Kitap 2
1.39
The next objection of Hipparchus is likewise false. He attempts to prove that Eratosthenes, in his statement that the route from Thapsacus to the Caspian Gates is 10,000 stadia, gives this as the distance taken in a straight line; such not being the case, as in that instance the distance would be much shorter. His mode of reasoning is after this fashion. He says, According to Eratosthenes, the mouth of the Nile at Canopus,Moadieh, the mouth of the river close to Aboukir. and the Cyaneae,Certain little islets at the mouth of the canal of Constantinople, in the Black Sea. These islands want about a degree and a quarter of being under the same meridian as Moadieh. are under the same meridian, which is distant from that of Thapsacus 6300 stadia. Now from the Cyaneae to Mount Caspius, which is situated close to the defileGosselin remarks, that the defile intended by Strabo, was probably the valley of the river Kur, or the ancient Cyrus, in Georgia; and by Mount Caspius we are to understand the high mountains of Georgia, whence the waters, which fall on one side into the Black Sea, and on the other into the Caspian, take their rise. leading from Colchis to the Caspian Sea, there are 6600 stadia,Gosselin also observes, that on our charts this distance is about 8100 stadia of 700 to a degree. Consequently the difference between the meridian of Thapsacus and that of Mount Caspius is as much as 4° 45′, in place of the 300 stadia, or from 25′ to 26′ supposed by Hipparchus. so that, with the exception of about 300 stadia, the distance from the meridian of the Cyaneae to that of Thapsacus, or to that of Mount Caspius, is the same: and both Thapsacus and Mount Caspius are, so to speak, under the same meridian.On the contrary, Mount Caspius is east of the meridian of Thapsacus by about 2500 stadia, of 700 to a degree. It follows from this that the Caspian Gates are about equi-distant between Thapsacus and Mount Caspius, but that the distance between them and Thapsacus is much less than the 10,000 stadia mentioned by Eratosthenes. Consequently, as the distance in a right line is much less than 10,000 stadia, this route, which he considered to be in a straight course from the Caspian Gates to Thapsacus, must have been a circumbendibus.
