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Notes on Strabo

Horace L. Jones

The Classical Quarterly / Volume 11 / Issue 03 / July 1917, pp 132 - 134 DOI: 10.1017/S0009838800011034, Published online: 11 February 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009838800011034

How to cite this article: Horace L. Jones (1917). Notes on Strabo. The Classical Quarterly, 11, pp 132-134 doi:10.1017/S0009838800011034

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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAQ, IP address: 138.251.14.35 on 16 Apr 2015 NOTES ON STRABO.

I. THE MEANING OF fj,ovoTpoea> (STRABO 3. 3. 6). THE word fiovorpo^io) is apparently an aira^ Xeyofievov, being cited by the dictionaries only for Strabo 3. 3. 6 : eviov; he ra>v trpoaoiKovvTaiv T(j> Aovpltp •jrorafio) Aa,K(ovcicoi)<; htdyeiv (pa&iv, d\enrTr)pi,oi<; xpa/ievov; hl<> ical irvplcu<; iic ~KidovvTaovvTa certainly means the former in Xenophon's Cyropaedia 8. 8. 9 : ical firjv irpoardev fiiv fjv avroi<; fiovocrnelv VOJJUJJLOV, O7rt»? 0X77 TT} rji^epa )(pv\a/3%o?) Xeyei. Note that this statement applies to the Iberians. Again, neither fiovoaiTeco nor any of its cognates ever refer, so far as I can discover, to ' one kind of food'; and the same is true of fj.ovoayeco. And there is surely no such suggestion in the lone instance of fxovoTpotyta (Plato, Polit. 261D), which means merely 'a rearing singly' as against ' a rearing of a group (crvvTpofaa) ; and both yt,ovoavria and fj,ovoayia are used in the same sense as fiovorpoia, but nowhere in the sense of ' one kind of food.1 I take it, therefore, that in the passage quoted from Strabo fiovorpcxfiew means, not ' to eat but one kind of food,' but ' to eat but once in the day.'

II. STRABO 3. 3. 7. Krjpivoi' &v ras rpoa<; TrpoTbdevTat, TOIOVTOVS e%ov

III. STRABO 2. 1. 36. The reading of all the MSS. is : /J.T) BiBo/ievov Be TOVTOV (the assumption of Hipparchus), icevov ee^? BeiKwcrBai BOKOVV, OTI avvia'Tafj.evov opOoywvlov Tpcyoovov irpos re TirjXovo~ta> KOI ®ayfrdK(p icai TT; TOfijj rov TC Biii ov irapaXkrj\.ov Kal TOV Bia, Tlrfkovcrlov fiecrr}/j.^pivov, /Mia T5>V irepl TTJV rjv, 17 eVi TOV fieEratosthenes has roughly estimated the distance between Thapsacus and Babylon at 4800 stadia, reckoning the distance along the circuitous course of the Euphrates; and the distance between Pelusium and Thapsacus at 6000 stadia. Now the reductio ad absurdum is the form of argument which Hipparchus regularly uses against Eratosthenes, and Strabo quite as regularly defends the latter against the scientific use of estimates which were professedly rough. So here. Hipparchus, in the opinion of Strabo, subjects the above- mentioned estimates to a geometrical test, applying them to lines that represent meridians and parallels of latitude, at the same time injecting a proposition of his own, namely, that the parallel of latitude of Pelusium is 2500 stadia farther south than that of Babylon. On this basis Hipparchus easily computes that the distance between Pelusium and Thapsacus must be more than 8000 stadia—he might have said, more accurately, about 8500 stadia. And further, by adding Eratosthenes' 4800 to his own 2500, as though both lay in a straight meridian line, Hipparchus reduces to absurdity Eratosthenes' assertion that the distance from Pelusium to Thapsacus is 6000 stadia; for thus the meridian-leg of the right-angled triangle (7300) \ becomes greater than the hypotenuse (6000). To illustrate, draw a rectangle ABCD and its diagonal AC. Let A be Pelusium, B the intersection of the parallel of Thapsacus with the meridian of Pelusium, C Thapsacus, and D the intersection of the meridian of Thapsacus with the parallel of Pelusium. Then, according to Strabo, Hipparchus reasons that Eratosthenes' estimates for CD ( = a corresponding meridian line through Babylon) and AC make AB (=CD) greater than AC, since AB is really 7300 (4800 + 2500), whereas Eratosthenes makes AC only 6000 when it should be over 8000. But, according to Strabo, Hipparchus' 7300 is unfair for three reasons: (1) The 2500 is not granted by Eratosthenes; (2) the 4800 of Eratosthenes does not lie in a meridian line, but follows the circuitous course of the Euphrates; and (3) the limit of the 4800, Babylon, lies 2000 stadia to the east of the meridian of Thapsacus. HORACE L. JONES. CORNELL UNIVERSITY, November 25, 1916. 1 Note in the Corais-Du Theil-Letronne edition, vol. i., p. 231.