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 « SingaporeCHAPTER
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), 038-3814 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 of16 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 Names18 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 theza 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 theEEEEEEIE'”-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