Note 267 — Chapter I
Reading edition
The logical basis of Eratosthenes’s work was sound, but the result was vitiated by errors of fact in his assumptions, which, however, to some extent counterbalanced one another. The majority of ancient writers who treat of the matter give 252,000 stadia as the result, but Cleomedes (Circ. doctr. de subl., i. 10) gives 250,000. It is surmised that the former number originated in a desire to assign in round numbers 700 stadia to a degree. Forbiger, Handbuch der alten Geographie, i. 180, n. 27.