182 Remarks on the Voyage and Periplus of Scylax. 
the calculation in the Periplus, the intervening space would be uy- 
wards of 60,000 stadia, or 5145 geographical miles, at the rate of 
700. stadia to a degree of a great circle. Now the whole distance, 
according to Eratosthenes and Strabo, measured along the coast 
between the points mentioned, is only 23,000 stadia. The rate of 
sailing is also prodigiously overrated by the above statement, being 
nearly 68 geographical miles a-day : whereas Rennel, by a compa- 
rison of the several distances recorded as sailed in a day by the 
ships of the ancients, has fixed the daily rate of sailing at from 36 
to 37 geographical miles. Now, what confidence can be placed in 
a Periplus which allows 68 geographical miles for the average rate 
of daily sailing between Canopus and the Pillars of Hercules, and 
which consequently extends the length of the Mediterranean to 
upwards of 5400 geographical miles, or more than double the real 
length, Canopus or Abukir being more than 5 degrees to the W. 
of Scanderoon. 
Posidonius rejected the whole history of Scylax as a fable and a. 
forgery, as we are informed by Strabo. It has been contended by. 
the advocates of Scylax, that, in his Periplus, Tyre is called an is- 
land and a royal city, neither of which designations could have been. 
true at any time posterior to the time of Alexander the Great. 
The passage is thus given :—‘ This island is the royal city of the. 
Tyrians, 3 stadia from the sea.” Itis clear that the passage is cor- 
rupted ; for who would say that the island is 3 stadia from the sea ? 
It ought to be read thus:—‘ 3 stadia from the continent.” The 
whole passage is thus :—“ Further on, another city called Tyre, 
having its port within the wall. This island is the royal city of 
the Tyrians, 3 stadia from the sea, the city Paletyrus, (Old Tyre,) 
through the middle ef which flows a river.” Reland supposes the 
passage to be interpolated, and wrong pointed, and that it should 
be read thus :—“ Further on, ancther city Tyre, having its port 
within a wall. The royal city of the Tyrians is 3 stadia from the. 
sea, the city Paletyrus, through the middle of which flows a river.” 
Now he might mean the continental Tyre, built after the destruc- 
tion of the insular Tyre, and joined to the island afterwards by a 
peninsula ; and then what becomes of the objection? At any rate, 
the passage is corrupted. 
It is again said that no notice is taken of the cities of Alexan-. - 
dria, Antiochia, Lysimachia, and others, built by this conqueror or 
his successors. It is also stated in the Periplus, that Carthage was 
then in a flourishing state, which could not have been the case had 
this production been contemporaneous with Pelybius, Carthage be- 
ing then sadly on the decline. The objection only proves that this 
part of the work was the preduction of some Greek philosopher, 
who lived before the time either of Alexander or Polybius, and 
that the work was a mere nautical guide, compiled from the jour- 
nals of different navigators, to assist future sailors in their 
coasting voyages in the Mediterranean and Euxine Seas, and the. 
Palus Mectis, sid 
