Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/250

 authorities; from ancient records, or from modern scholarship. The choice is between the use of this method by competent inquirers, and its abuse by sciolists; for the third course, of keeping within the imaginary confines (for certain limits there are none) of "positive" knowledge, is not likely to be followed till men forget their natural thirst for information concerning past ages.

In such a spirit, the question of the origin of the name of Asia has been discussed by various writers, especially by Carl Ritter, in his Vorhalle Europaischer Volkergeschichten vor Herodotus, Berlin, 1820, 8vo. Even an outline of the discussion, as thus conducted, is impossible within the limits of this article. It must suffice to indicate the result.

In the first place, the statements of the Greek writers already quoted point to a wider use of the name in the West of Asia Minor than the limits of Lydia Proper; and moreover, they clearly indicate that the name was in use among the Asiatics themselves. Going from one extreme to another, some Orientalists seek for a purely Phoenician origin of the name; a view as narrow as that which would make it purely Greek. (See, for both views. Pott, Etymol. Forschungen, vol. ii. pp. 190, 191.) But a wider inquiry shows us the root AS, among various peoples whose origin may be traced to Asia, from India, through Scythia, round the shores of the Euxine, up to Scandinavia, and among the Etruscans and other peoples of Southern Europe, as well as in W. Asia, in such connections as leads to the strong presumption that its primary reference is to the Sun, especially as an object of religious worship; that the Asians are the people of the Sun, or, in the secondary form of the notion, the people from the East; and that of Asia itself, it is as good etymology as poetry to say: —

""Tis the clime of the East, 'tis the land of the Sun.""

The correlative derivation of, from the Phoenician and Hebrew root Ereb, Oreb or Erob (not unknown also to the Indo-European languages), signifying the evening, sunset, and hence the West, is admitted even by philologists who are cautious of orientalisms. At all events, be the etymology sound or not, the fact seems to be beyond doubt, that the earliest distinction between the two continents made by the Greeks was expressed with reference to the relative positions of the known ports of each, as to the East, and to the West. (Ritter, Vorhalle, pp. 300, foll., 456, foll.; Pott, l. c.; Sprengel, Gesch. d. Geogr. Entdeck. p. 59; Sickler, Alte Geogr. pp. 58, 61; Bernhardy, ad Dion. Perieg. 836, p. 754; Ukert, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 207— 211.)

Proceeding now to the use of the word by Greek writers, as the name of the continent, we find the applications of it very different. As already stated, Homer knows nothing of the division of the world into Europe, Asia, and Africa ( Libya). The earliest allusions to this division are found in the writers of the first half of the fifth century B.C., namely Pindar, Aeschylus, and the logographers Hecataeus and Pherecydes, Pindar merely refers to the part of the continent opposite to Rhodes as a "promontory of Asia" (, Ol. vii. 33. s. 18); but, in several passages, he speaks of Libya in a manner which clearly shows a knowledge of the tripartite division. (Pyth. iv. 6, 42, 259, v. 52, ix. 67, 71, 109, 121, Isth. iii. 72.) Aeschylus speaks of "the abode of pure Asia" as adjacent to the place wherePrometheus suffers (Prom. 412;, where the epithet inclines us to think that is the nymph Asia, and the  the country named from her). In vv. 730 — 735, he distinguishes between the land of Europe and the continent Asia, as divided by the Cimmierian Bosporus; but elsewhere he makes the river Phasis the boundary (Fr. 177). He also mentions Libya (Supp. 284, Eum. 292). Hecataeus and Pherecydes seem to have regarded the whole earth as divided into two equal parts — Europe on the N., and Asia with Libya on the S. — by the strait of the Pillars of Hercules in the W., and the Phasis (or Araxes) and Caucasus on the E., the subdivision of the southern half into Asia and Libya being made by the Nile; and they keep to the old notion of the poets, that the earth was enclosed by the ocean, as a river circulating round it (Frag. ed. Didot; Ukert, Untersuch, über die Geogr. des Hekatâus u. Damastes, Weimar, 1814; Id. Geogr. vol. i pt. i. p. 213; Forbiger, vol. i. pp. 49 — 63): and this, with some variation as to the boundaries, appears to have been the common view down to the time of Herodotus, who complains of the division as altogether arbitrary. "I wonder," he says (iv. 42), "at those who distinguish and divide Libya and Asia and Europe [i. e. as if they were equal or nearly so], for there is no small difference between them. For, in length, Europe extends along both the others; but, as to its breadth, it does not seem to me worth while to compare it with the others." He seems to mean that they are so much narrower, which he illustrates by relating the circumnavigation of, and the voyage of Scylax, under Dareius I., from the Indus to the head of the Arabian gulf. He proceeds: "But, as for Europe, it does not appear that any have discovered whether it is surrounded by water, either on the E. or towards the N., but it is ascertained to extend in length all along both the other parts (i. e. Libya and Asia). Nor am I able to conjecture who gave to the earth, which is one, three different names, derived from the names of women, and assigned as their boundaries the Egyptian river Nile and the Colchian river Phasis; but others say they are the Maeotic river Tanais and the Cimmerian Straits" (iv. 45). He rejects with ridicule the idea of the river Ocean flowing round the earth, and laughs at those who drew maps showing the earth rounder than if it had been struck out with a pair of compasses, and making Asia equal to Europe (iv. 36, comp. iv. 8, ii. 21, 23). His notion of Asia is somewhat as follows: — The central part of the continent extends from the Southern Sea, also called the Red Sea (: Indian Ocean), to the Northern Sea (i. e. the Mediterranean, with the Euxine), into which the river Phasis falls, forming the N. boundary of Asia (iv. 37). This central portion is inhabited by four peoples: namely, from S. to N., the Persians, the Medes, the Saspeirians, and the Colchians. (See the articles.) On the W. of this central portion, two peninsulas (DGRG Greek|άκταί|aktai}}) run out into the sea. The first begins on the N. at the Phasis, and extends along the Pontus and the Hellespont, as far as Sigeum in Troas, and, on the S. side, from the Myriandrian gulf, adjacent to Phoenice, to the Triopian promontory (iv. 38); namely, it is the peninsula of Asia Minor: he adds that it is inhabited by thirty people. The other peninsula extends into the Southern Sea, including Persis, Assyria, and Arabia, and ending at Egypt and the Arabian gulf, according to the common notion of it (c. 39; comp.