274 , HEIDEL. 



beginning of his treatise. It is a matter of no small interest, however, 

 that we find not only in Strabo but in Diodorus also a second cosmol- 

 ogy introduced in their accounts of Egypt. ^° This fact can hardly 

 be due to anything else but the force of literary tradition. There 

 were those who had discussed the earth both in relation to the heavens 

 and to the geological history of our planet in connection with Egypt, 

 with which they must have made a beginning. One may plainly see 

 the results of this practice in Herodotus, traces of it being visible 

 throughout the entire geographical tradition. Hecataeus, as we have 

 already remarked, set forth his own geological opinions chiefly in 

 his account of Egypt; but the observations upon which his opinions 

 were based, such as the presence of fossils in the stones of the pyra- 

 mids, were not new in his day, as we chance to know that Xenophanes 

 had previously made similar observations in other places. There 

 can hardly be a doubt regarding the source of the latter's interest in 

 such evidence, since his relation to the earlier Milesians is unquestion- 

 able. How significant these facts are may be seen when one considers 

 another point. Later geographers regularly began their description 

 of the orbis tcrrarum with the Pillars of Hercules, passing clock-wise 

 round the Mediterranean. Now, if it be true, as has been plausibly 

 maintained, ^■'- that Hecataeus of Miletus began his Tour of the Earth 

 with the Pillars of Hercules, proceeding clock-wise about the orbis 

 terrarum, the whole of Europe and Asia (proper) had been traversed 

 before he reached Egypt. That under these circumstances he should 

 have paused at this point to give a detailed account of the earth and 

 its formation would seem to call for an explanation, the need of which 

 is further emphasized by the fact, already mentioned, that even the 



80 Strabo 17.1,36 sq., referring back to 1.3,4. Much that in the latter 

 passage is referred to Eratosthenes and Strato can be shown, by reference to 

 the second book of Herodotus, to come from the early lonians. In Diodorus 

 the situation is especially significant, because he begins his history with Egypt. 

 The result is that the same themes are twice discussed (1.6-8 and 1.10 sq.) in 

 close succession with a clear break between. The matter has been discussed, 

 though with httle intelhgence, by K. Reinhardt {Hekataios von Abdera und 

 Demokrit, Hermes XLVII, 496 sq.), who tries to get rid of the break. The 

 duplication is clearly due to the amalgamation of two hnes of tradition, one 

 of wliich began with a cosmology proper while the other, though not wholly 

 ignoring cosmology, treated of the 4>vaLs yfjs as introductory to the study of 

 Egypt, with which history and geography began. Both lines of tradition 

 began with the ancient Milesians, and for a time were separated, only to Tae 

 reunited at the last with the signs of the imperfect combination left to tell the 

 tale. 



8lSee Jacoby, col. 2691. 



