CHAPTER II.

INTROD.

THE WORLD AND ITS DIVISIONS.

The winds considered as fundamental powers of nature.-Regarded as peculiar properties of the soil.-Heat and cold at different periods of the day referred to the sun.-General simplicity of Herodotus's ideas.— Early attempts to describe the earth's circumference.-Opinions of Herodotus upon the subject.-Extent of his knowledge.-Divisions of the earth. Separation of Europe and Asia.-Separation of Asia and Libya. -Seas bounding the earth's extremities.-Mediterranean.-Atlantic.Erythraean.-Voyages of Sesostris and Sataspes.

HERODOTUS Considered the fundamental powers of CHAP. II. nature to lie in the winds, which blew from different The winds quarters. The earth and the heaven above it fall considered into two divisions, which are ruled by two great

as funda

mental powers of nature.

counter-forces, heat and cold, the fierce Boreas and the voluptuous Notos.' It was not any distance from the sun, but the north and easterly winds, which radiated cold and frost. On the other hand, it was the south wind from Aethiopia, and not at all the sun, which radiated heat. The north winds were the most important and powerful. In the winter they were called the Borean, in the summer the Etesian.2 They decided the ecliptic. During the summer the sun stood in the centre of the heavens. As winter approached it was driven into the south by the blasts of Boreas; and there it remained until the mild Etesian winds of returning summer again permitted it to resume its central position. The southern half of the world was thus especially favoured, for the sun was never driven into the northern or upper division. During the mild season of summer, and whilst the sun occupied the centre of the heavens, it drew up the water from the various rivers, and bore in its wintry journey into the south. Here

it

away

1 ii. 26. Cf. 24, 25.

2 vi. 140; vii. 168.

the winds caught up the water and scattered it in INTROD mist; hence the south and south-west winds brought CHAP. I. the most rain. Herodotus brings forward this attractive power of the sun, as an explanation of the phenomenon of the swelling of the Nile; and he thinks that the Ister (or Danube) would overflow its banks in a similar manner if the sun ever ascended into the northern division.'

peculiar

It must be here remarked, that whilst Herodo- Regarded as tus considered severity or mildness of climate to be properties dependent upon the winds, he also regarded them of countries. as peculiar properties of countries, in the same way as fertility or barrenness of soil. He had observed the very different temperatures of countries under the same latitude, and therefore said that Scythia was cold, because cold winds prevailed there which engendered frost and snow, and this because the northern blasts of Boreas invariably brought frost into Greece, whilst the south wind dissolved it." He also says that Greece was supremely blessed because of the happy temperature of her climate, a fortunate mingling of the cold blasts of Boreas with the warm breath of the too voluptuous Notos.

3

ferent peri

day referred

But notwithstanding this theory, Herodotus was Heat and shrewd enough to ascribe the warmth or coldness of cold at dif different times of the day to the direct heat of the ods of the sun. Amongst the Indians in the far east the morn- to the sun. ing was the hottest, because they dwelt the nearest to the place where the sun rose. Accordingly at sunrise they were obliged to stand in water on account of the excessive heat, but as the orb of day moved towards the west, the heat gradually diminished, until at length the night approached with a corresponding coldness.* It is here curious to observe how our author has evidently built his notions upon some vague accounts which may have reached him of the manners and habits of the nations beyond the Indus," the morning lustrations in 1 ii. 24-27. Comp. chapter on Aegypt.

2 iv. 28. 3 iii. 106. Cf. Bobrik, Geographie des Herodot.

4 iii. 104.

5 These accounts were probably the result of the expedition to survey the Indus undertaken by Scylax of Caryanda (iv. 44).

ideas.

INTROD. the rivers, and the custom of travelling by night, CHAP. II. mingled possibly with some genuine information received from the inhabitants of the coast, where the heat is most intense from sunrise in the morning until the forenoon, when the sea-breezes set in. General Indeed the origin of our author's scientific opinsimplicity of Herodotus's ions would generally be sooner discovered and understood by a child, for they lie on the very surface of things. They were the results of the first popular effort to trace the simple operations of nature to a natural cause, rather than to the direct interposition of different deities.' And we may close these remarks by observing, that whilst Herodotus mentions solar eclipses, he carefully avoids attempting any explanation, partly perhaps from a total want of scientific data, and partly from a disinclination to follow the vulgar and superstitious ideas which must have been generally prevalent down to a much later period.3

Early attempts to

describe the earth's cir

cumference.

With respect to the circumference and figure of the earth, we have already seen that long before the time of Herodotus many Greeks had endeavoured to determine both within a very moderate compass. As knowledge advanced these limits gave way, and Herodotus amuses himself at the folly of those who still professed to assign a definite circumference, without any knowledge whatever of the frontiers. "I must laugh," he says, "when I see how many persons have drawn the entire circle of the earth, without either sense or understanding. They describe the Ocean as flowing round the earth, which is made circular as if by a turner's lathe, and they represent Asia as equal with Europe."*. "The

Greeks on the Pontus say that the river Ocean begins at the place where the sun rises, and that it flows round the whole earth, but they do not prove "The person (Hecataeus) who speaks

it."5

1 vii. 129, 191.

2 vii. 37; ix. 10.

3 It is almost unnecessary to draw the reader's attention to the lunar eclipse which frightened Nicias in Sicily. Thucyd. vii. 50.

iv. 36.

5 iv. 8. Comp. ii. 21.

about the Ocean, since he has referred his account INTROD. to some obscure fable, produces no conviction. I CHAP. II. know of no such river at all. Homer, perhaps, or

some of the earlier poets, finding the name, intro

duced it into poetry.

Herodotus

Herodotus doubtless considered the earth as a Opinions of plane, and we shall find as we proceed to develope on the subhis stock of geographical knowledge, that he knew ject. enough of the form of the south at least to understand that its outline presented no segment of a circle towards the vast continent of waters which he calls the Erythraean Sea. But though he rails at the ignorance of those who endeavoured to describe the earth's external boundaries, yet we may regard his objections merely as so many sarcasms against his predecessor Hecataeus; and probably also at the popular notion of drawing the earth as round as a chariot-wheel, and in no other way. Niebuhr, however, deduces from his railing, and from his ignorance of any sea towards the north,' that he considered the earth as a boundless plain. But it must be remembered that, in another place, Herodotus relates, without any remark whatever, that when Aristogoras proceeded to Sparta for assistance in carrying out the Ionian revolt, he took with him a brazen tablet upon which was engraved a map of the "entire circuit of the world," with all its seas and rivers. Herodotus also adopted the obscure popular belief that the earth was bounded by the ether of Zeus; though this last remark may be understood as a mere expression of the Persian ideas upon the subject.

3

6

his know

The limits of the world of Herodotus may be thus Extent of briefly stated. The Erythraean" formed the southern ledge. boundary, and the Atlantic the western. Of north and north-western Europe, beginning at the Pillars of Heracles, (or Gibraltar,) he knew nothing: he did not admit that a river called Eridanus discharged 2 iv. 45. Niebuhr, Diss. on the Geog. of Herod. 4 vii. 8.

1 ii. 23.

3

v. 49.

The Erythraean included the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, Arabian Gulf or Red Sea, and probably the Atlantic. 6 i. 202.

INTROD. itself into a northern sea,' though he may have supCHAP. II. posed a northern shore to be washed by the mysterious billows of an unknown ocean, for he says on the authority of Aristeas, that the Hyperboreans reached to the sea; subsequently, however, he almost denies their existence.3 On the north-east the impassable mountains of the Altai range, and the gold-guarding griffins, prevented his obtaining more than fabled accounts of the cold and dreary regions of Siberia; and lower down along the eastern frontier, the great sandy desert of Gobi or Shamo, in Chinese Tartary, and the desert east of the Indus, stretching from Moultan to Guzerat, baffled all further investigation. Thus the world of Herodotus was bounded on three sides by sea and on the fourth by desert.

Divisions of the earth.

5

6

The divisions of the earth seem also to have attracted the attention of philosophers at a very early period. The Persians, in the true oriental spirit of uninquiring indolence, looked upon Africa as a part of the body of Asia which belonged to them, and upon Europe as a portion intended for them, but in which the Greeks were pleased to play the master.' The Greeks, on the other hand, divided the earth into three portions, called after the names of three females, viz. 1. EUROPE, from Europa of Tyre. 2. ASIA, from Asia the wife of Prometheus. 3. LIBYA, from a native woman of that name. This division appears very capricious to Herodotus. "He cannot reconcile it with the natural oneness of the earth; he cannot see why some should have assigned the Aegyptian river Nile as a line of separation between Asia and Libya, and the Colchian river Phasis, (or Rhion,) or, as some said, the Tanais, (or Don,) and the Cimmerian Bosphorus, as a line of separation between Europe and Asia. He also

8

1 iii. 115. 2 iv. 13. 3 iv. 32. 4 iv. 25. 5 iii. 98, 102. Dahlmann, Life of Herod. ch. v. § 1. 7 i. 4; vii. 8. • Asia is divided from Europe by the Tanais, says Strabo, Pliny, and Diodorus. Africa is contained between the Nile and the Pillars of Heracles; Asia between the Nile and Tanais, says Polybius. See Pliny, lib. iv. c. 12; Diod. lib. i. c. 4; Polyb. lib. iii. c. 4, quoted by Rennell.