Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/138

 STRABO. BOOK ii. Gordysean mountains, and having formed a great circle which embraces the vast country of Mesopotamia, turn towards the rising of the sun in winter and the south, particularly the Euphrates, which, continually approaching nearer and nearer to the Tigris, passes by the rampart of Semiramis, 1 and at about 200 stadia from the village of Opis, 2 thence it flows through Babylon, and so discharges itself into the Persian Gulf. Thus the figure of Mesopotamia and Babylon resem- bles the cushion of a rower's bench. Such are the words of Eratosthenes. 27. In the Third Section it is true he does make some mis- takes, which we shall take into consideration ; but they are nothing like the amount which Hipparchus attributes to him. However, we will examine his objections. [In the first place,] he would have the ancient charts left just as they are, and by no means India brought more to the south, as Eratosthenes thinks proper. Indeed, he asserts that the very arguments adduced by that writer only confirm him the more in his opinion. He says, " According to Eratosthenes, the northern side of the third section is bounded by a line of 10,000 stadia drawn from the Caspian Gates to the Euphrates, the southern side from Babylon to the confines of Carmania is a little more than 9000 stadia. On the western side, follow- ing the course of the Euphrates, from Thapsacus to Babylon there are 4800 stadia, and thence to the outlets of the river 3000 stadia more. Northward from Thapsacus [to the Gates of Armenia] is reckoned 1100 stadia; the rest has not been measured. Now since Eratosthenes says that the northern side of this Third Section is about 10.000 stadia, and that the right line parallel thereto drawn from Babylon to the eastern side is computed at just above 9000 stadia, it follows that Babylon is not much more than 1000 stadia east of the pas- sage of [the Euphrates] near Thapsacus." 28. We answer, that if the Caspian Gates and the boundary line of Carmania and Persia were exactly under the same me- ridian, and if right lines drawn in the direction of Thapsacus and Babylon would intersect such meridian at right angles, 1 Thought by Col. Rawlinson to be the Chal-i-Nimrud, usually sup- posed to mark the site of the Median wall of Xenophon. 2 Situated on the Tigris.