Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest
Roman geographer
;Pre-Hellenistic Classical Greece
* Homer
*Anaximander
*Hecataeus of Miletus
*Massaliote Periplus
*Scylax of Caryanda (6th century BC)
* Herodotus
;Hellenistic period
*Pytheas (died c. 310 BC)
*'' Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax'' (3rd or 4th century ...
. He was born in
Tingentera (now
Algeciras) and died AD 45.
His short work (''De situ orbis libri III.'') remained in use nearly to the year 1500. It occupies less than one hundred pages of ordinary print, and is described by the ''
Encyclopædia Britannica
The ( Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various ...
'' (1911) as "dry in style and deficient in method, but of pure
Latinity, and occasionally relieved by pleasing word-pictures."
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
Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later pe ...
.
Biography
Little is known of the author except his name and birthplace—the small town of Tingentera or Cingentera in southern
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' ( Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, ...
, 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
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
'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 Marcus, Markus, Márkus or Mărcuș may refer to:
* Marcus (name), a masculine given name
* Marcus (praenomen), a Roman personal name
Places
* Marcus, a main belt asteroid, also known as (369088) Marcus 2008 GG44
* Mărcuş, a village in Dobârl ...
, who was the son of
Seneca the Elder
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Elder (; c. 54 BC – c. 39 AD), also known as Seneca the Rhetorician, was a Roman writer, born of a wealthy equestrian family of Corduba, Hispania. He wrote a collection of reminiscences about the Roman schools of rhe ...
and father of
Lucan.
Geographical knowledge
The general views of the ''De situ orbis'' mainly agree with those current among
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
writers from
Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (; grc-gre, Ἐρατοσθένης ; – ) was a Greek polymath: a mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. He was a man of learning, becoming the chief librarian at the Library of Alexand ...
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
Antichthones, in geography, are those peoples who inhabit the antipodes, regions on opposite sides of the Earth. The word is compounded of the Greek ''ὰντὶ'' ("opposed") and ''χθών'' ("earth").
Classical and Medieval Europe considere ...
, 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
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...
,
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...
and
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, he repeats Eratosthenes; like all classical geographers from
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...
(except
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 import ...
) he regards the
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the List of lakes by area, world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad s ...
as an inlet of the Northern Ocean, corresponding to the Persian and Arabian (
Red Sea
The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...
) gulfs on the south.
His
India
India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...
n 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
In Greco-Roman geography, the Riphean Mountains (also Riphaean; , or ; '' grc, Ῥιπαῖα ὄρη''; Latin: ''Rhipaei'' or ''Riphaei montes'') were a supposed mountain range located in the far north of Eurasia. The name of the mountains is ...
and the
Hyperboreans near the
Scythia
Scythia ( Scythian: ; Old Persian: ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) or Scythica (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ), also known as Pontic Scythia, was a kingdom created by the Scythians during the 6th to 3rd centuries BC in the Pontic–Caspian steppe.
...
n 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
Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only durin ...
and its indentation by the
Bay of Biscay more accurately than Eratosthenes or Strabo, his ideas of the
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles (O ...
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
The Codanus sinus is the Latin name of the Baltic Sea and Kattegat.
According to Pomponius Mela (3.31, 3.54) and Pliny the Elder (4.96), it is an "enormous bay" lying beyond the Elbe". It has "many small islands", the largest one being Scandinav ...
") to the north of Germany, among whose many islands was one, "Codanovia", of pre-eminent size; this name reappears in
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ...
's work as ''Scatinavia''. ''Codanovia'' and ''Scatinavia'' were both Latin renderings of the
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bran ...
*''Skaðinawio'', the Germanic name for
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Swe ...
.
Descriptive method
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
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on th ...
; then he moves round by
Syria and
Asia Minor
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...
to the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, ...
, 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
The littoral zone or nearshore is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely inundated), to coastal areas ...
—to west, north, east and south successively—from Spain and Gaul round to India, from India to
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkme ...
,
Arabia
The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. ...
and
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the Er ...
; and so again works back to Spain. Like most classical geographers he conceives of the continent of Africa as surrounded by sea and not extending very far south.
Editions
The ''
editio princeps'' of Mela was published at
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4  ...
in 1471; the first critical edition was by
Joachim Vadian (Wien, 1518), superseded by those of
Johann Heinrich Voss (1658),
Johann Friedrich Gronovius
Johann Friedrich Gronovius (the Latinized form of Gronow; 8 September 1611 – 28 December 1671) was a German classical scholar, librarian and critic.
Born in Hamburg, he studied at several universities and travelled in England, France and ...
(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).]
A recent English translation is that of F. E. Romer, originally published in 1998.
List
*
References
J. Wight Duff characterizes this as "a serious confusion between Annaeus Mela, who was Seneca's brother, and Pomponius Mela, the geographer."
Sources
*
Editions in the original Latinin the
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music ...
*Book
Ian
in Latin, digitised at ''The Latin Library''
;Attribution
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pomponius Mela
45 deaths
Roman-era geographers
1st-century Romans
Romans from Hispania
Year of birth unknown
1st-century geographers
Silver Age Latin writers