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Gabinius, one of the friends of Pompeius, drew up a law which gave Pompeius, not a naval command, but palpably sole dominion and power over all men without any responsibility. For the law gave him authority over the sea within the columns of Hercules and all the main land to the distance of four hundred stadia from the sea.
This piece of sculpture was preserved by some chance and was brought to Rome in accordance with a vision that Caesar saw in a dream: there it accorded those who desired to undertake the task permission to settle the city again and place the deity on her original site, only they did not acquire more than seven and one-half stadia of the territory.
He maintained that the earth is spherical, and established the terms longitude and latitude, which Eratosthenes had introduced, and computed the earth to be one hundred and eighty thousand stadia in circumference, and a degree to be five hundred stadia in length, or sixty-two and a-half Roman miles.
Though the undertaking was great and difficult, he accomplished it, and completed the work, contrary to all expectation, in a short time, by digging a ditch from sea to sea, through the neck of land, three hundred stadia in length, fifteen feet deep, and as many wide; and above the ditch he raised a rampart of surprising height and strength.
Having settled these points, they went to dinner; and after dinner Chirisophus led forward the whole army ten stadia toward the enemy, that he might appear to be fully resolved to march against them on that quarter. When they had taken their supper, and night came on, those appointed for the service went forward and got possession of the hills; the other troops rested where they were.
Thus when he found in any of his authorities that the distance between one port and another was 500 stadia, he assumed, in the first place, that this was accurate, and, in the second, that the distance between the two places was equal to a degree of latitude or longitude, as the case might be.
This was done by measuring on the ground the distance between Syene, a city exactly under the tropic, and Alexandria situated on the same meridian. The distance was found to be five thousand stadia. The meridional distance of the sun from the zenith of Alexandria, he estimated to be 7 degrees 12', or a fiftieth part of the circumference of the meridian.
Between these two suburbs the ground rose in a gentle acclivity to the summit of the ranges of hills called Epipolae. It was from the high ground of Epipolae that Syracuse was most exposed to attack. Nicias landed at Leon, a place upon the bay of Thapsus, at the distance of only six or seven stadia from Epipolae, took possession of Epipolae, and erected on the summit a fort called Labdalum.
Every man—the faintest—struggled back to his oar if he had left it—this was the last hundred stadia to Oropus, and after that the Nausicaä might do no more. Once again the keleustes piped, and his note was swift and feverish.
The circumference of the earth was conjectured, or ascertained, by Aristotle, Cleomedes, Posidonius, and Ptolemy respectively, to be 400, 300, 240, and 180 thousand stadia.
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