[2328] B. G., iii, 27, § 2.
[2329] Hist. of Anc. Geogr., pp. 38-9.
[2330] Unless a child born in 1888 could have been called Mr. Gladstone’s contemporary. Strabo was born about 63, and Crassus died in 53 B.C.
[2331] As Sir George Cornewall Lewis pointed out (Hist. Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, 1862, p. 452), ‘the Romans ... were not likely to attempt voyages beyond the Pillars of Hercules before ... 146 B.C., whereas after that time the Carthaginians had no ships or factories; Gades had been sixty years in the hands of the Romans; and ever since the end of the Second Punic War the Romans had been able to extort the secrets of the Carthaginians.... The story doubtless originated in the known commercial jealousy of the Carthaginians,’ &c.
M. Salomon Reinach (L’Anthr., x, 1899, p. 400) holds that the Romans were anxious to ascertain the maritime route to the Cassiterides because it was cheaper than the overland route. But is it certain that a voyage of more than 2,000 miles would have been cheaper than a land journey of 600?
[2332] B. G., ii, 34; iii, 7, § 2.
[2333] Cf. H. Berger, Gesch. der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen, iii, 1891, pp. 29, 34.
[2334] See pp. 500-7, infra.
[2335] H. Berger (op. cit., p. 29) affirms that, according to Strabo (iii, 5, § 11), Crassus saw ‘with his own eyes’ the tin-mining actually going on; but Strabo does not say this.
[2336] Berger (op. cit., pp. 34-5) points out that Crassus’s description [was it his?], reproduced by Strabo, puts us in mind of that of Diodorus (pp. 499, 506, infra), and may have been suggested to Crassus by a perusal of Diodorus’s authority. R. Zimmermann, on the contrary, argues (Hermes, xxiii, 1888, pp. 121-3) that the passage in Strabo is based upon Posidonius. Obviously not the part which relates to Crassus.