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even the chiefs of their number, Aristarchus and Crates, have
understood the words of our poet on this subject. For they
disagree as to the words which follow this expression of
Homer,
The Ethiopians, utmost of mankind,
Odyssey i. 23.
These eastward situate, those towards the west, note
These towards the west, and those towards the east,
and Crates,
As well in the west as also in the east.
However, in regard to their hypotheses, it makes no difference
whether the passage were written this way or that. One of
them, in fact, takes what he considers the mathematical
view of the case, and says that the torrid zone is occupied by
the ocean, note and that on each side of this there is a temperate
zone, one inhabited by us and another opposite thereto. And
as we call the Ethiopians, who are situated to the south, and
dwell along the shores of the ocean, the most distant on the
face of the inhabited globe; so he supposed that on the other
side of the ocean, note there were certain Ethiopians dwelling
along the shores, who would in like manner be considered the
most distant note by the inhabitants of the other temperate zone;
and thus that the Ethiopians were double, separated into two
divisions by the ocean. He adds, as well in the west as also
in the east, because as the celestial zodiac always corresponds
to the terrestrial, and never exceeds in its obliquity the space
occupied by the two Ethiopias, the sun's entire course must
necessarily be within this space, and also his rising and setting,
as it appears to different nations according to the sign which
he may be in.
He (Crates) adopted this version, because he considered it the more astronomical. But it would have maintained his opinion of the division of the Ethiopians into two parts, and
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Strabo, Geography (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Str.].