The Geography of Strabo, Volume 1 (of 3): Literally Translated, with NotesStrabo
History
The Geography of Strabo, Volume 1 (of 3): Literally Translated, with Notes
Strabo
Geography -- Early works to 1800
Now, by the “Bear” and the “Wain,” he means the Arctic Circle; otherwise
he would never have said, “It _alone_ is deprived of the baths of the
ocean,” when such an _infinity_ of stars is to be seen continually
revolving in that part of the hemisphere. Let no one any longer blame
his ignorance for being merely acquainted with one Bear, when there are
two. It is probable that the second was not considered a constellation
until, on the Phœnicians specially designating it, and employing it in
navigation, it became known as one to the Greeks.[15] Such is the case
with the Hair of Berenice, and Canopus, whose names are but of
yesterday; and, as Aratus remarks, there are numbers which have not yet
received any designation. Crates, therefore, is mistaken when,
endeavouring to amend what is correct, he reads the verse thus:
Οἶος δ’ ἄμμορός ἐστι λοετρῶν,
replacing οἴη by οἶος, with a view to make the adjective agree with the
Arctic Circle, which is masculine; instead of the Arctic Constellation,
which is feminine. The expression of Heraclitus is far more preferable
and Homeric, who thus figuratively describes the Arctic Circle as the
Bear,—“The Bear is the limit of the dawn and of the evening, and from
the region of the Bear we have fine weather.” Now it is not the
constellation of the Bear, but the Arctic Circle, which is the limit of
the rising and the setting stars.
By the Bear, then, which he elsewhere calls the Wain, and describes as
pursuing Orion, Homer means us to understand the Arctic Circle; and by
the ocean, that horizon into which, and out of which, the stars rise and
set. When he says that the Bear turns round and is deprived of the
ocean, he was aware that the Arctic Circle [always] extended to the sign
opposite the most northern point of the horizon. Adapting the words of
the poet to this view, by that part of the earth nearest to the ocean we
must understand the horizon, and by the Arctic Circle that which extends
to the signs which seem to our senses to touch in succession the most
northern point of the horizon. Thus, according to him, this portion of
the earth is washed by the ocean. With the nations of the North he was
well acquainted, although he does not mention them by name, and indeed
at the present day there is no regular title by which they are all
distinguished. He informs us of their mode of life, describing them as
“wanderers,” “noble milkers of mares,” “living on cheese,” and “without
wealth.”[16]
7. In the following speech of Juno, he states that the ocean surrounds
the earth.
“For to the green earth’s utmost bounds I go,
To visit there the parent of the gods,
Oceanus.”[17]
Does he not here assert that ocean bounds all its extremities, and does
it not surround these extremities? Again, in the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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