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XXXVII. They were now about twenty stadia from Minturnæ, an Italian city, when they saw at a distance a troop of horse riding towards them, and as it chanced two merchant vessels sailing along the coast. Running down to the sea as fast as they could and as their strength would allow, and throwing themselves into the water, they swam to the vessels.
And now there was the experiment of Eratosthenes to give the length of that radius in precise terms. In other words, Hipparchus might have measured the distance of the sun in stadia. But if he had made the attempt and, indeed, it is more than likely that he did so the elements of error in his measurements would still have kept him wide of the true figures.
The Germans were completely routed and pursued to the Rhenus a distance of four hundred stadia, and the whole of this space was strewed with dead bodies and arms. Ariovistus with a few escaped across the river. The dead are said to have been eighty thousand in number.
In reckoning the extent of the habitable portion from east to west, Eratosthenes came to the conclusion that from the Straits of Gibraltar to the east of India was about 80,000 stadia, or, roughly speaking, one-third of the earth's surface.
"The arrows of the Parthians have not reached my body, but a dart of Amor has struck me unexpectedly, a few stadia from a gate of this city." "By the white knees of the Graces! thou wilt tell me of this at a leisure hour." "I have come purposely to get thy advice," answered Marcus. But at that moment the epilatores came, and occupied themselves with Petronius.
By observations made at Alexandria, he ascertained its latitude compared with that of Syene; and so ascertained what proportion to the whole circumference was borne by the 5000 stadia between Alexandria and Syene.
Two stadia, one stadium, half a stadium, a ship’s length, the triremes were charging prow to prow, rushing on a common death, when Ameinias clapped a whistle to his lips and blew shrilly. As one man every rower on the port-side leaped to his feet and dragged his oar inward through its row-hole. The deed was barely done ere the Sidonian was on them.
Aristillus and Timocharis set up instruments and fixed the positions of the zodiacal stars, near to which all the planets in their orbits pass, thus facilitating the determination of planetary motions. He also found the sun's diameter, correctly, to be half a degree. He deduced the diameter of the earth, 250,000 stadia. Unfortunately, we do not know the length of the stadium he used.
This famous lake, according to Herodotus, with whose account Diodorus Siculus and Mela agree, was entirely an artificial excavation, made by king Moeris, to carry off the overflowing waters of the Nile, and reserve them for the purposes of irrigation. It was, in the time of Herodotus, 3,600 stadia or 450 miles in circumference, and 300 feet deep, with innumerable canals and reservoirs.
As he took seven hundred stadia for a degree of latitude, his errors in latitude are not so important; and though the latitude he assigns to particular places is incorrect, yet the length of the globe, according to him, or the distance from the extreme points north and south, then known, is not far from the truth.
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