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    ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS A History of Geographical Ideas (Second Edition) Preston E. James an | Geoffrey J. Martin maps and illustrations by Eileen W. James The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. JOHN WILEY & SONS _ New York + Chichester + Brisbane + Toronto « Singapore CHAPTER The Beginnings of , Classical Geography The fundamental concepts and basic elements used by the Psihagoreans in their theory are ‘odd i comparison 10 those used by the phssicists, since they are not observable; they are arithmetical entities which (except inthe case of astronomy) are not a part of our changing world. Despite this, the Prthagoreans are infact interested onlin natural phenomena. They talk about how the universe was created, and alas check their theories against observation when discussing the behavior an interactions of objects in the universe, wzing their particu lar set of fundamentals solely for theoreical purpases wo account for physical realiey. Thus in essence they are just like the other natural philasophers. since they agree thar the only real things are those that can be perceived with the senses and are part ofthis world of ours. Their modes of explanation and their fundamental concepts, however, give them direct access ta realms which transcend the senses, and to which their way of thinking is really more adapted than to physics. For example, they give no hint how motion and change can possibly be deduced from the only wnderising concepts thes astune.in their theory’—from boundedness ‘and unboundedness, or evenness and oddness. Nor do they indicate, since they do not Drovide for morion and change in their theories, how any phsical process can take place— ‘and in particular how the heavenly badies can move inthe way they do. Geography as a field of learning in the Westem world had its beginnings among the scholars of ancient Greece. Not that the study of the earth as the home of man did not excite curiosity outside of Greece, although this is an impression that ‘The quoation above is hom Arisa’ Metaphysics, Book vans... Gersherson and D. A Green: berg ew York Bisel, 1963), 038-38 14 CLASSICAL can be gained by reading many of the histories of geography written by Europeans. It's clear that much attention was given to geographical study in ancient China, and Chinese explorers did as much to “discover” Europe as the Europeans did to reach the ‘Far East."" But Chinese scholarship did not form a major part of the stream of ‘Western thought. The Greeks, like all innovative people, were great borrowers; and much of what they put together in logical and useful order came originally from the much older civilizations with which they were in contact, including Egypt, Sumeria, Babylonia, Assyria, and Phoenicia. The Greek scholars provided a framework of concepts and a model, or paradigm, of scholarly method that guided Western thinking for many centuries. Some of the Greek concepts had the effect of retarding Wester scholarship so that it can be said that European science could not emerge until the influence of Aristotle had been overcome. But many of the bi procedures of scholarship still in use were first developed by the Greeks. ‘THE ROOTS OF GREEK SCHOLARSHIP ‘The Greeks were indebted-to the world’s earliest scholars in many ways. Egypt hhas been called the cradle of science because of the very carly development of ‘methods of observation, measurement, and generalization in that country. The egyptian priests had to have a sound working knowledge of mathemativs, as- ‘onomy, and geometry for the practical purposes of public administration. They developed ways to measure land areas and to identify field boundaries obliterated by the Nile floods so that they could collect taxes. They learned how to fix a north- south line so that their monuments and public buildings could be properly oriented. ‘They invented the art of writing, and they found out how to manufacture something, ‘on which to write—papyrus, made from reeds that grew in the marshy Nile Delta ‘The civilization of Mesopotamia also contributed to scholarship. The world’s earliest mathematicians, who lived in Sumeria, had grasped the basic principles of algebra—although the algebraic symbols we use were not invented until the six- teenth century, some 3000 years later. Without symbols of the kind we use, the ‘Sumerians understood and used such principles as: (a+ by =a? + 2ab +O They aso had enough knowledge of algebraic methods tobe ale to find the square root of any number. “The people of Egypt and Mesopotamia also developed a kind of mathematis based on multiples of six and sixty—a sexagesimal system. Both Egyptians and ‘Sumerians at first believed that there were 360 days in a year. The Egyptians discovered their eror and compensated for it by declaring a 5-day holiday period each year. They made additional adjustments every founh year. The Sumerians divided the year nto twelve months each with 30 days. They aso divided the cirle THE BEGINNINGS OF CLASSICAL GEOGRAPHY 15 of the zodiac into 360 parts. The idea that there are 360 degrees in a circle is a very ancient one. The priests of these early civilizations also collected a large number of observa- tions regarding the position and movement of celestial bodies. The Babylonians and Assyrians, seeking the meaning of all these observations, developed ideas regarding, the influence of the moon and the stars on human affairs—a body of concepts that we call astrology. ‘The Phoenicians, whose homeland was in modern Lebanon, were among the earliest merchant explorers and navigators. Their voyages went far beyond the limits of the known world. but as merchants they were not anxious to report on what they had found. In a valley near modern Beirut there is an ore body in which copper and tin are naturally combined. The Phoenicians made and sold bronze. But al- though copper was plentiful in the Mediterranean region, tin was scarce. The Phoenicians made regular voyages to the Scilly Islands off Great Britain to find tin, ‘They also sold cedar logs from the mountains of Lebanon. One of the oldest known, pieces of writing is a bill of lading describing the cargo of cedar logs carried by forty ships that sailed from the Phoenician port of Byblos for Egypt some 3000 years before Christ (Casson, 1959:5). The Phoenicians established trading. posts all around the shores of the Mediterranean, including the city of Carthage (near pres- centday Tunis) (Boyce, 1977). ‘The Phoenicians, too, developed the world’s first phonetic alphabet. It was made up entirely of consonants, like the modem Semitic alphabet. The Greeks added the short vowels to the Phoenician alphabet. GREEK GEOGRAPHY Homer ‘The Greek geographers credited Homer with being the father of geography, This poet, whose existence is not known for certain. was the composer ofthe long Epic poem, the iad, which describes episodes ofthe Trajan War sometins te tween 1280 and 1180 a.c. This monumental poem, which is the earliest major literary work of Greek history, ss probably put together during the ninth centny Bsc. A second great epic poem, the Odyssey, was writen perhaps a8 much aa century later, bt is also credited to a man named Homer (ut peraps noth same Homer). Whereas the liad is primary historical, the Odisiey is geographic account of the fringes ofthe known world. It records the efforts of Odpeeus to retum home to ithaca afer the fall of Troy. Blo of eourse bys orm, he spends Iweny years wandering in distant places, Many historians of teosraphy have at tempted to identify the places described inthe Odssey and offer plausible evidence to suggest tat the poet was indeed describing the Strait ot Messina, or an island of 16 CLASSICAL the coast of Africa, or other well-known localities. There is one passage describing land of almost continuous sunshine, where a shepherd setting out with his flock daybreak hails another shepherd returning with his flock in the evening. Then, later, (Odysseus comes to a land of continuous darkness, shrouded in mist. A Greek poct could not have imagined these scenes. Somehow word of the nature of the world in the far north during the long summer days and the continuous winter darkness had filtered back to Greece, to be woven with other geographical threads into the world’s first adventure story ‘The Greek sailors of the eighth century a,c. had no way of identifying direc- tions at sea except by reference to the winds and associated weather types. In Homer's time they distinguished four directions: Boreas was the north wind— strong, cool, with clear skies; Eurus was the east wind—warm and gentle; Norus ‘was the south wind on the front of an advancing storm—wet and sometimes violent; and Zephyrus was the west wind—balmy but with gale force (Bunbrey, 1883:1:36). ‘Much later, in the second century 9.c., the Athenians built a tower identifying eight wind directions (Schamp, 1955-56) with sculpture illustrating the weather types associated with each. The tower still stands in the midst of a Roman market at the base of the Acropolis (Fig. 1). ‘The names, Europe and Asia, do not appear in Homer as the lames of land masses. But at some later time the name, Europe, was applied to the shore of the ‘Aegean Sea toward the setting sun, and Asia was applied to the shore toward the rising sun. The origin of these names is not certain (Bunbury, 1883:1:38; Tozer, 1897/1964:69; Ninck, 1945:15-23). Thales, Anaximander, Hecataeus ‘One of the earliest centers of Greek learning was the town of Miletus in Tonia ‘on the eastem side ofthe Aegean Sea near the mouth ofthe Meander River (now the Menderes). Miletus became a major center of commerce and attracted Phoenician and Greek ships from all around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The sailors and merchants brought to Miletus a wealth of information concerning what things were like beyond the margins of Greek horizons: information about Europe north of the Black Sea, or about strange countries in Asia tothe east, or about what could be found to the south of Egypt. Between 770 and 570 p.c. Miletus established some eighty Greek colonies around thé shores of the Euxine (Black Sea) and along the Mediterranean shores tothe west. In Miletus at this time there was not only a flow ‘of geographical information, but there was also a group of thoughtful people to speculate about how allthis miscellaneous information could be assembled in some kind of meaningful arrangement. To Miletus also came reports on Egyptian geometry, Sumerian algebra, and Assyrian astronomy. “The first ofthe Greek scholars to be coneemed about the measurement and the location of things on the face ofthe earth was Thales, who lived in the seventh and THE BEGINNINGS OF CLASSICAL GEOGRAPHY 7 Figure 1. Tower of the winds, sixth centuries 8..! Thales was a practical businessman who at one time was able 10 comer the supply of olive oil to make a large profit for himself. But he was also a genius, who is credited with a great variety of innovations and is often likened to Benjamin Franklin inthe breadth of his contributions and the fertility of his imagina- tion, On a trip to Egypt Thales observed the priests at work measuring angles and base lines and computing areas. Thales returned to Miletus with his head full of ‘mathematical and geometrical regularities that went far beyond the practical utility of trigonometry. There are six geometric propositions credited to him: (1) The circle is divided into two equal parts by its diameter. (2) The angles at either end of the base of an isosceles triangle are equal. (3) When two parallel lines are crossed diagonally by a straight line, the opposite angles are equal. (4) The angle in a "Additional biographical data on persons mentioned in he ext canbe found inthe Index of Names 18 CLASSICAL semicircle is a right angle. (5) The sides of similar triangles are proportional. (6) ‘Two triangles are congruent if they have two angles and a side respectively equal (Sarton, 1952/1964:171). In the sixth century B.C. no one had ever stated these as ‘general propositions before; but the most important contribution of Thales was his recognition that the solution of practical problems of measurement was less of an intellectual accomplishment than the rational generalization of the specific so- lutions, ‘Thales also made contributions in astronomy and reported on the magnetism of the lodestone. He speculated about the meaning of this fascinating universe and concluded that the material was made up of water in various forms. The earth he visualized as a dise floating in water. He was trying to offer an explanation of the universe in terms that could be checked by new observation, in sharp contrast to the traditional explanations in terms of manlike deities or astrological influences. 'A younger contemporary of Thales in Miletus was Anaximander. He is cred- ited with the introduction into the Greek world of a Babylonian instrument known as the gnomon (see also Heidel, 1937:57-58). This is simply @ pole set vertically above @ flat surface on which the varying position of the sun could be measured by the length and direction of the shadow cast by the vertical pole. This is what we call today a sundial. From the gnomon it was possible to make a variety of observations. Noon could be established by noting when the shadow was shortest; the nvon shadow provided an exact north-south line, or meridian (from merides, meaning noon). The noon shadow varied from season to season, being shortest at the summer solstice and longest at the winter solstice. By observing the direction of the shadow at sunrise and sunset, it was possible to establish the time of the equinox, for at that time the sunrise and sunset shadows were colinear, but opposite ‘Anaximander is reported by later Greek historians to have been the first ever to draw a map of the world to scale. To be sure, the Sumerians had drawn pictorial “maps” of some of their cities as early as 2700 p.c.; but a true map must show distance and directions to scale. Anaximander's map had Greece in the center and the other parts of Europe and Asia known to the Greeks were plotted around it. The map was circular and was bounded all the way around by the ocean. A copy of the map was supposed to have been cast in bronze and transported to Sparta in the effort to convince the Spartans that they should join in the war against the Persians. But the Spartans said the map proved that Persia was too far away to worry about ‘The scholars who were seeking to explain their observations of the face of the cearth and of the relative positions of the celestial bodies found difficulty in under- standing how the sun could set in the west and yet get back to the east by the next morning. If the earth were a disc floating in water, how could the sun go under the ‘water? Anaximander suggested that somewhere to the north there must be some very high mountains behind which the sun made the trip back again to the east, The shadow cast by these mountains would account for the night. ‘Anaximander was also one of the earliest philosophers to provide us with an ‘THE BEGINNINGS OF CLASSICAL GEOGRAPHY 19 ‘example of how a word can be used to symbolize something that is not known and not observed. He did not actually reject the idea of Thales that water was the prime substance from which all observable features of the earth were made. But he used the word, apeiron, to symbolize this prime substance. Apeiron, which could not be experienced through the senses, nevertheless became a concept—a specific mental image that by the process of deduction could become a real substance. This thought process is possible for man because he uses words to symbolize abstractions; and it js still with him in the twentieth century, providing a semantic trap for the unwary who confuse observable reality with the reality of word symbols. ‘Thales and Anaximander can be recognized as the originators of the mathemat- ‘cal tradition in the study of geography. To Hecataeus goes the credit of originating the literary tradition. Hecataeus, who was born at about the time of the deaths of ‘Thales and Anaximander and who died about 475 x.c., was the first to collect and classify the information brought to Miletus not only from the known world of the Greeks but also from the shadowy world beyond te Greek horizons. He was the first writer of Greek prose. One of the two prose works credited to him is the Ges periodos, or Description of the Earth, only fragments of which survive. But one fragment contains a kind of subtitle in which there is the first record of a “new geography.”* He says that he has written these things in his book because he Lelieves they aie tue. “The narrations of the Greeks awe maity aud in ny opin foolish."” He set the tone for writers of geography—that is, “new geography"’— ‘which has persisted for some 2500 years. Hecataeus divided his work into two parts, teach dealing with one of the regional divisions of the earth. One book dealt with Europe, the other with the rest of the world—Asia and Libya. He followed what was apparently already tradition in separating Europe from Asia along the Hellespont, the Euxine, the Caucasus Mountains, and the Caspian Sea, which he thought was connected with the surrounding ocean (Fig. 2) Hecataeus was not a theorist. His reaction to the speculations of his predeces- sors is similar to the reactions of countless generations to follow. He felt that discussions of whether water or apeiron should be accepted as the prime substance ‘or whether there even was such a prime substance were futile. Before trying to solve the enigma of the universe, he insisted, we should. take stock of what is around us and put the accumulated knowledge about the world together in usable form. The contrast in the approaches of these scholars of Miletus more than twenty-four centuries ago illustrates the apparent dichotomy between those who seek to formu- late generalizations and those who seek to describe unique things. In modern times thesé two points of view are described as nomotheric, meaning law seeking, and idiographic, meaning descriptive of particular things. Down through the ages since Hecataeus there have been scholars who insist that geographical study must adopt fone or the other approach; only rarely do we find anyone to proclaim that geo- graphic study must—and, in fact, does—make use of both approaches and that the dichotomy exists only because of the word symbols we use. According to Ptolemy ctalwus Figure 2. The world accorsing to Ptolemy: according to Hecataeus; and according lo Eratos- ‘hones, 20 ‘THE BEGINNINGS OF CLASSICAL GEOGRAPHY 21 Herodotus ‘A century later the ideas of Hecataeus were ridiculed by another great scholar named Herodotus. His great work, which was written while he was residing in Italy, is a history of the Greek struggle with the barbarians and ends with the revolt of the Tonians against the Persians and with the Greek capture of the Hellespont (480-479 8.C.). But his history includes numerous digressions to describe the places he had Visited and the people whose customs he had otserved and recorded. In the fifth century 8.C. no one was coneemed to identify himself as a member of a separate profession. There were no historians, or geographers, of astronomers, and no pro- fessional societies to join. There were no academic departments. Herodotus is usually described as the first great historian, and his work was the first masterpiece ‘of Greek prose. But Herodotus is identified as an historian chiefly because there are more historians than there are geographers, fora very large part of his work is easily identified as geography. In fact, Herodotus is credited with the very old idea that all history must be treated geographically and all geography must be treated histori cally. Is true that the notion of geography as “the handmaiden of history” came from Herodotus. Geography provides the physical background, the stage setting, in relation to which historical events take on meaning. Herodotus provides some excellent examples of what we would call today historical geography—that i, the 1o-creation of past geographies and the tracing of geographical change through time. But Herodotus is also identified as “the father ofethnography"” because of his vivid portrayal of the culture traits of people strange to the Greeks ‘The contributions of Herodotus to geography were based on his own personal ‘observations during many years of travel. Westward he knew the Mediterranean shores as far as southern Italy, where he resided during the later part of his life. He ‘went through the straits into the Euxine (Black Sea), reaching the mouth of the Ister (Danube) and traveling for several days northward across the Russian steppes along the valley of the Don. He went eastward over much of the teritory of the Persian Empire, visiting Susa and Babylon. Toward the south he visited Egypt many times and went up the Nile as far as the fist cataract near Elephantine (Aswan), In his discussion of Egypt he takes issue with the tradition of dividing Asia (the caster side of the Mediterranean) from Libya (the southern side) along the Nile River, as Hecatacus had done. The Nile Valley, he insists, has been built by mud brought down from Ethiopia. This mud is dark colored and easily worked withthe plow—quite unlike the light-colored clays of Syria or the red sands of Libya. He insists that Egypt is occupied by Egyptians and that they ae not divided into Asians and Libyans along the river. Libya, he says, begins tothe west of Egypt. This is one ofthe earliest discussions of regional boundaries and contains riany of the argu ‘ments used over and over again by later generations. Herodotus was well aware of some of the physical processes at work on the earth, He used the methods of historical geography to support the hypothesis that the Nile mud, deposited in the Mediterranean, had built the delta. He reconstructed the za CLASSICAL ancient shoreline and showed that many former seaports were now far inland. The process of delta building, said Herodotus, can be observed in many places—notably in the alluvial plain of the Meander River at Miletus. He also pointed out that the wind blows from cold places to places that are warmer. In the fifth century 8. it was a significant accomplishment to explain how deltas are formed or to grasp the connection between temperatures and wind directions. Not all the explanations suggested by Herodotus can be supported in the light ‘of modem knowledge, but even where he was in error he supported his hypotheses with logic. Like all Greek geographers Herodotus was fascinated with the regularity of the summer floods of the Nile. In this river the water would rise suddenly in mid-May, reach its highest flood stage in September, and then decrease in volume, reaching its lowest stage in April or early May. Since all other rivers known to the Greeks, including the Tigris and the Euphrates, flooded from November to May and reached their lowest stages in summer, students of geography were faced with a challenging problem: What caused this distinctive characteristic of the Nile? First Herodotus reviewed the explanations offered by other puzzled scholars and refuted them. For example, he rejected the idea that the strong north wind of, ‘winter (the Etesian Wind) blowing up the Nile caused the water to back up because floods and low water come whether the wind is blowing or not and no such effect can be observed in other rivers up which the wind is blowing. He sgjected the suggestion that the Nile floods are caused by melting snow in Ethiopia, because Ethiopia is closer to the equator than Egypt. Egypt never has any snow, so how could there be snow in Ethiopia? His own hypothesis was ingenious and illuminates the use of logic in Greek thinking. Like all the Greek scholars, Herodotus accepted as a fundamental princi- ple that the world must be arranged symmetrically. The Ister (Danube), he believed, had its headwaters close to the westem coast of Europe and flowed eastward before tuming southward through the Euxine, the Hellespont, and the Aegean to reach the Mediterranean, The Nile, in accordance with the principle of symmetry, must follow a similar course, rising close to the western coast of what was then called Libya and flowing eastward before turning toward the Mediterranean to flow north- ward through. Egypt. In winter, he continued, the cold north winds make the sun move along a more southerly course, passing directly along the valley of the upper Nile. The intense heat under the overhead sun draws up the river water, leaving the river with greatly decreased volume in winter. But during the summer, when the sun ‘etums to its course “through the middle of the heavens,”” the volume of water rises ‘again because the lower Nile crosses the sun’s path at right angles and much less of its water is evaporated. Since this explanation was in agreement with both concepts (symmetry) and direct observations (time of flooding), it was generally accepted by scholars, Herodotus also took exception with earlier writers who raised doubts about the existence of an ocean all around the margins of the world, Some had reported that THE BEGINNINGS OF CLASSICAL GEOGRAPHY Alexander's Travels Pytheas' Voyages ~ Voyage of Hanno Figure 3. Greek Exploration 470-210 ne. there was no ocean to the south of Libya. But Herodotus, in talking with the Egyptian priests, had leamed of a Phoenician expedition sent out by King Neche (who ruled Egypt from 610 to 594 B.c.) to sail around the southern end of Libya ‘The Phoenician ships, it was reported, sailed southward from the Red Sea along the EEEEEEIE'”-CC——— ee 24 CLASSICAL east coast of the continent. They replenished their food supply by stopping from time to time to plant grain and remaining long enough to harvest the crop. It took three years to sail around the southemm end of Libya; then northward along the ‘westem side; and, finally, to reenter the Mediterranean through the Pillars of Her- cules (Gibraltar). This expedition proved that the land is entirely surrounded by water. Then he reported a circumstance that to him “appears incredible, but others may believe,"" that while the expedition was near the southernmost part of Libya sailing toward the west, the sun was on their right hand, This observation led many Scholars after Herodotus to discount the story of the circumnavigation of Libya. The of the Phoenician expedition is now generally accepted, and the circumstance that caused ancient scholars to doubt the story leads modern scholars to find the account plausible. There is also the possibility that some of the Phoenician ships, being caught in the west-flowing equatorial current south of the equator in the Atlantic Ocean, were cartied across the relatively narrow ocean to the northeast of Brazil One difficulty with the interpretation of these ancient writings involves the things that are omitted. Considering the wealth of detail Herodotus provides con- cceming some places and some events, it is remarkable that he made no mention of another Phoenician voyage. This was the expedition led by Hanno about 470 8.c. ‘The expedition was sent out by Carthage to establish trading pusts and colonies ‘along the Atlantic coast of Libya south ofthe Pillars of Hercules. Hanno’s descrip- tions of the things he saw are detailed enough so that the voyage can be charted with confidence. After passing through the strait, he tumed southward (Fig. 3). Near the present port of Safi in Morocco he passed a lagoon where elephants were feeding Farther south on an island in the bay of Rio de Oro on which Villa Cisneros is now located, he established a base that he named Ceme. This remained a Phoenician trading post for many years. From Ceme, Hanno led two expeditions farther to the south. On the second of the two voyages he reached Sherbro Island, south of the present site of Freetown in Sierra Leone, almost seven degrees from the equator. Here the explorers came upon "wild men and women with hairy bodies,”” who they ‘were told, were called gorillas. They were unable to catch any of the men, but they

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