Greek Texts & Translations

Albanians and Iberians. ^note We are besides possessed of a description of Hyrcania ^note and Bactriana in the Histories of Parthia written by such men as Apollodorus of Artemita, ^note who leave detailed the boundaries [of those countries] with greater accuracy than other geographers.

The entrance of a Roman army into Arabia Felix under the command of my friend and companion Aelius Gallus, ^note and the traffic of the Alexandrian merchants whose vessels pass up the Nile and Arabian Gulf ^note to India, have rendered us much better acquainted with these countries than our predecessors were. I was with Gallus at the time he was prefect of Egypt, and accompanied him as far as Syene and the frontiers of Ethiopia, and I found that about one hundred and twenty ships sail from Myos-hormos ^note to India, although, in the time of the Ptolemies, scarcely any one would venture on this voyage and the commerce with the Indies. 13

Our first and most imperative duty ^note then, both in respect to science and to the necessities of the man of business, is to undertake to lay down the projection of the different countries on the chart in as clear a style as possible, and to signify at the same time the relation and proportion they bear to the whole earth. For such is the geographer's peculiar province. It belongs to another science to give an exact description of the whole earth, and of the entire vertebre of either zone, and