Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/220

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206
STRABO.
CAS. 137.[1]

than 3000, particularly in the vicinity of the Pyrenees, which form the eastern side. This chain of mountains stretches without interruption from north to south,[2] and divides Keltica[p 1] from Iberia. The breadth both of Keltica and Iberia is irregular, the narrowest part in both of them from the Mediterranean to the [Atlantic] Ocean being near the Pyrenees, particularly on either side of that chain; this gives rise to gulfs both on the side of the Ocean, and also of the Mediterranean; the largest of these are denominated the Keltic or Galatic Gulfs,[p 2] and they render the [Keltic] Isthmus narrower than that of Iberia.[3] The Pyrenees form the eastern side of Iberia, and the Mediterranean the southern from the Pyrenees to the Pillars of Hercules, thence the exterior [ocean][p 3] as far as the Sacred Promontory.[p 4] The third or western side runs nearly parallel to the Pyrenees from the Sacred Promontory to the promontory of the Artabri, called [Cape] Nerium.[p 5] The fourth side extends hence to the northern extremity of the Pyrenees.

4. We will now commence our detailed account, beginning from the Sacred Promontory. This is the most westem point not only of Europe, but of the whole habitable earth. For the habitable earth is bounded to the west by two continents, namely, the extremities of Europe and Libya,[p 6] which are inhabited respectively by the Iberians and the Maurusians.[p 7] But the Iberian extremity, at the promontory[p 4] we have mentioned, juts out beyond the other as much as 1500 stadia.[4] The region adjacent to this cape they call in the Latin tongue

  1. ↑ Note. The pages of Casaubon’s edition of 1620 are given to facilitate reference to various editions and translations of Strabo.
  2. ↑ The Pyrenees, on the contrary, range from east to west, with a slight inclination towards the north. This error gives occasion to several of the mistakes made by Strabo respecting the course of certain of the rivers in France.
  3. ↑ Gosselin remarks that the distance between S. Jean de Luz and Tarragona, is rather less than that between Bayonne and Narbonne.
  4. ↑ Cape St. Vincent is about 1600 stadia west of Cape Spartel in Africa. Strabo imagined that beyond this cape the African coast inclined to the south-east. In reality it advances eleven degrees and a half farther west to Cape Verd, which is 8° 29′ west of Cape St. Vincent.
  1. ↑ France.
  2. ↑ The Gulfs of Lyons and Gascony.
  3. ↑ The Atlantic.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Cape St. Vincent.
  5. ↑ Cape Finisterre.
  6. ↑ Africa.
  7. ↑ The Mauritanians.
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