Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/142

 128 STRABO. BOOK ii. able earth is 70,000 stadia long, and that its breadth is scarcely half its length. 1 And as to form, to compare a country to any geometrical or other well-known figure. For example, Sicily to a triangle, Spain to an ox-hide, or the Peloponnesus to a plane-leaf. 2 The larger the territory to be divided, the more general also ought its divisions to be. 31. [In the system of Eratosthenes], the habitable earth has been admirably divided into two parts by the Taurus and the Mediterranean Sea, which reaches to the Pillars. On the southern side, the limits of India have been described by a variety of methods ; by its mountains, 3 its river, 4 its seas, 5 and its name, 6 which seems to indicate that it is inhabited only by ojoej^eople. 7 It is with justice too that he attributes to it the form of a quadrilateral or rhomboid. Ariana is not so accurately described, on account of its western side being interwoven with the adjacent land. Still it is pretty well distinguished by its three other sides, which are formed by three nearly straight lines, and also by its name, which shows it to be only one nation. 8 As to the Third Section of Eratos- thenes, it cannot be considered to be denned or circumscribed at all; for that side of it which is common to Ariana is but ill defined, as before remarked. The southern side, too, is most negligently taken : it is, in fact, no boundary to the section at all, for it passes right through its centre, leaving entirely outside of it many of the southern portions. Nor 1 Strabo estimated the length of the continent at 70,000 stadia from Cape St. Vincent to Cape Comorin, and 29,300 stadia as its breadth. 2 The ancient geographers often speak of these kind of resemblances. They have compared the whole habitable earth to a soldier's cloak or mantle, as also the town of Alexandria, which they styled %ajuvoad. Italy at one time to a leaf of parsley, at another to an oak-leaf. Sar- dinia to a human foot-print. The isle of Naxos to a vine-leaf. Cyprus to a sheep-skin; and the Black Sea to a Scythian bow, bent. The ear- liest coins of Peloponnesus, struck about 750 years before the Christian era, bear the impress of a tortoise, because that animal abounded on the shores, and the divisions and height of its shell were thought to offer some likeness to the territorial divisions of the little states of Pelopon- nesus and the mountain-ridges which run through the middle of that country. The Sicilians took for their symbol three thighs and legs, arranged in such an order that the bended knees might resemble the three capes of that island and its triangular form. 3 The chain of the Taurus. 4 The Indus. 3 The Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. 6 India. 7 Viz. Indians. 8 Ariana, or the nation of the Arians.