[520] The Crimea.
[521] The Strait of Zabache.
[522] Kertsch in the Crimea.
[523] Strabo is too fond of this kind of special pleading; before, in order to controvert Hipparchus, he estimated this distance at 3000 stadia; now he adds an additional thousand stadia in order to get a latitude which shall be the southern limit of the habitable earth.
[524] The Greek has Κιναμωμοφόρου Ἰνδικῆς. We have omitted the latter word altogether from the translation, as being a slip of the pen. Strabo certainly never supposed the Cinnamon Country to be any where in India.
[525] Ireland.
[526] Perhaps it may aid the reader in realizing these different reasonings if we give a summary of them in figures.
| Strabo supposes that Hipparchus, reckoning from the equator to the limits of the inhabited earth, | 8,800 | stadia | |
| should have fixed the southern extremity of India more to the north by | 4,000 | ||
| and the northern extremity of India, according to the measures of Deimachus, still more to the north by | 30,000 | ||
| —— | |||
| Total | 42,800 | ||
| Now, Strabo adds, following Hipparchus, the northern shores of Keltica and the mouth of the Dnieper, are distant from the equator | 34,000 | ||
| Ierne, in a climate almost uninhabitable, was, according to Strabo’s own impression, situated to the north of Keltica | 5,000 | ||
| —— | |||
| 39,000 | |||
| Then, according to Hipparchus, the habitable latitudes would extend still farther than Ierne by | 3,800 | ||
| —— | |||
| Total | 42,800 | ||
The great fertility of Bactriana, according to Strabo, appeared to be inconsistent with a position so far towards the north. In this he was correct.
[527] These 4000 stadia do not accord with the distances elsewhere propounded by Strabo. Possibly he had before him various charts constructed on different hypotheses, and made his computations not always from the same.