Marinus of Tyre ( grc-gre, Μαρῖνος ὁ Τύριος, ''Marînos ho Týrios''; 70–130) was a Greek geographer, cartographer and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

, who founded

mathematical geography Geomatics is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as the "discipline concerned with the collection, distribution, storage, analysis, processing, presentation of geographic data or geographic information". Under another definition, it ...

and provided the underpinnings of

Claudius Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importa ...

's influential ''

Geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...

''.

Life

Marinus was originally from Tyre in the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions out ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

. His work was a precursor to that of the great geographer

, who used Marinus' work as a source for his ''

'' and acknowledges his great obligations to him. Ptolemy said, "Marinus says of the merchant class generally that they are only intent on their business, and have little interest in exploration, and that often through their love of boasting they magnify distances."Ptolemy, "33"
Later, Marinus was also cited by the

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

geographer al-Masʿūdī. Beyond this, little is known of his life.

Legacy

Marinus' geographical treatise is lost and known only from Ptolemy's remarks. He introduced improvements to the construction of maps and developed a system of

nautical chart A nautical chart is a graphic representation of a sea area and adjacent coastal regions. Depending on the scale of the chart, it may show depths of water and heights of land ( topographic map), natural features of the seabed, details of the co ...

s. His chief legacy is that he was the first to assign to each place a proper

latitude In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north ...

and

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek let ...

. His

zero meridian A prime meridian is an arbitrary meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) form a great ci ...

ran through the westernmost land known during his time, the

Isles of the Blessed The Fortunate Isles or Isles of the Blessed ( grc, μακάρων νῆσοι, ''makárōn nêsoi'') were semi-legendary islands in the Atlantic Ocean, variously treated as a simple geographical location and as a winterless earthly paradise inhabit ...

, around the location of the present-day

Canary Canary originally referred to the island of Gran Canaria on the west coast of Africa, and the group of surrounding islands (the Canary Islands). It may also refer to: Animals Birds * Canaries, birds in the genera '' Serinus'' and ''Crithagra'' ...

Cape Verde Islands , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...

. He used the parallel of

Rhodes Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the S ...

for measurements of latitude. Ptolemy mentions several revisions of Marinus' geographical work, which is often dated to AD 114, although this is uncertain. Marinus estimated a length of 180,000 stadia for the equator, roughly corresponding to a

circumference of the Earth Earth's circumference is the distance around Earth. Measured around the Equator, it is . Measured around the poles, the circumference is . Measurement of Earth's circumference has been important to navigation since ancient times. The first know ...

of , about 17% less than the actual value. Marinus also carefully studied the works of his predecessors and the diaries of travelers. His maps were the first in the Roman Empire to show China. He invented

equirectangular projection The equirectangular projection (also called the equidistant cylindrical projection or la carte parallélogrammatique projection), and which includes the special case of the plate carrée projection (also called the geographic projection, lat/lon ...

, which is still used in map creation today. A few of Marinus' opinions are also reported by Ptolemy. Marinus was of the opinion that the

World Ocean The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the worl ...

was separated into an eastern and a western part by the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. He thought that the inhabited world stretched in latitude from

Thule Thule ( grc-gre, Θούλη, Thoúlē; la, Thūlē) is the most northerly location mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman literature and cartography. Modern interpretations have included Orkney, Shetland, northern Scotland, the island of Saar ...

(Norway) to

Agisymba Agisymba was an unidentified country in Africa mentioned by Ptolemy in the middle of the 2nd century AD. According to Ptolemy's writings, Agisymba was found a four months' journey south of Fezzan and was characterized by large animals, such as ...

(around the

Tropic of Capricorn The Tropic of Capricorn (or the Southern Tropic) is the circle of latitude that contains the subsolar point at the December (or southern) solstice. It is thus the southernmost latitude where the Sun can be seen directly overhead. It also reac ...

) and in longitude from the

(around the Canaries) to Shera (China). Marinus also coined the term Antarctic, referring to the opposite of the Arctic Circl

In 1935, an

impact crater An impact crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact crater ...

on the Moon was named after Marinus.

References

;Attribution *A. Forbiger, ''Handbuch der alten Geographie'', vol. i. (1842); *E. H. Bunbury, ''Hist. of Ancient Geography'' (1879), ii. p. 519; *E. H. Berger, ''Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen'' (1903). *"Marinus" in '' Brill's New Pauly'' (Brill, 2010)

External links

* *https://web.archive.org/web/20080314171517/http://www.tmth.edu.gr/en/aet/3/66.html *http://www.dioi.org/gad.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:MARINUS TYRE 70 births 130 deaths Ancient Greek geographers Ancient Greek cartographers Ancient Greek writers Syrian geographers Syrian cartographers Roman-era geographers People from Tyre, Lebanon 1st-century geographers 2nd-century geographers

Life

Legacy

See also

References

External links