3. First, he stated that the earth was entirely encompassed by the ocean, as in truth it is; afterwards he described the countries, specifying some by name, others more generally by various indications, explicitly defining Libya,[3] Ethiopia, the Sidonians, and the Erembi (by which latter are probably intended the Troglodyte Arabians); and alluding to those farther east and west as the lands washed by the ocean, for in ocean he believed both the sun and constellations to rise and set. “Now from the gently-swelling flood profound The sun arising, with his earliest rays, In his ascent to heaven smote on the fields.”[4] “And now the radiant sun in ocean sank, Dragging night after him o’er all the earth.”[5] The stars also he describes as bathed in the ocean.[6] 4. He portrays the happiness of the people of the West, and the salubrity of their climate, having no doubt heard of the abundance of Iberia,[7] which had attracted the arms of Hercules,[8] afterwards of the Phœnicians, who acquired there an extended rule, and finally of the Romans. There the airs of Zephyr breathe, there the poet feigned the fields of Elysium, when he tells us Menelaus was sent thither by the gods:— “Thee the gods Have destined to the blest Elysian isles, Earth’s utmost boundaries. Rhadamanthus there For ever reigns, and there the human kind Enjoy the easiest life; no snow is there, No biting winter, and no drenching shower, But Zephyr always gently from the sea Breathes on them, to refresh the happy race.”[9] 5. The Isles of the Blest[10] are on the extreme west of Maurusia,[11] near where its shore runs parallel to the opposite coast of Spain; and it is clear he considered these regions also Blest, from their contiguity to the Islands. 6. He tells us also, that the Ethiopians are far removed, and bounded by the ocean: far removed,— “The Ethiopians, utmost of mankind, These eastward situate, those toward the west.”[12] Nor was he mistaken in calling them separated into two divisions, as we shall presently show: and next to the ocean,— “For to the banks of the Oceanus, Where Ethiopia holds a feast to Jove, He journey’d yesterday.”[13] Speaking of the Bear, he implies that the most northern part of the earth is bounded by the ocean: “Only star of those denied To slake his beams in Ocean’s briny baths.”[14]