Pomponius Mela - Wikipedia Pomponius Mela From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search 1st century AD Roman geographer Reconstruction of Pomponius Mela's world map by Konrad Miller (1898). Pomponius Mela's description of Europe (F. Nansen, 1911) Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest Roman geographer. He was born in Tingentera (now Algeciras) and died c. AD 45.[1] His short work (De situ orbis libri III.) remained in use nearly to the year 1500.[2] It occupies less than one hundred pages of ordinary print, and is described by the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) as "dry in style and deficient in method, but of pure Latinity, and occasionally relieved by pleasing word-pictures."[3] Except for the geographical parts of Pliny's Historia naturalis (where Mela is cited as an important authority), the De situ orbis is the only formal treatise on the subject in Classical Latin. Contents 1 Biography 2 Geographical knowledge 2.1 Descriptive method 3 Editions 4 References 5 Sources Biography[edit] Little is known of the author except his name and birthplace—the small town of Tingentera or Cingentera in southern Spain, on Algeciras Bay (Mela ii. 6, § 96; but the text is here corrupt). The date of his writing may be approximately fixed by his allusion (iii. 6 § 49) to a proposed British expedition of the reigning emperor, almost certainly that of Claudius in AD 43. That this passage cannot refer to Julius Caesar is evidenced by several references to events of Augustus's reign; especially to certain new names given to Spanish towns. It has been conjectured that Pomponius Mela may have been related in some way to Marcus Annaeus Mela, who was the son of Seneca the Elder and father of Lucan.[4][5][6] Geographical knowledge[edit] The general views of the De situ orbis mainly agree with those current among Greek writers from Eratosthenes to Strabo; the latter was probably unknown to Mela. But Pomponius is unique among ancient geographers in that, after dividing the Earth into five zones, of which two only were habitable, he asserts the existence of antichthones, inhabiting the southern temperate zone inaccessible to the folk of the northern temperate regions from the unbearable heat of the intervening torrid belt. On the divisions and boundaries of Europe, Asia and Africa, he repeats Eratosthenes; like all classical geographers from Alexander the Great (except Ptolemy) he regards the Caspian Sea as an inlet of the Northern Ocean, corresponding to the Persian and Arabian (Red Sea) gulfs on the south. The shores of Codanus sinus (southwestern Baltic Sea) in red with its many islands in green. His Indian conceptions are inferior to those of some earlier Greek writers; he follows Eratosthenes in supposing that country to occupy the south-eastern angle of Asia, whence the coast trended northwards to Scythia, and then swept round westward to the Caspian Sea. As usual, he places the Rhipaean Mountains and the Hyperboreans near the Scythian Ocean. In western Europe his knowledge (as was natural in a Spanish subject of Imperial Rome) was somewhat in advance of the Greek geographers. He defines the western coast-line of Spain and Gaul and its indentation by the Bay of Biscay more accurately than Eratosthenes or Strabo, his ideas of the British Isles and their position are also clearer than his predecessors. He is the first to name the Orcades or Orkney Islands, which he defines and locates pretty correctly. Of northern Europe his knowledge was imperfect, but he speaks of a great bay ("Codanus sinus") to the north of Germany, among whose many islands was one, "Codanovia", of pre-eminent size; this name reappears in Pliny the Elder's work as Scatinavia. Codanovia and Scatinavia were both Latin renderings of the Proto-Germanic *Skaðinawio, the Germanic name for Scandinavia.[citation needed] Descriptive method[edit] Mela's descriptive method follows ocean coasts, in the manner of a periplus, probably because it was derived from the accounts of navigators. He begins at the Straits of Gibraltar, and describes the countries adjoining the south coast of the Mediterranean; then he moves round by Syria and Asia Minor to the Black Sea, and so returns to Spain along the north shore of the Euxine, Propontis, etc. After treating the Mediterranean islands, he next takes the ocean littoral—to west, north, east and south successively—from Spain and Gaul round to India, from India to Persia, Arabia and Ethiopia; and so again works back to Spain round South Africa. Like most classical geographers he conceives of the continent as surrounded by sea and not extending very far south. Editions[edit] Cover of a 1518 edition The editio princeps of Mela was published at Milan in 1471; the first critical edition was by Vadianus (Basel, 1522), superseded by those of Johann Heinrich Voss (1658), Johann Friedrich Gronovius (1685 and 1696), A. Gronovius (1722 and 1728), and Tzschucke (1806–1807), in seven parts (Leipzig; the most elaborate of all); G. Paithey's (Berlin, 1867) for its text. The English translation by Arthur Golding (1585) was celebrated; see also Edward Bunbury, Ancient Geography, ii. 352–368, and D. Detlefsen, Quellen und Forschungen zur alten Gesch. und Geog. (1908).[3] A recent English translation is that of F. E. Romer, originally published in 1998. References[edit] ^ Tegg, Thomas (1824). Chronology, or The historian's companion (3rd ed.). London: Thomas Tegg. p. 284. ^ Kish, George (1978). A Source Book in Geography. Harvard University Press. p. 128. ISBN 9780674822702. Retrieved 6 May 2018. ^ a b  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Mela, Pomponius". Encyclopædia Britannica. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. ^ Walter C. A. Ker (1919). Martial's Epigrams. London: William Heinemann. [By 'Seneca's house illustrious for its triple names'] M. means Seneca, the philosopher and tutor of Nero, his brother Gallio, and Annaeus Pomponius Mela, the writer on geography. J. Wight Duff characterizes this as "a serious confusion between Annaeus Mela, who was Seneca's brother, and Pomponius Mela, the geographer." ^ J. Wight Duff (November–December 1920). "Martial: Epigrams (review)". The Classical Review. London: John Murray. 34 (7–8): 177. ^ Romer 1998, "Introduction", p. 4. Sources[edit] Romer, Frank E. (1998). Pomponius Mela's Description of the World. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 9780472084524. Attribution  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Mela, Pomponius". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. Authority control BIBSYS: 95003437 BNE: XX821711 BNF: cb121174358 (data) CANTIC: a12270301 CiNii: DA0322341X GND: 118783025 ISNI: 0000 0000 7973 2132 LCCN: n80139084 NKC: jn19981001843 NSK: 000233712 NTA: 070032963 SELIBR: 258152 SNAC: w6q340mz SUDOC: 029578019 Trove: 1088255 VcBA: 495/30348 VIAF: 34489209 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n80139084 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pomponius_Mela&oldid=995115858" Categories: 45 deaths Roman-era geographers 1st-century Romans Romans from Hispania Hidden categories: Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from September 2011 Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NSK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with VcBA identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Year of birth unknown Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikisource Languages Azərbaycanca Български Brezhoneg Català Čeština Dansk Deutsch Eesti Español Esperanto Euskara فارسی Français Furlan Galego Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית Latina Lietuvių Magyar Bahasa Melayu Nederlands Norsk bokmål Polski Português Русский Shqip Slovenčina Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Svenska Türkçe Українська Edit links This page was last edited on 19 December 2020, at 08:56 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Mobile view Developers Statistics Cookie statement