Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
is unknown in Hyperborea, people chose the time of their own death and jumped into the sea from the
Leaping Rock. On Lixus, an island off Africa, Pliny told of a tree that bore golden fruit. On the isle of
Taprobane, there were snakes with a head at each end of their bodies. And in the desert of Africa, he told
of the Blemmyae, a race of headless people whose eyes and mouth were located in their chest.
Unlike Pliny, Lucian did not take himself seriously. His satirical works marked the beginning of a tra-
dition that later attracted such writers as Voltaire, Rabelais, and Swift; writers who used the traveler's tale
to skewer contemporary habits. Despite its obvious fabrications, Lucian's
True History
eventually found
its true believers. Among the wonders he told of were Caseosa, or Milk Island, a twenty-five-mile round
isle of cheese where the grapes produced not wine but milk. On Dionysus's Island there were vines shaped
like women that could speak. However, travelers were advised not to converse with these vine-women be-
cause the men would become drunk. An unlucky soul who attempted sexual intercourse with one of these
creatures risked transformation into a vine himself. On the Atlantic isle of Cork lived the Corkfoots, who,
as their name suggested, could walk on water with their feet of cork. Pumpkin Island featured pirates who
sailed out on boats carved from huge pumpkins.
While Lucian was a bit of an ancient Merry Prankster, others who followed took such tales with utter
faith. The attempt to reconcile science with Holy Writ, and rationalism with religion, began haltingly with
Solinus, who lived around
AD
250 and without apology cribbed his material straight from Pliny. He told of
horse-footed men, one-eyed hunters who drank from cups made of skulls, and the umbrella men of India
whose one leg ended in a foot that was large enough to cover their heads. There were also interesting an-
imals in the world of Solinus, none more so than the lynx whose urine turned into a precious stone with
magnetic powers. One of the real contributions of Solinus was his decision to rename the familiar waters
around Rome. Long called Mare Nostrum (Our Sea), Solinus introduced his preference for Mediterranean,
or “Sea in the Middle of the Earth,” once again reflecting the omphalos syndrome. Was there any question
for a Roman citizen at the peak of the empire that he lived in the center of the world?
Perhaps not surprisingly, these geographic tall tales were widely accepted as the European world was
plunging into the medieval period and the emphasis among scholars shifted from science to faith. One
who was greatly influenced by what Solinus had written was St. Augustine (
AD
354-430), bishop of Hippo
in the Roman province of Algeria and the most influential Christian thinker for the next several hundred
years. Familiar with the literature of the pagan (Greek) world, Augustine struggled with the contradictions
between Scripture and the classics. The Bible names only three continents—one for each of Noah's des-
cendants; how could there be another? On the question of the antipodes, Augustine was decisive; there was
no rational ground for such a belief.
As time went by, Ptolemy's reasoned ideas of a sphere with well-marked grids showing latitude and
longitude were forgotten. In their place, the extraordinary worlds of Pliny and Solinus took hold. The
Greek sphere was replaced by a new Christian vision in which the world, in one famous rendition, was
rectangular, like a treasure chest with a vaulted top to hold the heavens. The author of this particular ver-
sion of the world was Cosmas Indicopleustes (“India traveler”), a widely traveled merchant turned Chris-
tian mystic of the sixth century. To Cosmas, all matters of the size and shape of the universe, as well as
descriptions of its inhabitants on earth, could be found in a careful reading of the Bible. For him, such an
idea as the antipodes was simply ridiculous. He asked, “Can anyone be so foolish as to believe that there
are men whose feet are higher than their heads, or places where things may be hanging downwards, trees
going backwards, or rain falling upwards?”
Cosmas's belief in Eden was firm, unshakable. However, it lay beyond the ocean, unreachable by men.
Even more influential than Cosmas was Isidore of Seville, who lived in the depths of the Dark Ages in
the sixth and seventh centuries. Isidore was more precise in his notions of the location of paradise. Author
of an influential encyclopedia of the knowledge of his time, Isidore placed paradise firmly on an island in
