According to the journal of Maternus, when the king of the
Garamantes set off to attack the people of Agesymba, he marched four months
to the south.
There are also some notices in Marinus of voyages performed along the coast
of Africa, between India and Africa, and along part of the coast of India;
he particularly mentions one Theophilus who frequented the coast of Azania,
and who was carried by a south-west wind from Rhapta to Aromata in twenty
days; and Diogenes, one of the traders to India, who on his return after he
had come in sight of Aromata, was caught by the north-east monsoon, and
carried down the coast during twenty-five days, till he reached the lakes
from which the Nile issues. Marinus also mentions a Diogenes Samius, who
describes the course held by vessels from the Indus to the coast of Cambay,
and from Arabia to the coast of Africa. According to him, in the former
voyage they sailed with the Bull in the middle of the heavens, and the
Pleiades in the middle of the main yard; in the latter voyage, they sailed
to the south, and by the star Canobus.
We now arrive at the name of Ptolemy, certainly the most celebrated
geographer of antiquity. He was a native of Alexandria, and flourished in
the reign of the emperor Marcus Antoninus. In the application of astronomy
to geography, he followed Hipparchus principally, and he seems from his
residence at Alexandria to have derived much information through the
merchants and navigators of that city, as well as from its magnificent and
valuable library.
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