Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/91

 CHAP. m. 3, 4. INTRODUCTION. < ' both the Greeks and Barbarians found themselves deprived, their expedition ; ?o that when Troy was overthrown, the victors, and still more the vanquished, who had survived the conflict, were compelled by want to a life of .piracy ; and we learn that they became the founders of many cities along the sea^cpast beyond Greece, 1 besides several inland jejfctlements. 2 3. Again, having discoursed on the advance of knowledge respecting the Geography of the inhabited earth, between the time of Alexander and the period when he was writing, Era- tosthenes goes into a description of the figure of the earth ; not merely of the habitable earth, an account of which would have been very suitable, but of the whole earth, which should certainly have been given too, but not in this disorderly man- ner. He proceeds to tell us that the earth is spheroidal, not however perfectly so, inasmuch as it has certain irregula- rities, he then enlarges on the successive changes of its form, occasioned by water, fire, earthquakes, eruptions, and the like; all of whichTs entirely out of place, for"" the spheroidal form of the whole earth is the result of the system of the uni- verse, and the phenomena which he mentions do not in the least change its general form ; such little matters being en- tirely ^ost in the great mass of the earth. Still they cause variouspeTJuliarities m different parts of our globe, and result from a variety of causes. 4. He points out as a most interesting subject for disquisi- tion the fact of our^finding, often quite inland, two or three thousand stadia fronTthe sea, vast numbers of muscle, ouster, and scallop-shells, and salt-water lakes. 3 He gives as an It is generally stated that, taking with him a party of the Heneti, (a peo- ple of Asia Minor close to the Euxine,) who had come to the assistance of Priam, he founded the city of Padua in Italy. From this people the dis- trict in which Padua is situated received the name of Henetia, afterwards Venetia or Venice. 1 The coasts of Italy. 2 It is generally ^admitted that the events of the Trojan war gave rise to numerous^ colonies. 3 lire word~Xr^i/o0dXa(7<7a frequently signifies a salt marsh. The French editors remark that it was a name given by the Greeks to lagoons mostly found in the vicinity of the sea, though entirely sepa- rated therefrom. Those which communicated with the sea were termed OTOiiaXiuvai.
 * TKe one oTfKeir livelihood at .home, the ojther of the fruits of