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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

Reading language

Book I Chapter 40

17 · Ocean and the inner sea

The sea outside the inhabited world is called both Atlantic and Ocean, and flows around us. In the west it opens inward through a narrow mouth, the so-called Pillars of Heracles, and enters the inner sea as though entering a harbor. Gradually widening, it spreads out and embraces great gulfs connected with one another.¹⁰⁰³

18 · The Mediterranean basins

First, on the right as one sails in through the Pillars of Heracles, it is said to form two gulfs called the Syrtes, one named the Great and the other the Small. On the other side, where the gulfs are shaped differently, it forms three seas: the Sardinian, the so-called Gallic, and the Adriatic. Next, lying across these, is the Sicilian sea; after it, the Cretan. ⟨And⟩ adjoining that sea are the Egyptian, Pamphylian, and Syrian on one side, and the Aegean and Myrtoan on the other.¹⁰⁰⁴

19 · Pontus and Maeotis

Opposite the seas just named extends Pontus, [but] divided into very many parts. Its innermost part is called Maeotis, while its outer part toward the Hellespont connects at its mouth with the sea called Propontis.¹⁰⁰⁵

20 · Eastern inlets of Ocean

Again, toward the rising of the sun, Ocean flows inward, opening the Indian and Persian gulfs and enclosing the expanse known as the Erythraean Sea. At another arm it narrows, passes into a long neck, and widens again, marking out the Hyrcanian and Caspian Sea. The region beyond this extends far inland, beyond Lake Maeotis.¹⁰⁰⁶

21 · Ocean around the north and west

Then, little by little, beyond the Scythians and the Celtic country, it closes around the inhabited world toward the gulf called Gallic and the Pillars of Heracles already mentioned, outside which Ocean flows around the land.

22 · Islands beyond the continents

In Ocean there are great islands: [and] the two called British, [and] Albion and Ierne, larger than those previously described and lying beyond the Celts. Smaller than these are Taprobane, beyond the Indians and at an angle to the inhabited world, and the island called Phobea [Euboea], situated by the Arabian Gulf.¹⁰⁰⁷ Many other small islands around the British islands and Iberia form a circular crown about this inhabited world, which we have called an island.

23 · Dimensions and divisions

Writers skilled in geography say that its breadth, where the mainland extends deepest, is a little short of forty thousand stades, and its length approximately seventy thousand. It is divided into Europe, Asia, and Libya.¹⁰⁰⁸

24 · Europe and Asia

Europe is the region bounded round by the Pillars of Heracles, the recesses of Pontus, and the [and] Hyrcanian Sea, from which a very narrow isthmus extends to Pontus. Some give the river Tanais instead of the isthmus. Asia is the region from the isthmus just mentioned, between Pontus and the Hyrcanian Sea, to the other isthmus lying between the Arabian Gulf and the inner sea, enclosed by that sea and the surrounding Ocean. Some set its boundary from the Tanais to the Nile.¹⁰⁰⁹

25 · Libya and Egypt

Libya is the region from the Arabian isthmus to the Pillars of Heracles; others say from the Nile to those pillars. Egypt, enclosed by the mouths of the Nile, is assigned by some to Asia and by others to Libya. Some place the islands in a separate category, while others [always] assign them in each case to the neighboring divisions.¹⁰¹⁰ Such, approximately, is our account of the nature and position of land and sea which we customarily call the inhabited world.

26 · Two exhalations

[Chapter 4] Let us now discuss the most noteworthy occurrences within and above it, summarizing only the essentials. Two exhalations continually rise from it into the air above us, composed of fine particles and entirely invisible; they are observed rising from places along the shores, from rivers, and from streams.¹⁰¹¹ One is dry and smoky, flowing from the earth; the other is moist and vaporous, [and] exhaled from the liquid element.

27 · What each exhalation produces

From the moist exhalation arise mists, dews, forms of frost, clouds, rains, snows, and hail; from the dry one arise winds and differing blasts, thunder, lightning, fiery storm blasts, thunderbolts, and the other phenomena naturally akin to these.¹⁰¹²

28 · Mist and clear air

Mist is a vaporous exhalation that produces no water, thicker than air but thinner than cloud. It arises either from a cloud’s first formation or from its remnant. What is called clear weather is its opposite, and truly is so: it is nothing other than air free from cloud and mist.¹⁰¹³

29 · Dew, ice, and frost

Dew is moisture descending from a clear sky in a fine condensation; ice is a mass of water frozen under a clear sky; frost is … half-frozen dew.¹⁰¹⁴

30 · Cloud and rain

cloud is a gathered vaporous ⟨mass⟩ capable of producing water. Rain arises when a thoroughly thickened cloud is squeezed out, and varies with the compression of the cloud. Gentle compression scatters fine drops; violent compression scatters larger ones. What we call a downpour consists of larger, continuous masses of rain descending to earth.¹⁰¹⁵

31 · Snow

Snow arises from the breaking up of condensed clouds, checked before their change into water. The breaking produces its frothy texture and whiteness; the freezing of the moisture within it, which has not yet flowed out or become diffuse, produces its coldness. When it falls violently and in a mass, it is called a snowstorm.

32 · Hail

Hail arises when snow is compacted and gains weight from its compression, causing a faster descent. According to the size of the fragments that break off, the masses are larger and their movements more violent. These phenomena, then, naturally arise from the moist exhalation.¹⁰¹⁶

33 · Wind and living breath

Wind arises from the dry exhalation when cold drives it into a flow. It is nothing other than a great mass of flowing air, which is also called pneuma. In another sense, pneuma also names the animate and generative substance in plants and animals that pervades all things; we need not discuss that now.¹⁰¹⁷

34 · Local winds and squalls

We call the blasts moving in the air winds, and the breaths coming from water breezes. Winds flowing from moist earth are called land winds; those rushing out of gulfs, gulf winds. Those from rivers and lakes are analogous to these. Winds arising from a rupture and dissolving the dense mass into themselves are called cloud squalls; when accompanied by a mass of water bursting forth, they are called rain squalls.¹⁰¹⁸

35 · Four principal directions

The continuous winds from the east are called east winds, those from the north north winds, those from the west west winds, and ⟨those⟩ from the south south winds.¹⁰¹⁹

1003.The Pillars of Heracles mark the western entrance to the Mediterranean at the Strait of Gibraltar. The passage describes the inner sea as an inlet of the encompassing Ocean.

1004.The names follow the ancient coastal divisions of the sea. “On the right” is the southern side for a traveler entering from the west. The two Syrtes are the large North African gulfs; the catalogue proceeds by adjacent basins rather than by modern national boundaries.

1005.Pontus is the Black Sea, Maeotis the Sea of Azov, and Propontis the Sea of Marmara. The second de, “but,” is rejected as superfluous. The sequence is the author’s compressed description of the connected waters.

1006.This ancient geographical picture treats the Hyrcanian or Caspian Sea as an inlet of Ocean. Erythraean, literally “red,” is used here for a broad eastern expanse associated with the Indian and Persian gulfs. These names and connections should not be read as the boundaries of the modern Red Sea.

1007.Albion is Britain, Ierne Ireland, and Taprobane Sri Lanka. The printed text says Taprobane and Phobea are smaller; versions of De mundo that insert “not” give a different comparison. Wachsmuth rejects Euboea as a divergent form of the damaged name Phobea; he does not replace the latter with the parallel’s Phebol. The two bracketed conjunctions are also rejected. The English preserves these decisions; Phobea’s identification is left open.

1008.These are dimensions of the inhabited world in the account, not measurements of the entire globe. The stade was an ancient unit whose length varied; the original figures are retained without a falsely precise conversion. Libya here names the African division of the inhabited world.

1009.Tanais is the river Don. The account records competing conventions for dividing continents, using either rivers or isthmuses. The second “and” before Hyrcanian is rejected in the source. The Arabian isthmus is the land between the eastern Mediterranean and the Arabian Gulf.

1010.The Egypt described by reference to the mouths of the Nile is the delta region. The first aei, “always,” is bracketed as redundant; the second is rendered “in each case.” The final qualifying phrase, “approximately,” preserves the summary’s modest scope.

1011.“Entirely invisible” and “are observed” stand together awkwardly in the printed text; the apparatus records proposed repairs. The translation preserves the tension. The dry and moist exhalations provide the organizing explanation for the phenomena that follow. The bracketed conjunction is rejected by Heeren.

1012.Prēstēres, here “fiery storm blasts,” are violent winds associated with burning; the text later gives a more specific account of them. Pneumata means moving air or blasts in this physical classification.

1013.“Produces no water” renders agonos hydatos: the mist does not yield the falling water of rain. The contrast with cloud concerns the degree of thickening in this ancient account.

1014.The gap before “half-frozen dew” is printed in Wachsmuth. The separate text of De mundo distinguishes frozen dew from partially frozen dew, but that fuller wording has not been inserted into the facing text.

1015.The supplied pachos means thickness or a thick mass. The explanation is mechanical: the degree of compression determines the character of the rain. The distinction between ombros and hyetos in the closing phrase is rendered as downpour and rain.

1016.This is the author’s sequence from condensed cloud to snow and compressed hail. The English preserves that physical account rather than substituting a modern explanation of hail formation.

1017.Pneuma can mean wind, breath, or a vital substance. The author explicitly separates the physical wind under discussion from the life-bearing sense of the word; retaining the Greek term here makes that distinction visible.

1018.Eknephiai and exydriai distinguish violent outbursts associated with cloud and water. In “the dense mass,” cloud is understood from the context; the parallel De mundo explicitly supplies it after “rupture.”

1019.The Greek collective names are euroi, boreai, zephyroi, and notoi. The following catalogue uses related names more specifically for individual directions. “Continuous” follows the printed synecheis, which Heeren proposed omitting.