#ancient geography

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Brill's Companion to Ancient Geography edited by S. Bianchetti, M. R. Cataudella, H. J. Gehrke, 2015

Brill's Companion to Ancient Geography edited by S. Bianchetti, M. R. Cataudella, H. J. Gehrke is the first collection of studies on historical geography of the ancient world that focuses on a selection of topics considered crucial for understanding the development of geographical thought. In this work, scholars, all of whom are specialists in a variety of fields, examine the interaction of humans with their environment and try to reconstruct the representations of the inhabited world in the works of ancient historians, scientists, and cartographers. Topics include: Eudoxus, Dicaearchus, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, Agatharchides, Agrippa, Strabo, Pliny and Solinus, Ptolemy, and the Peutinger Map. Other issues are also discussed such as onomastics, the boundaries of states, Pythagorism, sacred itineraries, measurement systems, and the Holy Land.

Contents Preface ix List of Illustrations xi Abbreviations xii List of Contributors xiii Part 1 Geography before Geography 1 Persian Geography and the Ionians: Herodotus 3 Reinhold Bichler 2 The Sea of the Greeks and Romans 21 Pietro Janni 3 The Concept of “Magna Graecia” and the Pythagoreans 43 Gianfranco Maddoli 4 Systems of Borders in Ancient Greece 58 Giovanna Daverio Rocchi 5 The “Revolution” of Alexander the Great: Old and New in the World’s View 78 Hans-Joachim Gehrke 6 Geographical Description and Historical Narrative in the Tradition on Alexander’s Expedition 98 Veronica Bucciantini

Part 2 Geography between Science and Politics A. Geographical Science 7 Some Scientific Approaches: Eudoxus of Cnidus and Dicaearchus of Messene 115 Michele R. Cataudella

8 The “Invention” of Geography: Eratosthenes of Cyrene 132 Serena Bianchetti 9 Progress in the Sciences: Astronomy and Hipparchus 150 Klaus Geus B. The Thought of the Farthest Horizon in the Greek and Roman Tradition 10 The Indian Ocean from Agatharchides of Cnidus to the Periplus Maris Erythraei 163 Didier Marcotte 11 The So-called Confusion between India and Ethiopia: The Eastern and Southern Edges of the Inhabited World from the Greco-Roman Perspective 184 Pierre Schneider C. Geography and Politics in the Roman Empire 12 Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and his Geographical Work 205 Pascal Arnaud 13 The Romans and the World’s Measure 223 Anne Kolb 14 Strabo’s Geography 239 Francesco Prontera 15 News from the East? Roman-Age Geographers and the Pontus Euxinus 259 Eckart Olshausen 16 Rome and Iberia: The Making of a Cultural Geography 274 Gonzalo Cruz Andreotti 17 The Geographies of Pliny and his ‘Ape’ Solinus 298 Kai Brodersen

D. Cartographical Science in Alexandria 18 The “Revolution” of Ptolemy 313 Germaine Aujac Part 3 Geographical Rebounds 19 The Tabula Peutingeriana and Antique Cartography 337 Michael Rathmann 20 Geography and Religion: The Lists of the Thearodokoi 363 Emilio Galvagno 21 Eusebius and the Representation of the Holy Land 381 Jan R. Stenger Bibliography 399 Index of Geographical Names 458 Index Locorum 466 Index of Personal Names and Selected Technical Terms  485

[jeannereames]

Hi! I've just started getting into Alexander the Great and I appreciate the time you take to reply and also for the many book recs! If Alexander was interested in trade and had he lived to do as he planned in the West, do you think he would've been interested in trade with China? Also this is a dumb question, but how big did people back then think Asia was? Because I was wondering why Alexander was named the King of Asia when he didn't hold that much of what we consider Asia. Or did they not consider the countries we consider Asia as part of Asia? I'm waffling and I'm not how much that made sense, but thanks for your time ❤️

Alexander and the Size of Asia

Previously, I had a question about China and whether Alexander knew it existed. In that post, I discuss ancient Greek ideas about the size of the world and where they thought the world ended. It’s hard to find anything consistently these days via Tumblr search, but sometimes it still works.

But yes, he called himself “King of Asia” because he had no idea there was a whole lot more to Asia. They thought the Himalayas (“The Wall of the World”) was the end and Encircling Ocean lay on the other side. They also had no idea how big Siberia was…or that it was even there. They knew about the steppes, but that was about it. Here’s a map of the world as Herodotus conceived of it. They’d advanced a little from this image, but it was still pretty much how they understood it. He had no idea how big India actually was till he got there.

In fact, it was Alexander’s campaigns that really expanded Greek knowledge of Asia. When Strabo wrote his Geography later, he made a LOT of use of Alexander historians (now lost to us), including Nearchus and Ptolemy. You wouldn’t know it from Arrian, but apparently, Ptolemy had an interest in flora and trees!

Prior to Alexander’s march, however, most of what the Greeks knew about Asia was hearsay. Travel was expensive, and there were other barriers of language, access, safety/having local patrons or friends to protect you, etc. Not everybody goes exploring with an army for backup. 😂

The Greeks DID know that the world was round, but not how big it was. Plato got it 60% too BIG, ironically. It wasn’t until after Alexander that Eratosthenes in the late 200s BCE finally got within spitting distance—about a hundred years after Alexander died. Another 150 years later, Posidonius got it almost exactly. Unfortunately, Ptolemy the Geographer screwed things up much later under the Romans and shrank the size, which calculation persisted into the Renaissance. That’s why Columbus got his plans wrong; he used Ptolemy’s calculations, so he missed about 30% of the globe.

But all that said, and even assuming Alexander thought the world was bigger than it actually is, it seems the Greeks assumed most of it was water: Encircling Ocean, which was a persistent notion all the way back into Mesopotamia in the Bronze Age.

I’m by no means a specialist of any kind on Greek ideas about geography and the world. But Brill’s Companion to Ancient Geography would probably be a good place to start. It’s bloody expensive (as are all Brill books), but you can probably find it in a university library or ask to borrow it via ILL (interlibrary loan).

[thribby]

What supercontinent are you affiliated with?? 😤😤

[romegreeceart]

Map of Europe by Pomponius Mela (reconstruction, F. Nansen, 1911)

Mela was a Roman geographer who lived in the 1st century. The map above is based on Mela’s book De Situ Orbis where he describes the geography of known world.

One could argue that the size of Greece and Italy is somewhat exaggerated :) But on the other hand Mela’s  description of Hispania’s coastal line is pretty ok and Britannia and Juverna are located rather correctly. Mela is also the first geographer who mentions Orkney islands (Orcades) and River Vistula.

According to Mela there is also a large bay  - Codanus Sinus - north of Germania. There are several islands on this bay and biggest of them is Codanovia (= Pliny the Elder’s Scatinavia)  Mela also tells us that on German sea there are seven scattered islands which he calls Haemodes. Nowadays it is thought that the Roman geographer refers to Danish islands like Falster and Lolland.

Island of  Sena is also rather interesting, It’s probably one of the channel islands, but according to Mela it was a sacred place:. “Sena, opposite the coast  of the Osimi, is famous for its oracle of a Gaulish god, whose priestesses,  living in the holiness of perpetual virginity, are said to be nine in number.  They call them Gallizenae, and they believe them to be endowed with  extraordinary gifts, to rouse the sea and the wind by their incantations, to  turn themselves into whatsoever animal form they might choose, to cure  diseases which among others are incurable, to know what is to come and to  foretell it. 'These holy women had many magical powers. They could raise  storms, change themselves into bird or animal form at will, cure the sick,  foretell the future, forecast the weather. They are, however devoted to the  service of voyagers only who have set out to consult them. (http://www.lundyisleofavalon.co.uk/mythology/sacred%20isles.htm)”

Cassiterides  was an ancient geographical name for a group of islands which were believed to be a source of tin that was imported to ancient Greece and Rome. According to geographers like Posidonius and Strabo these islands were situated off the coast of northest Iberian peninsula.and apparently Pomponius Mela agreed with them.

[jeannereames]

Was Ancient Greece/Macedonia aware of China at the time? I would be surprised if Alexander or his contemporaries hadn’t at least heard of it during their campaigns. I’m wondering—if his troops weren’t exhausted and everything was generally going okay—might he have considered heading onward into East Asia? Would he have been able to conquer it? I guess I could ask the same question about India as well, but I’m curious about the “other part” of the known world that Alexander or the other Greeks/Macedonians after him didn’t wind up exploring (in terms of potential land to conquer).

Alexander and China

How much Alexander knew about eastern Asia, and at what point, is an excellent question.

Below is a map from Herodotos’s era. In addition to history, he wrote on geography. He wasn’t the first. An author named Hekateos (Hecateus) of Miletos was earlier, but we don’t have much left from him.

As you can see, they had NO idea China existed, nor how large Africa was, Russia was, or Northern Europe. They didn’t really understand Eurasia is one continent, which is why “Europe” and “Asia” have come down to us as separate. The Occident (West = Europe) and the Orient (East = Asia). So if you’ve wondered where those terms came from, now you know.

The Himalayas were called “The Wall of the World,” with “Encircling Ocean” beyond. By the end of the 5th century, Hanno, the Carthaginian explorer, had managed to go some way down the Western coast of Africa (how far exactly is debated), so the West was a bit better known. It was Alexander’s expedition that opened up the East.

India was known about, but how well is unclear? At least some Greeks were so confused by the geography that they seemed to think the Indus somehow wrapped around and fed/emptied into the Nile!

Alexander, however, did scouting well. While he was in India, he talked not only to Poros, but others, and Diodoros talks about him considering whether he should go on. In Curtius and Arrian, we get the story of the indiscipline/mutiny. The soldiers were just done. And yes, it seems almost certain that by the time they were in India, probably during the stay in Poros’s kingdom, they’d have started to hear tales about the lands further east that might hint at the size of China.

It’s also worth noting that during this period in India, we had oodles of different small kingdoms. It’s in the wake of Alexander that the Maurya Empire loosely consolidated it; Chadragupta Maurya started it in 322 BCE. He’s the same guy who fought (and beat) the Seleucids, trading land for elephants. India clearly got the better end of that deal.

Meanwhile in China, prior to consolidation under the First Emperor, c. 221 BCE, we’re in the dying days of the Zhou Dynasty, the Warring States Period, which severely fragmented the land so the king was essentially a figurehead and former dukes and other nobility are ruling as petty kings. It really gets going by the mid-300s, leading to the formal “partitioning” c. 314 BCE, which lasts until the Qin pull it all back together under the First Emperor.

So, basically, had Alexander continued East, he’d have been walking into a complete rat’s nest. Unlike Persia, which he could win with just one or two big battles, this would be fight after fight after fight, all the while getting further away from the source of reinforcements. Basically, a never-ending Baktria-Sogdiana.

He wasn’t an idiot. Whatever the drama of the “mutiny” (indiscipline is a better term), it was a godsend, giving him a legit excuse to turn around. He was “conquered” by his own men, he didn’t lose a battle. We can debate to what degree it was genuine, staged, or a combo of the two…but trying to fight his way across India, then China would have been nigh on impossible at that point in history. Yes, he would have been facing much smaller armies than he had with Darius, but OTOH, it just would never stop. I find it interesting that Diodoros doesn’t describe any mutiny but presents Alexander as deciding not to continue. That’s not to say a mutiny didn’t happen, as Diodoros is also known for editing and condensing, but I nonetheless find it of interest that he presents it as Alexander’s choice not to continue when he found out more of what he’d be facing while relaxing in Poros’s kingdom after they’d become best-buds. He chose instead to turn south.

Btw, here’s a world map by the era of the Romans (First Century BCE) based on Pomponius Mela, the Roman cartographer, so it shows how knowledge has been improved over Herodotos.

[rhianna]

The geography of Strabo / with an English translation by Horace Leonard Jones, based in part upon the unfinished version of John Robert Sitlington Sterrett.

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AuthorStraboRelated NamesStrabo. Strabo. Sterrett, J. R. Sitlington (John Robert Sitlington), 1851-1914, translator. Jones, Horace Leonard, 1879-1954, editor, Language(s)English ; Greek, Ancient (to 1453) PublishedLondon : W. Heinemann ; 1917-1932. SubjectsGeography, Ancient. Geography Géographie >  Géographie / Ouvrages avant 1800. Géographie ancienne >  Géographie ancienne / [0]: (CaQQLa)201-0032105 / Ouvrages avant 1800. Geography >  Geography / Early works to 1800. Geography, Ancient >  Geography, Ancient / Early works to 1800. Early works. SummaryPresents the biography of the books' author, a Greek geologist, philosopher, and historian living in Asia Minor. Describes the subjects of geology, origin of the world, Alexander's journey, Mediterranean history, Before Christ history, women's history, and modern knowledge in both Greek and English. NoteLater reprints have imprint: Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press ; London : W. Heinemann. Physical Description8 volumes : color maps ; 17 cm.

[rhianna]

His followers in the thirteenth century declared the whole Bible to be merely symbolism and allegory.

enigmatical manner, as I do myself." His followers in the thirteenth century declared the whole Bible to be merely symbolism and allegory. "The great mass of women and common people cannot be induced by mere force of reason to devote themselves to piety, virtue, and honesty, and superstition must, therefore, be employed, and even this is insufficient without the aid of the marvellous and the terrible. For what are the thunder- bolts, the agis, the trident, the torches, the armor of the gods, and all the paraphernalia of antique theology, but fables employed by the founders of states as bugbears to frighten timorous minds; such was mythology, and when our ancestors found it capable of subserving the purposes of social and political life, and even contributory to the knowledge of truth, they continued the education of child- hood to maturer years, and maintained that poetry was sufficient to form the understanding of every age; poets were by no means the first to avail themselves of myths. States and lawgivers had taken advantage of them long before, having observed the bias of mankind." (In part from Strabo's "Introduction to Geography.") And the wise men of the time were plain to say that the common people could only be governed by surrounding their sacred religion by a halo of mystery and miracles, sacrifice and pompous processions, for these tales nad become a part of the spiritual life of the nation, and were so closely interwoven with the religion and ritual that the priesthood dare not aban- don them, even if understood, in an age dominated by faith rather than knowledge.

[rhianna]

But as the face of the world changes in time by the mi- gration of nations, the ravages of conqueft, the decay of one empire, and the erection of another; as new inhabi- tants have new languages, and new languages give new names; the maps or descriptions of a later age are not eafily applied to the narrations of a former: thofe that read the Ancients muft fudy the ancient geography, or wander in the dark, without distinct views or certain know- ledge. Yet though the Ancients are read among us, both in the original languages and in tranflations, more perhaps than in any other country, we have hitherto had very little af- fiftance in ancient Geography. The treatife of Dr. Wells is too general for ufe, and the Claffical Geographical Dictionary, which commonly pafles under the name of Eachard, is little more than a catalogue of naked names. A more ample account of the old world is apparent- ly wanting to Englith literature, and no form feemed equal- ly commodious with that of an alphabetical feries. In effect, however fyftematically any book of General Geo- graphy may be written, it is feldom ufed otherwife than as a Dictionary. The ftudent wanting fome knowledge of a new

A dictionary of ancient geography, explaining the local appellations in sacred, Grecian, and Roman history; exhibiting the extent of kingdoms, and situations of cities, &c. And illustrating the allusions and epithets in the Greek and Roman poets. The whole established by proper authorities, and designed for the use of schools. By Alexander MacBean ...

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AuthorMacBean, Alexander, d. 1784.Related NamesJohnson, Samuel, 1709-1784. Language(s)English PublishedLondon, G. Robinson [etc.] 1773. SubjectsClassical geography >  Classical geography / Dictionaries. NotePreface by Samuel Johnson. In double columns. Physical Descriptioniv, [628] p. 23 cm.