Geography (Geographicae Enarrationis Libri Octo)

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...and he shows Satalia in Armenia to be distant from Trapezus toward the south by sixty miles. However, according to the description of the parallels, he leads the one that passes through Byzantium through Satalia, and not through Trapezus. But he also says he will describe the Nile river in accordance with the truth, from which it seems to approach Meroe first from the south to the north, and likewise the navigation of the Aromata Cape Guardafui to the marshes from which the Nile flows is accomplished toward the north. Nevertheless, the Aromata are more eastern than Meroe. For Ptolemais of the Hunts is more eastern than Meroe and the Nile by a journey of ten or twelve days. Moreover, the straits of the Adulicus gulf, which are near the Ocyles peninsula and Dira, are more eastern than Ptolemais by three thousand five hundred stadia, and more eastern than those is the promontory of the Great Aromata by five thousand stadia.

THAT HE WAS IGNORANT OF CERTAIN things in the boundaries of provinces

CAPVT .XVI.

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Furthermore, certain things regarding the boundaries of regions escaped him, just as when he bounds the whole of Mysia from the east by the Pontic sea, and Thrace from the west of Upper Mysia. Moreover, he writes that Italy is bounded from the north only by Raetia and Noricum, but that Pannonia is bounded from the south only by Dalmatia, and not also by Italy. He also writes that the Sogdians are inland, and the Sacae are adjacent to India on the south, and he writes that two parallels, both the one which passes through the Hellespont and the one which passes through Byzantium, are more northerly than the Imaus mountain, which is the most northern in India; he does not write that they pass through the said peoples, but rather the one which passes through the middle of the Pontus.

IN WHICH HE HIMSELF DISSENTS FROM those things which have been produced by histories in our age

CAPVT .XVII.

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In these matters and such like, Marinus was less consistent with himself, whether because of the multitude and diversity of the compositions, or because he had not yet reached the description of the map in his final edition, as he himself says, through which he could have performed the rectification of the climates and hourly intervals. Indeed, some things do not agree even now with present reasoning, such as the Sachalitis gulf, which he posits to the west of the Syagrus promontory. For all those who have navigated through these places agree unanimously with us that the Sachalis region of Arabia and the gulf of the same name are to the east of Syagrus. Again, Simylla, an emporium of India, is not only posited by him to the west of the Mareus promontory, but even to the west of the Indus river, when it is maintained by those who have navigated here and there, and by those who have spent a long time in those places, and also by those who have arrived to us from there, that only the mouth of the river is more southerly; they say it is called Timula by the natives, from whom we have learned more particularly other things concerning India and its provinces, and even the interior parts of that region, as far as the Aurea Chersonesus, and from there as far as Cattigara. For they agree in this: that the navigation of those who head there is toward the sunrise, and again of those returning from there, toward the sunset, and likewise they agree that the time of navigation is irregular and disordered. And that beyond the Sinae lies the region of the Seres the Chinese and their metropolis, and that beyond these to the east, the land is unknown, having swampy marshes in which great reeds grow, and so dense that those men are accustomed to cross them with those reeds. And that not only is there a path from there to Bactra through the stone tower, but also into India through Palimbothra. However, the way which is from the metropolis of the Sinae to the port of Cattigara tends toward the sunset and the south; for which reason, it does not fall on the meridian which passes through the Sinae and Cattigara, as Marinus reports, but on one which is more eastern. Furthermore, those merchants who navigate from Arabia Foelix to the Aromata and Azania, and also to Rapta (which are all properly called Barbaria), confirm that this navigation is not exactly toward the south, but that it is toward the sunset and south, and that the crossing which is from Rapta to Prassum is toward the sunrise and south. Also, the marshes from which the Nile flows...