Note 271 — Chapter I

The discrepancy is variously explained. Riccioli, in his Geographia et hydrographia reformata, 1661, first suggested the more commonly received solution. Posidonius, he thought, having calculated the arc between Rhodes and Alexandria at 1-48 of the circumference, at first assumed 5,000 stadia as the distance between these places: 5,000 × 48 = 240,000. Later he adopted a revised estimate of the distance (Strabo, ii, ch. v. § 24), 3,750 stadia: 3,750 × 48 = 180,000. Letronne (Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscr. et Belles-Lettres, vi., 1822) prefers to regard both numbers as merely hypothetical illustrations of the processes. Hultsch (Griechische u. Römische Metrologie, 1882, p. 63) follows Fréret and Gosselin in regarding both numbers as expressing the same value in stadia of different length (Forbiger, Handbuch der alten Geographie, i. 360, n. 29). The last explanation is barred by the positive statement of Strabo, who can hardly be thought not to have known what he was talking about: κἄν τῶν νεωτέρων δὲ ἀναμετρήσεων εἰσάγηται ἡ ἐλαχίστην ποιόυσα τὴν γῆν, οἵαν ὁ Ποσειδώνιος ἐγκρίνει περὶ ὀκτωκαίδεκα μυριάδας οὖσαν, (Geogr., ii. 2, § 2.)