Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/253

ASIA.

of places. His chief extension of the knowledge of Asia refers to the peninsula of India beyond the Ganges, and a small portion of the adjacent part of China [Thinae], and some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago; to the large rivers and great commercial cities in the N. of China [Seres]; to some of the mountain ranges of the table-land of Central Asia [Imaus, &c.]; and to the names of Scythian tribes in the North. [Scythia.]

Some farther discoveries were made in parts of Asia, of which we have the records in the works of Agathemerus, Dionysius Periegetes, Marcian of Heracleia, and other Greek and Roman writers, various Περέπλοι, and especially in the geographical lexicon of Stephanus Byzantinus; but the only additions to the knowledge of Asia worth mentioning, are the embassy of Justinian II. to the Turks in the steppes W. and S. of the Altai mountains, that which resulted A.D. 569, and in the increased knowledge of India, Ceylon, and China, gained by the visits of Cosmas Indicopleustes. (See art. in Dict. of Biog.)

On many points there was a positive retrogression from knowledge previously secured; and this may be traced more or less through the whole history of ancient geography. Thus, Herodotus had a better knowledge of the Arabian Golf than some later writers, who took it for a lake; and he knew the Caspian to be a lake, while Strabo and Mela make it a Gulf of the Northern Ocean. Herodotus, Eratosthenes and Strabo, knew that the Great Southern Ocean surrounded the continent of Africa, and yet many eminent writers, both before and after Strabo, Hipparchus, Polybius, and Marinus, for example, fall into the error of connecting India and Africa by a Southern Continent, which was at last perpetuated by the authority of Ptolemy in the Middle Ages, and only dispelled by the circumnavigation of Africa.

The notions of the ancients respecting the size and form of Asia were such as might be inferred from what has been stated. Distances computed from the accounts of travellers are always exaggerated; and hence the S. part of the continent was supposed to extend much farther to the E. than it really does (about 60° of long, too much, according to Ptolemy), while to the N. and NE. parts, which were quite unknown, much too small an extent was assigned. However, all the ancient geographers, subsequent to Herodotus, except Pliny, agreed in considering it the largest of the three divisions of the world.

Pliny believed Europe to contain 11-24ths, Asia 9-28ths, and Africa 13-60ths of the land of the earth.

Eratosthenes reckoned the distance from the Canopic month of the Nile to the E. point of India, 49,300 stadia. (Strab. i. p. 64.) Strabo makes the chain of Taoros from Issus to the E. extremity of Asia, 45,000 stadia (xi. p. 490); Pliny gives the length of the continent as 5375 M.P., or 43,000 stadia (v. 27. s. 28); and Ptolemy assigns to it above 120° of longitude, or, measuring along the parallel of Rhodes, above 48,000 stadia. Ptolemy makes its greatest breadth 60°, or 30,000 stadia; Eratosthenes and Strabo, 28,000 stadia; while Artemidorus and Isidorus calculated the breadth from the S. frontier of Egypt to the Tanais, at 6375 M. P., or 51,000 stadia. (Plin. v. 9).

III. Subdivisions of the Continent. — The most general division of Asia was into two parts, which different at different times, and known by different names. To the earliest Greek colonists, the

ASIA.

237

river Halys, the E. boundary of the Lydlan kingdom, formed a natural division between Upper and Lower Asia (ή άνω Άσία, or τά άνω Άσίης, and ή κάτω Άσία or τά κάτω τής Άσίης, or Άσία έντός Άλυος ποταμού; and afterwards the Euphrates was adopted as a more natural boundary. Another division was made by the Taurus into Asia intra Taurum, i. e. the part of W. Asia N. and NW. of the Taurus, and Asia extra Taurum, all the rest of the continent. (Άσία έντός τού Ταύρον and Άσία έκτός τού Ταύρον.) The division ultimately adopted, but apparently not till the 4th century of our era, was that of A. Major and A. Minor. — (1.) Asia Major (Ά. ή μεγάλη) was the part of the continent E. of the Tanais, the Euxine, an imaginary line drawn from the Euxine at Trapezos (Trebizond) to the Gulf of Issus, and the Mediterranean: thus it included the countries

of Sarmatia Asiatica, with all the Scythian tribes to the E., Colchis, Iberia, Albania, Armenia, Syria, Arabia, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Media, Susiana, Persis, Ariana, Hyrcania, Margiana, Bactriana, Sogdiana, India, the land of the Sinae, and Serica; respecting which, see the several articles. — (2.) Asia Minor (Άσία ή μικρά: Anatolia), was the peninsula on the extreme W. of Asia, bounded by the Euxine, Aegean, and Mediterranean, on the N., W., and S.; and on the E. by the mountains on the W. of the upper course of the Euphrates. It was, for the most part, a fertile country, intersected with mountains and rivers, abounding in minerals, possessing excellent harbours, and peopled, from the earliest known period, by a variety of tribes from Asia and from Europe. For particulars respecting the country, the reader is referred to the separate articles upon the parts into which it was divided by the later Greeks, namely, Mysia, Lydia, and Caria, on the W.; Lycia, Pamphylia, and Cilicia, on the S.; Bithynia, Paphlagonia, and Pontus, on the E.; and Phrygia, Pisidia, Galatia, and Cappadocia, in the centre; see also the articles Asia (the Roman Province), Troas, Aeolia, Ionia, Doris, Lycaonia, Pergamus, Halys, Sangarius, Taurus, &c.

IV. General Form and Structure of Asia. — The description of the outlines and internal structure of the several countries of Asia is given in the respective articles upon them. As a kind of index to the whole, we now give a description of the continent in its most striking general features.

The boundaries of the continent are defined on all sides by its coast line, except at the narrow isthmus (of Suez) where it touches Africa, and the far wider track on the NW., which unites it to Europe. On this side the boundary has varied. Among the ancients, it was the river Tanais (Don); it is now formed by the Oural mountains and the river Oural, from the Arctic Ocean to the Caspian, and by the Caucasus between the Caspian and the Euxine; two boundaries across two different isthmuses.

On looking at a map of the eastern hemisphere, and comparing the three continents, two things will strike an intelligent observer; their inequality of size, and their difference of form. Asia is nearly five times the size of Europe, and one-third greater than Africa: their estimated areas being; Europe, 3,595,000 sq. miles; Africa, 12,000,000 sq. miles; Asia, 16,000,000 sq. miles. In comparing their forms, we may adopt the obvious resemblance of a great mass of land, with its peninsulas and promontories, to a body and its limbs. In this view, Africa is a body without limbs; Europe has numerous