The Geography

**
[Page 6]

...since in the last term of the west the Fortunate Isles are similarly placed; truly the series [Sinae] and Cattigara terminate the most eastern region. For the distance from the Fortunate Isles to the crossing of the Euphrates through Hierapolis, under the parallel through Rhodes, we also similarly preserve, with the number of stadia exposed by him individually: partly on account of the frequent use of the journey, partly because in greater distances he himself seems to have rightly collected what was to be emended from flexions and inequalities of journeys.

Then also, because he places one degree (of which the greatest circle is three hundred and sixty) to intercept five hundred stadia on the surface of the earth, which is clear from certain and known dimensions. He exposes a similar circumference of the Rhodian parallel—that is, distant from the equinoctial by thirty-six degrees—to be roughly four hundred stadia. For that which in these exceeds straight equality according to the ratio of the parallels is given a thicker [rougher] calculation from its smallness.

The distance, truly, which is comprised from the crossing of the Euphrates itself as far as the Stone Tower [Turris Lapidea], he says is eight hundred and seventy-six schoini; truly twenty-six thousand two hundred and eighty stadia. Then from the Stone Tower as far as Sera, the metropolis of the Seres, he says there is a seven-month journey; truly thirty-six thousand and two hundred stadia. But so that we may reduce both distances to the same parallel, let us emend both according to an equal contradiction [reduction]. In the traversings of both, indeed, he does not seem to have subtracted what remains from the enormity of the circumflexions.

Furthermore, in the second journey, he seems to have fallen into the same fallacies in which he slipped from the Garamantes to Agisymba. For there, the number of stadia being calculated through four months, he was forced to restrict it to more than half. For it was not possible through so many spaces of days for the journey to have been always uniform; which even in a seven-month traversing is not absurd to have happened: one more consonant than in the journey of the Garamantes. For that journey was made by the king of a province, with no small diligence, and under an entirely clear sky. But the traversing from the Stone Tower to the Seres undergoes stronger winters. For it lies under the parallels through Byzantium and the Hellespont. From which delays it was necessary for many to occur in the journey itself, since the cause of that setting out was trade.

For he relates that Maes, a Macedonian man who was also called Titianus, born of a father who was himself a merchant, had noted the dimension of this journey; not that he himself reached as far as the Seres, but sent someone there. But he himself does not seem to assent to the reports of merchants. Whence he does not nod to Philomenes: because he exposes the longitude of the island of Ireland from the rising of the sun to the setting as twenty days. For he writes that he perceived from memory from merchants that they were more negligent of truth, being occupied around their own commerce. He says they themselves often, out of an empty ambition, greatly increase distances. Here, however, in a seven-month setting out, he mentions nothing worthy of memory of those who measured that journey; through the magnitude of the time, it is a monster.

[Term: Emendation of the longitude of our habitable world from traversings.]

[Initial N]
FOR WHICH reason, and because that journey is not under one single parallel, but the Stone Tower is around the parallel of Byzantium and the Seres are more southern (which parallel is through the Hellespont), it seems fair to cut the multitude of stadia collected from the seven months—that is, thirty-six thousand two hundred—not to less than half, but by an easier understanding to the half alone. So that the given distance can be calculated as eighteen thousand and one hundred stadia; truly forty-five and a fourth degrees.

And indeed it is beyond reason and entirely absurd in both these traversings not to assent to the section, yet to concede the same contradiction in the journey of the Garamantes. The reason for which is at hand: namely the difference of animals dwelling in the region of Agisymba, which by no means can be translated beyond their natural places...

**