The Geography

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...is carried entirely over the torrid zone, from which the shadows are changed within it. And all fixed stars rise and set. Only the Minor Ursa [Ursa Minor] begins to be seen entirely above the horizon in the northern region of the sky at five hundred stadia [?] for the parallel through... [Note: OCR here "ocele" is likely Ocelis or a similar location, or a corrupted degree measurement]. ...by eleven degrees, and by twice as much as it is elevated.

But it is handed down by Hypparchus [Hipparchus]: that the star of the Minor Ursa, which is more southern in it, and which is noted as the last in its tail [Polaris], is distant from the pole by twelve degrees and twice as much; and from the equinoctial... [Text discussed the visibility of the stars at the Tropics]. ...Furthermore, to those who go from the equator to the tropic of winter, the southern pole is elevated above the horizon, and the northern is depressed. Whence through these things, he narrates the event only under the equinoctial or between the twin tropics.

That, however, any knowledge was truly held through the observation of the fixed stars in places more southern than the equinoctial circle, he by no means hands down—as if he were to place stars more southern than the equinoctial above the vertex [zenith], or if he said that meridian shadows in the equinoxes were declined to the south: or if he showed all stars of the Minor Ursa to rise or set, or some of them to be seen at all with the southern pole raised above the horizon.

Through those things which he then hands down, he relates that certain fixed stars were observed which, nevertheless, his own mind does not entirely assert. For he says those who sail from the Indies to Limyrica [Limyrica], as Diodorus Samius narrates in his third book, have Taurus in a higher place at the middle of the sky [the meridian], and the Pleiades at the middle of the yard-arms. But those who sail from Arabia to Azania sail straight toward the south, and toward the star Canobus [Canopus], which is there called Hyppos, that is, the horse. And it is far to the south. The stars which are seen there are not named among us. And the Dog Star [Sirius] rises before the Pro-Dog [Procyon]; and the whole of Orion shines before the point where the sun turns at the summer tropic. From these observations of the stars, therefore, he clearly shows certain habitations to be more northern than the equinoctial, as when he says Taurus and the Pleiades become above the vertex of the navigators: for these stars are around the equinoctial.

Some, however, he shows to be not more southern than northern. For Canobus can even be seen from places much more northern than the summer tropic; and many of the fixed stars which are always hidden from us in places more southern than ours can be seen even in places more northern than the equinoctial, such as around the site of Meroe, just as Canobus itself. This is elevated above the earth, and is least seen by those who are more northern than us. Now indeed those which tend more to the south call the Hyppus, that is, the horse; nor by this name is any other star said to be among those unknown to us.

Then he mentions that he also perceived from mathematical demonstrations that the whole of Orion appears before the summer tropic to those who inhabit under the equinoctial; among whom also the Dog Star begins to rise before the Pro-Dog, which is preserved as far as Syene. From which observations also nothing seems to be proper or necessary to prove that the sites of the habitations are more southern than the equinoctial circle.

[Term: The same emendation from the traversing of journeys.]

[Initial I]
IN THE traversings, however, calculating the days of the journeys one by one from Great Leptis to the region of Agisymba, he shows this to be more southern than the equinoctial by twenty-four thousand and six hundred and eighty stadia. Sailing indeed the days from the departure from Ptolemais, which is in the Troglodytic region, to the promontory of Prasum, he concludes this to be south of the equinoctial by twenty-seven thousand and eight hundred stadia. Whence he infers the promontory of Prasum and the region of Agisymba of the Ethiopians—which even as he himself confesses does not terminate Ethiopia from the southern side—to be situated in the frigid zone opposite our world, according to the reasoning of the same man. For twenty-seven thousand and eighty stadia in the meridian constitute fifty-five and one-third degrees; as many degrees from the other part of the equator...

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