Footnote 452: Καλοῦμεν γὰρ οἰκουμένην ἣν οἰκοῦμεν καὶ γνωρίζομεν· ἐνδέκεται δὲ καὶ ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ εὐκράτῳ ζώνῃ καὶ δύο οἰκουμένας εἶναι ἢ καὶ πλείους. Strabo, i. 4, § 6; καὶ γὰρ εἰ οὕτως ἔχει, οὐχ ὑπὸ τούτων γε οἰκεῖται τῶν παρ' ἡμῖν· ἀλλ' ἐκείνην ἄλλην οἰκουμένην θετέον. ὅπερ ἐστὶ πιθανόν. Ἡμῖν δὲ τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ ταῦτα λεκτέον. Id. ii. 5, § 13. This has always seemed to me one of the most remarkable anticipations of modern truth in all ancient literature. Mr. Bunbury thinks it may have suggested the famous verses of Seneca just quoted. History of Ancient Geography, vol. ii. p. 224.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 453: Οἱ δὲ ἡμέτεροι [i. e. the Stoics] καὶ ἀπὸ μαθημάτων πάντες, καὶ οἱ πλείους τῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ Σωκρατικοῦ διδασκαλείου σφαιρικὸν εἶναι τὸ σχῆμα τῆς γῆς διεβεβαιώσαντο. Cleomedes, i. 8; cf. Lucretius, De Rerum Nat., i. 1052-1082; Stobæus, Eclog. i. 19; Plutarch, De facie in Orbe Luna, cap. vii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 454: See Augustine, De civitate Dei, xvi. 9; Lactantius, Inst. Div., iii. 23; Jerome, Comm. in Ezechiel, i. 6; Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences, vol i. p. 196.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 455: See above, p. [266].[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 456: For an account of the cosmography of the Divine Comedy, illustrated with interesting diagrams, see Artaud de Montor, Histoire de Dante Alighieri, Paris, 1841.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 457: It was first printed without indication of place or date, but probably the place was Paris and the date somewhere from 1483 to 1490. Manuscript copies were very common, and Columbus probably knew the book long before that time. There is a good account of it in Humboldt's Examen critique, tom. i. pp. 61-76, 96-108. Humboldt thinks that such knowledge as Columbus had of the opinions of ancient writers was chiefly if not wholly obtained from Alliacus. It is doubtful if Columbus had any direct acquaintance with the works of Roger Bacon, but he knew the Liber Cosmographicus of Albertus Magnus and the Speculum Naturale of Vincent de Beauvais (both about 1250), and drew encouragement from them. He also knew the book of Mandeville, first printed in French at Lyons in 1480, and a Latin translation of Marco Polo, published in 1485, a copy of which, with marginal MS. notes, is now in the Colombina.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 458: See Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy, p. 140. For an account of the method employed by Eratosthenes, see Delambre, Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne, tom. i. pp. 86-91; Lewis, Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 198.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 459: See Bunbury's History of Ancient Geography, vol. ii. pp. 95-97, 546-579; Müller and Donaldson, History of Greek Literature, vol. iii. p. 268.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 460: Strabo, in arguing against this theory of bad lands, etc., as obstacles to ocean navigation—a theory which seems to be at least as old as Hipparchus—has a passage which finely expresses the loneliness of the sea:—Οἵτε γὰρ περιπλεῖν ἐπιχειρήσαντες, εἶτα ἀναστρέψαντες, οὐχ ὑπὸ ἠπείρου τινὸς ἀντιπιπτούσης καὶ κωλυούσης, τὸν ἐπέκεινα πλοῦν ἀνακρουσθῆναι φασὶν, ἀλλὰ ὑπὸ ἀπορίας καὶ ἐρημίας, οὐδὲν ἧττον τῆς θαλάττης ἐχούσης τὸν πόρον (lib. i. cap. i. § 8). When one thinks of this ἀπορία and ἐρημία, one fancies oneself far out on the Atlantic, alone in an open boat on a cloudy night, bewildered and hopeless.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 461: See above, p. [360]. Toscanelli's mile was nearly equivalent to the English statute mile. See the very important note in Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist., vol. i. p. 51.[Back to Main Text]