But To Return From This Slight Digression; - Artemidorus Has Been Already
Mentioned As A Geographer Subsequent To Agatharcides, Who Copied
Agatharcides, And From Whom Diodorus Siculus And Strabo In Their Turns
Copied.
There were two ancient writers of this name born at Ephesus; the
one to whom we have alluded, is
Supposed to have lived in the reign of
Ptolemy Lathyrus, A.C. 169; by others he is brought down to A.C. 104.
Little is known respecting him; nor does he seem to have added much to
geographical science or knowledge: he is said by Pliny to have first
applied the terms of length and breadth, or latitude and longitude. By
comparing those parts of Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, which they avowedly
copy from him, with the track of Agatharcides: in the Red Sea, we are
enabled to discover only a few additions of importance to the geographical
knowledge supplied by the former: Agatharcides, it will be remembered,
brings his account of the African side of the Red Sea no lower down than
Ptolemais: he does not even mention the expedition of Ptolemy Euergetes to
Aduli; nor the passage of the straits, though Eratosthenes, as cited by
Strabo, proves that it was open in his time. In the time of Artemidorus,
however, the trade of Egypt on the coast of Africa had reached as low down
as the Southern Horn; that this trade was still in its infancy, is apparent
from a circumstance mentioned by Strabo, on the authority of Artemidorus;
that at the straits the cargo was transferred from ships to boats; bastard
cinnamon, perhaps casia lignea or hard cinnamon, is specified as one of the
principal articles which the Egyptians obtained from the coast of Africa,
when they passed the straits of Babelmandeb.
The next person belonging to the Alexandrian school, to whom the sciences
on which geography rest, as well as geography itself, is greatly indebted,
was Hipparchus. Scarcely any particulars are known respecting him: even the
exact period in which he flourished, is not accurately fixed; some placing
him 159 years, others 149, and others again bringing him down to 129 years
before Christ. He was a native of Nice in Bithynia, but spent the greater
part of his life at the court of one of the Ptolemies. It is supposed that
he quitted his native place in consequence of some ill treatment which he
had received from his fellow citizens: at least we are informed by Aurelius
Victor, that the emperor Marcus Aurelius obliged the inhabitants of Nice to
send yearly to Rome a certain quantity of corn, for having beaten one of
their citizens, by name Hipparchus, a man of great learning and
extraordinary accomplishments. They continued to pay this tribute to the
time of Constantine, by whom it was remitted. As history does not inform us
of any other person of note of this name, a native of Nice in Bithynia, it
is highly probable that this was the Hipparchus, the astronomer and
geographer.
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