Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/192

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178
STRABO.
BOOK II.

Albanians and Iberians.[1] We are besides possessed of a description of Hyrcania[p 1] and Bactriana in the Histories of Parthia written by such men as Apollodorus of Artemita,[2] who have detailed the boundaries [of those countries] with greater accuracy than other geographers.

The entrance of a Roman army into Arabia Felix under the command of my friend and companion Ælius Gallus,[3] and the traffic of the Alexandrian merchants whose vessels pass up the Nile and Arabian Gulf[p 2] to India, have rendered us much better acquainted with these countries than our predecessors were. I was with Gallus at the time he was prefect of Egypt, and accompanied him as far as Syene and the frontiers of Ethiopia, and I found that about one hundred and twenty ships sail from Myos-hormos[4] to India, although, in the time of the Ptolemies, scarcely any one would venture on this voyage and the commerce with the Indies.

13. Our first and most imperative duty[5] then, both in respect to science and to the necessities of the man of business, is to undertake to lay down the projection of the different countries on the chart in as clear a style as possible, and to signify at the same time the relation and proportion they bear to the whole earth. For such is the geographer’s peculiar province. It belongs to another science to give an exact description of the whole earth, and of the entire vertebre of either zone, and

  1. ↑ The Georgians of the present day.
  2. ↑ The precise time when this writer lived is unknown. The work here referred to is also mentioned by Athenæus, xv. p. 682.
  3. ↑ Prefect of Egypt in the reign of Augustus. This expedition into Arabia completely failed, through the treachery of the guide, a Roman named Syllæus. A long account of it is given by Strabo in the 16th book. “It would be extremely interesting,” says Professor Schmitz, “to trace this expedition of Ælius Gallus into Arabia, but our knowledge of that country is as yet too scanty to enable us to identify the route as described by Strabo, who derived most of his information about Arabia from his friend Ælius Gallus.”
  4. ↑ Myos-hormos, Mouse’s Harbour, a sea-port of Egypt on the coast of the Red Sea. Arrian says that it was one of the most celebrated ports on this sea. It was chosen by Ptolemy Philadelphus for the convenience of commerce, in preference to Arsinoe or Suez, on account of the difficulty of navigating the western extremity of the gulf. It was called also Aphroditis Portus, or the Port of Venus. Its modern name is Suffange-el-Bahri, or “Sponge of the Sea.” Lemprière.
  5. ↑ Humboldt commends Strabo’s zeal in prosecuting his gigantic work, Cosmos ii. 557.
  1. ↑ Corcan.
  2. ↑ Red Sea.
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