Greek Texts & Translations

is the distance according to some mariners, others avow distinctly that it amounts to 5000 stadia; while he himself, from observations of the shadows indicated by the gnomon, calculates it at 3750.

That part of the Mediterranean Sea which washes the coasts of Cilicia and Pamphylia together with the right side of the Euxine, the Propontis, and the sea-coast beyond this as far as Pamphylia, form a kind of extensive Chersonesus, the isthmus of which is also large, and reaches from the sea near Tarsus ^note to the city of Amisus, ^note and thence to the Themiscyran ^note plain of the Amazons. In fact the whole region within this line as far as Caria and Ionia, and the nations dwelling on this side the Halys, ^note is entirely surrounded by the Aegaean and the aforementioned parts of the Mediterranean and Euxine Seas. ^note This is what we call Asia properly, ^note although the whole continent bears the same name. 25

To speak shortly, the southernmost point of Our Sea is the recess of the Greater Syrtes; ^note next to this Alexandria in Egypt, and the mouths of the Nile; while the most northerly is the mouth of the Dnieper, or if the Maeotis be considered to belong to the Euxine, (and it certainly does appear to form a part of it,) the mouth of the Don. The Strait at the Pillars is the most westerly point, and the most easterly is the said recess, in which Dioscurias ^note is situated; and not, as Eratosthenes falsely states, the Gulf of Issus, ^note which is under the same meridian as Amisus ^note and Themiscyra, and, if you will have it so, Sidene as far as Pharnacia. ^note Proceeding thence in an easterly direction to Dioscurias, the distance by sea is above 3000 stadia, as will be seen more plainly in my detailed account of those countries. Such then is the Mediterranean.