Even Hecataeus of Miletus (549-472 B.C.), the author of a _Periodos_ or description of the earth, of whom Herodotus borrowed the terse saying that Egypt was the gift of the Nile, retained this circular shape and circumfluent ocean when producing his map of the world, although he had at his disposal the results of the voyage of Scylax of Caryanda from the Indus to the Red Sea, of Darius' campaign in Scythia (513), the information to be gathered among the merchants from all parts of the world who frequented an emporium like Miletus, and what he had learned in the course of his own extensive travels. Hecataeus was probably the author of the "bronze tablets upon which was engraved the whole circuit of the earth, the sea and rivers" (Herod, v. 49), which Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus, showed to Cleomenes, the king of Sparta, in 504, whose aid he sought in vain in a proposed revolt against Darius, which resulted disastrously in 494 in the destruction of Miletus. The map of the world brought upon the stage in Aristophanes' comedy of _The Clouds_ (423 B.C.), whereon a disciple of the Sophists points out upon it the position of Athens and of other places known to the audience, was probably of the popular circular type, which Herodotus (iv. 36) not many years before had derided and which was discarded by Greek cartographers ever after. Thus Democritus of Abdera (b. _c._ 450, d. after 360), the great philosopher and founder, with Leucippus, of the atomic theory, was also the author of a map of the inhabited world which he supposed to be half as long again from west to east, as it was broad. Dicaearcus of Messana in Sicily, a pupil of Aristotle (326-296 B.C.), is the author of a topographical account of Hellas, with maps, of which only fragments are preserved; he is credited with having estimated the size of the earth, and, as far as known he was the first to draw a parallel across a map.[14] This parallel, or dividing line, called _diaphragm_ (partition) by a commentator, extended due east from the Pillars of Hercules, through the Mediterranean, and along the Taurus and Imaus (Himalaya) to the eastern ocean. It divided the inhabited world, as then known, into a northern and a southern half. In compiling his map he was able to avail himself of the information obtained by the _bematists_ (surveyors who determined distances by pacing) who accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns; of the results of the voyage of Nearchus from the Indus to the Euphrates, and of the "Periplus" of Scylax of Caryanda, which described the coast from between India and the head of the Arabian Gulf. On the other hand he unwisely rejected the results of the observations for latitude made by Pytheas in 326 B.C. at his native town, Massilia, and during a subsequent voyage to northern Europe. In the end the map of Dicaearcus resembled that of Democritus.