Chap. 37.] ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, ETC. 369 



olives ; the Eomans call it Tartessos^ ; the Carthaginians 

 Gadir^, that word in the Punic language signifying a hedge. 

 It was called Erythia because the Tyrians, the original an- 

 cestors of the Cartha^nians, were said to have come from 

 the Erythraean, or Eed Sea. In this island Geryon is by 

 some thought to have dwelt, whose herds were carried off 

 by Hercules. Other persons again think, that his island 

 is another one, opposite to Lusitania, and that it was there 

 formerly called by that name^. 



CHAP. 37. (23.) — THE GENEEAL MEASUEEMENT OF EUEOPE. 



Having thus made the circuit of Europe, we must now 

 give the complete measurement of it, in order that those 

 who wish to be acquainted with this subject may not feel 

 themselves at a loss. Artemidorus and Isidorus have given 

 its length, from the Tanais to Gades, as 8214 miles. Poly^ 

 bius in his writings has stated the breadth of Europe, in a 

 line from Italy to the ocean, to be 1150 miles. But, even 

 in his day, its magnitude was but little known. The distance 

 of Italy, as we have previously^ stated, as far as the Alps, is 

 1120 miles, from which, through Lugdunum to the British 

 port of the Morini*, the direction which Polybius seems to 



^ If Gades was not the same as Tartessus (probably the Tarshish 

 of Scripture), its exact locaHty is a question in dispute. Most ancient 

 writers place it at the mouth of the river Beetisj while others identify 

 it, and perhaps with more probability, with tiie -city of Carteia, on 

 Mount Calpe, the Rock of Gibraltar. The whole country west of 

 Gibraltar was called Tartessis. See B. iii. c. 3. 



2 Or more properly ' Agadir,' or 'Hagadir.' It probably received 

 this name, meaning a ' hedge,' or ' bulwark,' from the fact of its being 

 the chief Phoenician colony outside of the Pillars of Hercules. 



3 Of Erythraea, or Erytheia. The monster Geryon, or Greryones, febled 

 to have had three bodies, Uved in the fabulous Island of Erytheia, or the 

 " Red Isle," so called because it lay under the rays of the setting sun in 

 the west. It was originally said to be situate off the coast of Epirus, 

 but was afterwards identified either with Ghides or the Balearic islands, 

 and was at aU times beUeved to be in the distant west. Geryon was 

 said to have been the son of Chrysaor, the wealthy king of Iberia. 



* AUuding to B. iii. c. 6. From Rhegium to the Alps. But there the 

 reading is 1020. 



5 Meaning Gessoriacum, the present Boulogne. He probably calls it 

 Britannicum^ from the circumstance that the Romans usually embarked 

 there for the purpose of crossing over to Britain. 



VOL. I. 2 B 



