Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/149

 CHAP. i. 36, 37. INTRODUCTION. 135 southerly direction, discharges itself [into the sea]. So long as it flows from north to south, it may be said to follow a southerly direction ; but the turning towards the east and Babylon is a decided deviation from the southerly direction, and it never recovers a straight course, but forms the circuit we have mentioned above. When he tells us that the journey from Babylon to Thapsacus is 4800 stadia, he adds, following the course of the Euphrates, as if on purpose lest any one should understand such to be the distance in a direct line, or between the two parallels. If this be not granted, it is alto- gether a vain attempt to show that if a right-angled triangle were constructed by lines drawn from Pelusium and Thap- sacus to the point where the parallel of Thapsacus intercepts the meridian of Pelusium, that one of the lines which form the right angle, and is in the direction of the meridian, would be longer than that forming the hypotenuse drawn from Thap- sacus to Pelusium. 1 Worthless, too, is the argument in con- nexion with this, being the inference from a proposition not admitted ; for Eratosthenes never asserts that from Babylon to the meridian of the Caspian Gates is a distance of 4800 stadia. We have shown that Hipparchus deduces this from data not admitted by Eratosthenes ; but desirous to controvert every thing advanced by that writer, he assumes that from Babylon to the line drawn from the Caspian Gates to the mountains of Carmania, according to Eratosthenes' descrip- tion, there are above 9000 stadia, and from thence draws his conclusions. 37. Eratosthenes 2 cannot, therefore, be found fault with on these grounds ; what may be objected against him is as follows. When you wish to give a general outline of size and confi- guration, you should devise for yourself some rule which may be adhered to more or less. After having laid down that the breadth of the space occupied by the mountains which run in a direction due east, as well as by the sea which reaches to the Pillars of Hercules, is 3000 stadia, would you pretend to estimate different lines, which you may draw within the breadth of that space, as one and the same line ? We 1 The text here is evidently corrupt. 2 Gosselin makes some sensible remarks on this section ; we have endeavoured to render it accurately, but much fear that the true meaning of Strabo is now obscured by corruptions in the text.