BOOK 11. Lxvii. 168-LXV111. 171 



circuit of Mauretania. Indeed the greater part of 

 it Alexander the Great's eastern conquests also 

 explored as far as the Arabian gulf ; in which, when 

 Augustus's son Gaius Caesar " was operating there, 

 it is said that figureheads of ships from Spanish wrecks 

 were identified. Also when the power of Carthage 

 flourished, Hanno sailed round from Cadiz to the 

 extremity of Arabia,'' and published a memoir of his 

 voyage, as did Himilco when despatched at the same 

 date to explore the outer coasts of Europe. More- 

 over we have it on the authority of CorneUus Nepos 

 that a certain contemporary of his named Eudoxus 

 when flying from King Lathyrus emerged from the 

 Arabian Gulf and sailed right round to Cadiz *" ; and 

 much before him Caehus Antipater states that he had 

 seen someone who had gone on a trading voyage from 

 Spain to Ethiopia.'' Nepos also records as to the 

 northern circuit that Quintus Metellus Celer, col- 

 league of Afranius in the consulship but at the time 

 pro-consul of Gaul, received from the King of the 

 Swabians a present of some Indians, who on a trade 

 voyage had been carried oiftheir course by storms to 

 Germany. Thus there are seas encirchng the globe 

 on every side and dividing it in two, so robbing us of 

 half the world,' since there is no re^ion affordina; a 

 passage from there to here or from here to there. 

 This reflexion scrves to expose the vanity of mortals, 

 and appears to demand that I should display to the 

 eye and exhibit the extent of this whole indefinite 

 region in which men severally find no satisfaction. 



LXVIII. In the first place it is apparently porwon 0/ 

 reckoned as forming one half of the globe — ^just as '^^ \'lahuabie bv 

 no part were cut off for the ocean itself, which sur- man. 

 rounding and encircUng the whole of it, and pouring 



305 



