Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/73

 INTERNUil MALE. whh the generals of Justinian. (Procop. B. G. ii. 11, iii. 6, iv. 28, 34.) Tlie Jerusalem Itinerary places the station of Intercisa 9 51. P. from Calles {Caffli), and the same distance from Forum Seni- pronii (^Fossombrone), hoth of which distances are just about correct. (D'Anville, Analyse de I'ltalie, p. 15.5.) [K. H. B.] INTERNUM MARE, the great inland or Mcci- ierranean Sea, which washes the coasts of Southern Europe, Nortlicrn Africa, and Asia Minor. 1. Name. — In the Hebrew Scriptures, this sea, on the V. of Palestine, and therefore behind a person facinfj the E., is called the " Hinder Sea " (^Deut. xi. 24; Joel, ii. 20), and also the '• Sea of the Philis- tines." (A'xorf. xxii. 81), because that jx;ople occupied the largest portion of its shores. Pre-eminently it was " the Great Sea " (A'?/w. xxxiv. 6, 7; Josh. i. 4, ix. 1, XV. 47; Ezck. xlvii. 10, 15, 20), or simply '* the Sea" (1 Kings, v. 9; comp. 1 Mace. xiv. 34. XV. 11). In the same way, the Homeric poems, Hesiod, the Cyclic poets, Aeschylus, and Pindar, call it emphatically " the Sea." The logograplier Hocataeus speaks of it as " the Great Sea " (/V. 349, ed. Klau.-en). Nor did the historians and systematic geographers mark it otl' by any peculiar denomination. The Roman writers call it JIake Inteunuji (Pomp. Mela, i. 1. § 4; Plin. iii. 3) or Intestinum (Sail. Jug. 17; Fior. iv. 2; 17 icroi baKarTo., Polyb. iii. 39; ^ ivrhs i&ctA., Strab ii. p. 121, iii. p. 139; ^ ivrhs 'HpaKkiicav cTTr)wv Sia., Arist. Met. ii. 1), or more freciuently, JI.vr.E Nostkum (Sail. Jug. 17, 18; Caes. B. b.v.l: Liv. xxvi. 42 ; Pomp. Mela, i. 5. § 1 ; 7] kolO' I'lixai SoA., Strab. ii. p. 121). The epithet "Mediterranean" is not used in the classical writers, and was first employed for this sea by Solinus (c. 22 ; comp. Isid. Orig. xiii. 16). The Greeks of the pre- sent day call it the " White Sea" {'Acrdpi ©oAairo-a), to distinguish it from the Black Sea. Throughout Europe it is known as the Mediierruneati. 2. Extent, Shape, and Admeasurements. — The Llediterranean Sea extends from 6° W. to 36° E. of Greenwich, while the extreme limits of its latitude are from 30° to 46° N.; and, in nnmd numbers, its length, from Gibraltar to ita furthest extremity in Syria, is about 2000 miles, with a breadth varying from 80 to 500 miles, and, including the Euxine, with a line of shore of 4500 leagues. The ancients, who considereii this sea to be a very large portion of the globe, though in reality it is only equal to one-seventeenth part of the Pacific, assigned to it a nmch greater length. As they possessed no means for critically measuring horizontal angles, and were unaided by the compass and chronometer, correctness in great distances was unattainable. On this account, wiiile the E. shores of the Mediterranean approachei a tolerable degree of correctness, the relative positions and f )rms of the W. coasts are erroneous. Strabo, a philosophical rather than a scientific geographer, set himself to rectify the errors of Eratosthenes (ii. pp. 105, 106), but made more mistakes: though he drew a much better " contour" of the Mediterranean, } et he distorted the W. parts, by placing JMassilia 13^° to the S. of Byzantium, instead of 2^° to the N. of that city. Ptolemy also fell into great errors, such as the Hattening-in of the N. coast of Africa, to the amount of 4 j° to the S., in the latitude of Car- thage, while Byzantium was placed 2° to the N. of its true position; thus increasing the breadth in the very part where the greatest accuracy might be ex- pected. Nor was this all ; for the extreme length of the Internal Sea was carried to upwards of 20° INTERNUM MARE. 57 beyond its true limits. The maps of Agathodaemon which accompany the Geography of Ptoiemy, though indifferently drawn, preserve a much better outlineof this sea than is expressed in the Theodosian or Peutingerian Table, where the Mediterranean is so reduced in breadth as to resemble a canal, and the site, form, and dimensions of its islands are displaced and disfigured. The latitudes were estimated by the ancient ob- servers in .stadia reckoned from the equator, and are not so discordant as might be expected from such a method. The length between the ejuinoetial line and Syracuse, or rather the place whiih they called the "Strait of Sicily," is given as follows: — Stadia Eratosthenes - -. - 25,450 Hipparchus. - - . 25.600 Strabo 25,400 JIarinus of Tyre - - - 26,075 Ptolemy 26,833 Their longitudes run rather wild, and are reckoned from the "Sacrum Proniontorium" (Ca/^e St. Vin- cent), and tl'.e numbers given are as the arc from thence to Syracuse: — Stadia 1 ] ,800 16,300 14,000 18,583 Eratosthenes - - Hipparchus - - Strabo -. - . Marinus of Tyre Ptolemy 29,000 In Admiral Smyth's work {The Mediterranean, p. 375) will be found a tabular view of the aliove- mentioncd admeasurements of the elder geographers, along with the determination resulting from his own observations; a.ssuniing, for a redu'tion of the num- bers, 700 .stadia to a degree of latitude, for a plane projection in the 36° parallel, and 555 for the cor- responding degree of longitude. (Comp. Gosselin, Geographic des Grecs, 1 vol. Paris, 1780; Geogra- phic des Anciens, 3 vols. Paris, 1813 ; Mesures Itincraires, 1 vol. Paris, 1813.) 3. Physical Geography. — A more richly- varied and broken outline gives to the N. shores of the Mediterranean an advantage over the S. or Libyan coast, which was remarked by Eratosthenes. (Strab. ii. p. 109.) The three great peninsulas, — the Iberian, the Italic, and the Hellenic, — wiih their sinuous and deeply indented shores, form, in com- bination with the neighbouring islands and opposite coasts, many straits and isthmuses. Exclusive of the Euxine (which, however, must be considered as part of it), this sheet of water is naturally divided into two vast basins; the barrier at the entrance of the straits marks the commencement of the W. basin, which descends to an abysmal depth, and extends as far as the central part of the sea, where it flows over another barrier (the subaqueous Ad- venture Bank, discovered by Admiral Smyth), and again falls into the yet unfathomed Levant basin. Strabo (ii. pp. 122 — 127) marked off this expanse by three smaller closed basins. The westernmost, or Tyrrhenian basin, comprehended the space be- tween tlie Pillars of Hercules and Sicily, including the Iberian, Ligurian, and Sardinian seas ; the waters to the W. of Italy were also called, in re- ference to the Adriatic, the " Lower Sea," as that gulf bore the name of the " Upper Sea." The second was the Syrtic basin, E. of Sicily, including the Ausonian or Siculian, the Ionian, and the Libyan seas: on the N. this basin luus up into the Adriatic, on the S. the gulf of Libya penetrates deeply into