[1017] B. x. c. v. § 6.
[1018] The text is corrupt.
[1019] παρωνόμασαν
[1020] i. e. on the same parallel.
[1021] That is, from the Caspian Gates to Thinæ. Gossellin.
[1022] Strabo does not here determine either the parallel from which we are to measure, nor the meridian we are to follow to discover this greatest breadth, which according to him is “less than 10,000 stadia.” This passage therefore seems to present great difficulties. The difficulties respecting the parallel can only be perceived by an examination and comparison of the numerous passages where our author indicates the direction of the chain of mountains which form the Taurus.
[1023] I do not see where this statement is to be found, except implicitly. Strabo seems to refer us in general to various passages where he endeavours to determine the greatest length of the habitable world, in b. ii. Du Theil.
[1024] I am unable to fix upon the author’s train of thought. For immediately after having assigned to this portion of the Habitable Earth (whose dimensions he wishes to determine) 30,000 stadia as its “greatest length,” and 10,000 stadia as its “greatest breadth,” Strabo proceeds to prove what he had just advanced respecting its greatest length. Then he should, it seems, have endeavoured to furnish us, in the same manner, with a proof that its greatest breadth is not more, as he says, than 10,000. But in what follows there is nothing advanced on this point; all that he says is to develope another proposition, viz. that the extent of the Hyrcanian—Caspian Sea is at the utmost 6000 stadia.
The arguments contained in this paragraph on the whole appear to me strange; they rest on a basis which it is difficult to comprehend; they establish explicitly a proposition which disagrees with what the author has said elsewhere, and lastly they present an enormous geographical error.
It will therefore be useful to the reader to explain, as far as I understand it, the argument of our author.