[638] Or living on fish, a name given by the Greek geographers to various tribes of barbarians; but it seems most frequently to a people of Gedrosia on the coast of the Arabian Gulf. It is probably to these that Strabo refers.
[639] Viz. the Heteroscii, or inhabitants of the temperate zones.
[640] The ancients named the people of southern Africa, Ethiopians; those of the north of Asia and Europe, Scythians; and those of the north-west of Europe, Kelts.
[641] That is, by arctic circles which differed in respect to various latitudes. See Book ii. chap. ii. § 2, p. 144.
[642] Viz. the partition of the earth into two hemispheres, by means of the equator.
[643] Gosselin concludes from this that Eratosthenes and Polybius gave to the earth the form of a spheroid flattened at the poles. Other philosophers supposed it was elongated at the poles, and flattened at the equator.
[644] Gosselin justly observes that this passage, which is so concise as to appear doubtful to some, is properly explained by a quotation from Geminus, which states the arguments adduced by Polybius for believing that there was a temperate region within the torrid zones.
[645] Strabo seems to confound the account (Herodotus iv. 44) of the expedition sent by Darius round southern Persia and Arabia with the circumnavigation of Libya, (Herod. iv. 42,) which Necho II. confided to the Phœnicians about 600 B. C., commanding them distinctly “to return to Egypt through the passage of the Pillars of Hercules.” See Humboldt’s Cosmos, ii. 488, note, Bohn’s edition.
[646] Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, flourished towards the end of the fifth century before Christ.
[647] The ruins of this city still preserve the name of Cyzik. It was situated on the peninsula of Artaki, on the south of the Sea of Marmora.