Footnote 345: See the map of Ptolemy's world, above, p. [264].[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 346: Ptolemy expressly declares that the equatorial regions had never been visited by people from the northern hemisphere: Τίνες δέ εἰσιν αἱ οἰκήσεις οὐκ ἂν ἔχοιμεν πεπεισμένως εἰπεῖν. Ἄτριπτοι γάρ εἰσι μέχρι τοῦ δεῦρο τοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς καθ' ἡμᾶς οἰκουμένης, καὶ εἰκασίαν μᾶλλον ἄν τις ἢ ἱστορίαν ἡγήσαιτο τὰ λεγόμενα περὶ αὐτῶν. Syntaxis, ii. 6.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 347: Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. iii. p. 29, note 8.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 348: The story is discredited by Mannert, Geographie der Griechen und Römer, bd. i. pp. 19-26; Gossellin, Recherches sur la géographie des Anciens, tom. i. p. 149; Lewis, Astronomy of the Ancients, pp. 508-515; Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean, vol. i. pp. 303-311, vol. ii. pp. 13-15; Leake, Disputed Questions of Ancient Geography, pp. 1-8. It is defended by Heeren, Ideen über die Politik, den Verkehr, etc., 3e aufl., Göttingen, 1815, bd. i. abth. ii. pp. 87-93; Rennell, Geography of Herodotus, pp. 672-714; Grote, History of Greece, vol. iii. pp. 377-385. The case is ably presented in Bunbury's History of Ancient Geography, vol. i. pp. 289-296, where it is concluded that the story "cannot be disproved or pronounced to be absolutely impossible; but the difficulties and improbabilities attending it are so great that they cannot reasonably be set aside without better evidence than the mere statement of Herodotus, upon the authority of unknown informants." Mr. Bunbury (vol. i. p. 317) says that he has reasons for believing that Mr. Grote afterwards changed his opinion and came to agree with Sir George Lewis.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 349: In reading the learned works of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, one is often reminded of what Sainte-Beuve somewhere says of the great scholar Letronne, when he had spent the hour of his lecture in demolishing some pretty or popular belief: "Il se frotta les mains et s'en alla bien content." When it came to ancient history, Sir George was undeniably fond of "the everlasting No." In the present case his skepticism seems on the whole well-judged, but some of his arguments savour of undue haste toward a negative conclusion. He thus strangely forgets that what we call autumn is springtime in the southern hemisphere (Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 511). His argument that the time alleged was insufficient for the voyage is fully met by Major Rennell, who has shown that the time was amply sufficient, and that the direction of winds and ocean currents would make the voyage around southern Africa from east to west much easier than from west to east.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 350: "No trace of it could be found in the Alexandrian library, either by Eratosthenes in the third, or by Marinus of Tyre in the second, century before Christ, although both of them were diligent examiners of ancient records." Major, Prince Henry the Navigator, p. 90.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 351: Rawlinson's History of Phœnicia, pp. 105, 418; Pseudo-Aristotle, Mirab. Auscult., 146; Velleius Paterculus, i. 2, § 6.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 352: Hanno, Periplus, in Müller, Geographi Græci Minores, tom. i. pp. 1-14. Of two or three commanders named Hanno it is uncertain which was the one who led this expedition, and thus its date has been variously assigned from 570 to 470 B. C.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 353: For the determination of these localities see Bunbury, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 318-335. There is an interesting Spanish description of Hanno's expedition in Mariana, Historia de España, Madrid, 1783, tom. i. pp. 89-93.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 354: The sailors pursued them, but did not capture any of the males, who scrambled up the cliffs out of their reach. They captured three females, who bit and scratched so fiercely that it was useless to try to take them away. So they killed them and took their skins home to Carthage. Periplus, xviii. According to Pliny (Hist. Nat., vi. 36) these skins were hung up as a votive offering in the temple of Juno (i. e. Astarte or Ashtoreth: see Apuleius, Metamorph., xi. 257; Gesenius, Monumenta Phœnic., p. 168), where they might have been seen at any time before the Romans destroyed the city.[Back to Main Text]