Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/168

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154
STRABO.
BOOK II.

ever, he always came off with good luck, notwithstanding he was never out of danger. Besides this, how did it happen, that having escaped from Bogus, he was not afraid to sail round Africa a second time, with all the requisites for taking up his abode on the island? All this too closely resembles the falsehoods of Pytheas, Euhemerus, and Antiphanes. They however may be pardoned; for their only aim was that of the juggler. But who can forgive a demonstrator and philosopher, and one too striving to be at the head of their order? it is really too bad!

6. However, he is right in attributing to earthquakes and other similar causes, which we also have enumerated, the risings, slips, and changes which at various periods come over the earth. He did well, too, in citing the opinion of Plato, “that the tradition concerning the Island of Atlantis might be received as something more than a mere fiction, it having been related by Solon on the authority of the Egyptian priests, that this island, almost as large as a continent formerly in existence, although now it had disappeared.” Posidonius thinks it better to quote this than to say, “He who brought it into existence can also cause it to disappear, as the poet did the wall of the Achivi.”[1] He (Posidonius) is also of opinion that the emigration of the Cimbrians and other kindred races from their native territory, was gradual, and occasioned by the inundation of the sea, and by no means a sudden movement.[2] He supposes that the length of the inhabited earth is about 70,000 stadia, being the half of the whole circle on which it is taken; so that, says he, starting from the west, one might, aided by a continual east wind, reach India in so many thousand stadia.

7. Next he undertakes to find fault with those who gave

  1. ↑ The wall mentioned in Iliad, vii. 436, et seq. Gosselin says that in the time of Aristotle the commentators of the Iliad, having vainly sought for the ruins or other traces of the wall, the Philosopher came to the conclusion that the wall was altogether a fiction of Homer’s. Strabo speaks further on this subject in the 13th Book.
  2. ↑ As the above assertion is at variance with the statement of Strabo, in his 7th Book, concerning Posidonius’s views on this subject, it seems probable that the passage as it stands is corrupt. It is more likely Strabo wrote, “It is the opinion of Posidonius that the emigration of the Cimbrians and other kindred races from their native territory was not occasioned by an inundation of the sea, since their departure took place at various times.”
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