Note 294 — Chapter VII · 1497-1521.

“Nūc vo & he partes sunt latius lustratae & alia quarta pars per Americū Vesputiū (vt in sequentibus audietur) inuenta est quā non video cur quis iūre vetet ab Americo inuentore sagacis ingenij viro Amerigen quasi Americi terra siue Americam dicendā: cū & Europa & Asia a mulieribus sua sortita sint nomina.”

Herodotus, speaking of the designations of the other divisions of the earth, says: “Nor can I conjecture for what reason these different names have been given to the earth, which is one, and those derived from the names of women.... Nor can I learn the names of those who made this division, nor whence they derived the appellations. Libya [Africa] is said by most of the Greeks to take its name from a native woman of the name of Libya; and Asia, from the wife of Prometheus. But the Lydians claim this name, saying that Asia was called after Asius, son of Cotys, son of Manes, and not after Asia, the wife of Prometheus; from whom also a tribe of Sardis is called the Asian tribe. Whether Europe, then, is surrounded by water is known by no man, nor is it clear whence it received this name, nor who gave it, unless we will say that the region received the name from the Tyrian Europa, and that it was previously without a name like other regions, for she evidently belonged to Asia, and never came into the country which is now called Europe by the Grecians, and only passed from Phœnicia to Crete, and from Crete to Lycia.”—Herodotus: Melpomene xlv.