Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/74

 58 INTERNUM MAEE. the African continent. The E. part of this hasin is interrupted by Cyprus alone, and was divided into the Carpathian, I'amphylian, Cilician, and Syrian seas. The third or Aegean portion is bounded to the S. by a curved hne, which, commencing at the coast of Caria in Asia Minor, is formed by the islands of Ehodes, Crete, and Cythera, joining the Pelopon- nesus not far from Cape Malea, with its subdivisions, the Thracian, Myrtoan, Icarian, and Cretan seas. From the Aegean, the " White Sea " of the Turks, the channel of the Hellespont leads into the Pro- pontis, connected by the Thracian Bosporus with the Euxine : to the NE. of that sheet of water lies the Palus Maeotis, with the strait of the Cim- merian Bosporus. The configuration of the con- tinents and of the islands (the latter either severed from the main or volcanically elevated in lines, as if over long fissures) led in very early times to cosmo- logical views respecting eruptions, terrestrial revolu- tions, and overpourings of the swollen higher seas into those which were lower. The Euxine, the Hellespont, the straits of Gades, and the Internal Sea, with its many islands, were well fitted to originate such theories. Not to speak of the floods of Ogyges and Deucalion, or the legendary cleaving of the pillars of Hercules by that hero, the Samo- thracian traditions recounted that the Euxine, once an inland lake, swollen by the rivers that flowed into it, had broken first through the Bosporus and afterwards the Hellespont. (Died. v. 47.) A refle.x of these Samothracian traditions appears in the " Sluice Theory " of Straton of Lamps.acus (Strab. i. pp. 49, 50), according to which, the swellings of the waters of the Euxine first opened the passage of the Hellespont, and afterwards caused the outlet through the Pillars of Hercules. This theory of Straton led Eratosthenes of Cyrene to examine the problem of the equality of level of all extern.al seas, or seas surrounding the continents. (Strab. I. c. ; comp. ii. p. 104.) Strabo (i. pp. 51, 54) rejected the theory of Straton, as insuflicient to account for all the phenomena, and proposed one of his own, the profoundness of which modern geologists are only now beginning to appreciate. " It is not," he says (i c), " because the lands covered by seas were originally at different altitudes, that the waters have risen, or subsided, or receded from some parts and inundated others. But the reason is, that the same land is sometimes raised up and sometimes depressed, so that it either overflows or returns into its own place again. We must therefore ascribe the cause to the ground, either to that ground which is under the sea, or to that which becomes flooded by it; but rather to that which lies beneath the sea, fur this is more moveable, and, on account of its wet- ness, can be altered with greater quickness." (Lyell, Geology, p. 17; Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 118, trans.. Aspects of Nature, vol. ii. pp. 73 — 83, trans.) The fluvial system of the Internal Sea, including the rivers that fall into the Euxine, consists, be- sides many secondary streams, of the Nile, Danube, Borysthenes, Tanais, Po, Phone, Ebro, and Tyras. The general physics of this sea, and their connec- tion with ancient speculations, do not fall within the scope of this article; it will be sufficient to say that the theory of the tides was first studied on the coast of this, which can only in poetical language be called " a tideless sea." The mariner of old had his charts and saihng directories, was acquainted INTERNOI MARE. with the bewildering currents and counter -currents of this sea, — the " Typhon " (jv<pdjv and the "Prester" (tt^tjctt^p), the destroyer of those at sea, of which Lucretius (vi. 422 — 445) has given so terrific a description, — and hailed in the hour of danger, as the '" Dioscuri" who played about tlje mast-head of his vessel (Plin. ii. 437; Sen. Nat. Quaest. ii.), the fire of St. Elmo, " sacred to the seaman." Much valuable infurmation upon the winds, climate, and other atmospheric phenomena, as recorded by the ancients, and compared with modern investigations, is to be found in Smyth {Mediterranean, pp. 210 — 302). Furbiger's .--ec- tion upon Physical Geography (vol. i. pp. 576 — 655) is useful for the references to the Latin, and Greek authors. Some papers, which appeared in Fraser's Magazine for the yeare 1852 and 1853, upon the fish known to the ancients, throw con- siderable light upon the ichthyology of this sea. Recent inquiry has confirmed the truth of many instnictive and interesting facts relating to the fish of the Mediterran-an which have been handed down by Aristotle, Pliny, Archestratus, Aeliun, Ovid, Op- pian, Athenaeus, and Ausonius. 4. Historical Geography. — To trace the progress of discovery on the waters and shores of this sea would be to give the history of civilisation, — " nul- lum sine nomine sasum." Its geographical position has eminently tended towards the intercourse of nations, and the extension of the knowledge of the world The three peninsulas — the Iberian, Italic, and Hellenic — run out to meet that of Asia Minor projecting from the E. coast, wiiile the islands of the Aegean have served as stepping stones for the passage of the peoples from one continent to the other; and the great Indian Ocean advances by the fissure between Arabia, Aegypt, and Abyssinia, under the name of the Red Sea, so as only to be divided by a narrow isthmus from the Delta of the Nile valley and the SE. coast of the Mediterranean. "We," says Plato in the Phaedo (p. 109, b.), " who dwell from the Phasis to the J'illars of Her- cules, inhabit only a small portion of the earth in which we have settled round the (Interior) sea, like ants or frogs round a marsh." And yet the margin of this contracted ba.sin has been the site where civilisation was first developed, and the theatre of the greatest events in the early histoid of the world. Religion, intellectual culture, law, arts, and man- ners — nearly everything that lifts us above tiie savage, have come from these coasts. The earliest civilisation on these shores was to the S., but the national character of the Aegyptiaus was opposed to intercourse with other nations, and their naviijation, such as it was, was mainly con- fined to the Nile and Arabian gulf. The Phoe- nicians were the first great agents in promoting the communion of peoples, and their flag waved in every part of the waters of the Internal Sea. Cartilage and Etruria, though of less importance than Phoe- nicia in connecting nations and extending the geo- graphical horizon, exercised great influence on connnercial intercourse with the W. coast of Africa and the N. of Europe. The progressive movement propagated itself more widely and enduringly through the Greeks and Romans, especially after the latter had broken the Phoenico-Carthaginian power. In the Hellenic peninsula the broken confis^uration of the coast-line invited early navigation and com- mercial intercourse, and the expeditions of the Samians (Herod, iv. 162) and Phocaeans (Herod.