in making India 3300 M. P. long, and 2300 JI. P. broad, though he him- self suggests a ditl'erent and shorter distance (vi. 17. s. 21); while, after Seneca, he reckoned that it contained 118 peoples and 60 rivers. The Emodus, Imaus, Paropamisus, and Caucasus, he connected in one continued chain from E. to W., stating that S. of these gi-eat mountains, the land was, like Egypt, one vast plain (vi. 18. s. 22), comprehending many wastes .ind much fruitful land (vi. 20. s. 23). For a fuller notice of Tajjrobane than had been given by previous writers, he was indebted to the ambas- sadors of the emperor Claudius, from whom he learnt that it had towards India a length of 10,000 stadia, and 500 towns, — one, the capital, Palaesi- mundum, of vast size. The sea between it and the continent is, he says, very shallow, and the distance from the nearest point a journey of foui- days (vi. 22. s. 24). The measurements of the distances round the coast of India he gives with some minuteness, and in some instances with less exaggeration than his predecessors. With Marinas of Tyre and Claudius Ptolemaeus, in the middle of the second century, the classical knowledge of geography may be said to terminate. The latter, especially, has, in this branch of know- ledge, exercised an influence similar to that of Aristotle in the domain of the moral and physical sciences. Both writers took a more comprehensive view of India than had been taken before, owing in some degree to the journey of a Macedonian trader named Titianus, whose travels extended along the Taurus to the capital of China (Ptol. i. 11. § 7), and to the voyage of a sailor named Alexander, who found his way across the Indian Ocean to Cattigara (Ptol. i. 14. § 1), which Ptolemy places in lat. 8° 30' S., and between 170° and 180° E. long. Hence, his idea that the Indian Ocean was a vast central sea, with land to the S. Taprobane he held to be four times as big as it really is (vii. 4), and the largest island in the world ; and he mentions a cluster of islands to the NE. and S. (in all pro- bability, those now known as the Maldives and Xac- cadives). In the most eastern part of India, be- yond the Gulf of Bengal, which he terms the Golden Chersonesus, he speaks of Iabadius and Maniolae ; the first of which is probably that now known as Java, while the name of the second has been most likely preserved in Manilla. The main divisions of India into India intra Gangem and India extra Gangem, have been adopted by the