Marinus of Tyre (, ''Marînos ho Týrios''; 70–130) was a

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

cartographer Cartography (; from , 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and , 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can ...

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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

, who founded mathematical geography and provided the underpinnings of

Claudius Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine, Islamic, and ...

's influential ''

Geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

''.

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 Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

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

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

. 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 Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

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 or hydrographic chart is a graphic representation of a sea region or water body and adjacent coasts or river bank, banks. Depending on the scale (map), scale of the chart, it may show depths of water (bathymetry) and heights of ...

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

latitude In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate system, geographic 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 t ...

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 lett ...

. His

zero meridian A prime meridian is an arbitrarily chosen meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. On a spheroid, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) ...

ran through the westernmost land known during his time, the Isles of the Blessed, around the location of the present-day Canary or

Cape Verde Islands Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...

. He used the parallel of

Rhodes Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separ ...

for measurements of latitude. Marinus LO-IV-178H LTVT

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 passing through the poles, the circumference is . Treating the Earth as a sphere, its circumference would be its single most important measuremen ...

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/l ...

, 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 is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of Earth. The ocean is conventionally divided into large bodies of water, which are also referred to as ''oceans'' (the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Antarctic/Southern, and ...

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 ( ; also spelled as ''Thylē'') is the most northerly location mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman literature and cartography. First written of by the Greek explorer Pytheas of Massalia (modern-day Marseille, France) in about 320 BC, i ...

(Norway) to Agisymba (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 reach ...

) and in longitude from the Isles of the Blessed (around the Canaries) to Sera (China). Marinus also coined the term

Antarctic The Antarctic (, ; commonly ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the South Pole, lying within the Antarctic Circle. It is antipodes, diametrically opposite of the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antar ...

, referring to the opposite of the

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

.

In 1935, an

impact crater An impact crater is a depression (geology), depression in the surface of a solid astronomical body formed by the hypervelocity impact event, impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal c ...

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 The Pauly encyclopedias or the Pauly-Wissowa family of encyclopedias, are a set of related encyclopedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field o ...

'' (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 70s births 130 deaths 1st-century Greek writers 2nd-century Greek writers 1st-century Romans 2nd-century Romans Ancient Greek geographers Ancient Greek cartographers Syrian geographers Ancient Roman geographers People from Tyre, Lebanon 1st-century geographers 2nd-century geographers Thule People from Roman Syria

Life

Legacy

See also

References

External links