Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/533

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Chap. 44.]
ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, ETC.
499

chus[1] of Sicyon, Eudoxus[2], Antigenes[3], Callicrates[4], Xenophon[5] of Lampsacus, Diodorus[6] of Syracuse, Hanno[7], Himilco[8], Nymphodorus[9], Calliphanes[10], Artemidorus[11], Megasthenes[12], Isidorus[13], Cleobulus[14], and Aristocreaon[15].


    Periander of Corinth, one of the Seven Wise Men, who wrote a didactic poem, containing moral and pohtical precepts, in 2000 lines; and, 2. a physician and bad poet, contemporary with Archidamas, the son of Agesilaüs. It is uncertain to which Pliny here refers.

  1. ↑ Probably a Writer on geography. Nothing appears to be known of him.
  2. ↑ Of Cyzicus, see end of B. ii.; of Cnidos, see end of B. iv.
  3. ↑ A Greek historian, who appears, from Plutarch, to have written a hiistory of the expeditions of Alexander the Great.
  4. ↑ See end of B. iii.
  5. ↑ See end of B. iii.
  6. ↑ See end of B. iii.
  7. ↑ The author of the Periplus, or voyage which he performed round a part of Libya, of which we have a Greek translation from the Punic original. His age is not known, but Pliny states (B. ii. c. 67, and B. v. c. 1) that the voyage was undertaken in the most flourishing days of Carthage. It has been considered on the whole, that he may be probably identified with Hanno, the son or the father of Hamilcar, who was slain at Himera, B.C. 480.
  8. ↑ Mentioned also by Pliny, B. ii. c. 67, as having conducted a voyage of discovery from Gades towards the north, along the western shores of Europe, at the same time that Hanno proceeded on his voyage along the western coast of Africa. He is repeatedly quoted by Festus Avienus, in his geographical poem called Ora Maritima. His voyage is said to have lasted four months, but it is impossible to judge how far it extended.
  9. ↑ See end of B. iii.
  10. ↑ See end of B. iii.
  11. ↑ See end of B. ii.
  12. ↑ A Greek geographer, and friend of Seleucus Nicator, by whom he was sent on an embassy to Sandrocottus, king of the Prasii, whose capital was Palibothra, a town probably in the vicinity of the present Patna. Whether he had accompanied Alexander on his invasion of India is quite uncertain. He wrote a work on India in four books, to which the subsequent Greek writers were chiefly indebted for their accounts of India. Arrian speaks highly of him as a writer, but Strabo impeaches his veracity; and we find Pliny hinting the same in B. vi. c. 21. Of his work only a few fragments survive.
  13. ↑ See end of B. ii.
  14. ↑ See end of B. iv.
  15. ↑ There was a philosopher of this name, a nepliew of Chrysippus, and his pupil; but it is not known whether he is the person referred to, in C. 10, either as having Written a work on universal geography, or on that of Egypt.

END OF VOL. I.

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