Note 286 — Chapter I

Antichthones alteram [zonam], nos alteram incolimus. Illius situs ob ardorem intercedentis plagae incognitus, huius dicendus est. Haec ergo ab ortu porrecta ad occasum, et quia sic iacet aliquanto quam ubi latissima est longior, ambitur omnis oceano. Mela, Chor., i. 4, 5. Because Mela says that the known world is but little longer than its width, it has been supposed that he was better informed than his contemporaries, and attributed something like its real extent to Africa. Thomassy (Les papes géographiques, Paris, 1852, p. 17) finds in his work a rival system to that of Ptolemy. The discovery of America, he thinks, was due to Ptolemy; that of the Cape of Good Hope to Mela. It was the good fortune of Mela that his work was widely read in the Middle Ages, and had great influence; but we owe him no new system of geography, since he simply adopted the oceanic theory as represented by Strabo and Crates. That he slightly changed the traditional proportion between the length and breadth of the known world is of small importance. The known world, he states, was surrounded by the ocean, and there is nothing to show that he supposed Africa to extend below the equator. In his description of Africa he applies the terms length and breadth not as we should, but with contrary usage: “Africa ab orientis parte Nilo terminata, pelago a ceteris, brevior est quidem quam Europa, quia nec usquam Asiae et non totis huius litoribus obtenditur, longior tamen ipsa quam latior, et qua ad fluvium adtingit latissima,” etc., i. 20. (Ed. Parthey, 1867.)