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pian Sea, there are 6600 stadia, note so that, with the exception of about 300 stadia, the distance from the meridian of the Cyaneae to that of Thapsacus, or to that of Mount Caspius, is the same: and both Thapsacus and Mount Caspius are, so to speak, under the same meridian. note It follows from this that the Caspian Gates are about equi-distant between Thapsacus and Mount Caspius, but that the distance between them and Thapsacus is much less than the 10,000 stadia mentioned by Eratosthenes. Consequently, as the distance in a right line is much less than 10,000 stadia, this route, which he considered to be in a straight course from the Caspian Gates to Thapsacus, must have been a circumbendibus.
To this we reply, that Eratosthenes, as is usual in Geography, speaks of right lines, meridians, and parallels to the
equator, with considerable latitude, whereas Hipparchus criticizes him with geometrical nicety, as if every line had been
measured with rule and compass. Hipparchus at the same
time himself frequently deciding as to right lines and parallels, not by actual measurement, but mere conjecture. Such
is the first error of this writer. A second is, that he never
lays down the distances as Eratosthenes has given them, nor
yet reasons on the data furnished by that writer, but from
mere assumptions of his own coinage. Thus, where Eratosthenes states that the distance from the mouth of the
[Thracian Bosphorus] to the Phasis is 8000 stadia, from
thence to Dioscurias
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Strabo, Geography (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Str.].