Stelle 1 Maiores nostri orbem totius terra...; (Historiarum adversum paganos libri VII (417 - 418), Lib. 1, Cap. 2, 1-11 (pp. 13-15, trans. Fear, pp. 36-7)) [5818]

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ID 5818
Text Historiarum adversum paganos libri VII (417 - 418) Orosius
Quotation 1 Maiores nostri orbem totius terrae, oceani limbo circumseptum, triquadrum statuere eiusque tres partes Asiam Europam et Africam uocauerunt, quamuis aliqui duas hoc est Asiam ac deinde Africam in Europam accipiendam putarint. 2 Asia tribus partibus oceano circumcincta per totam transuersi plagam orientis extenditur. 3 haec occasum uersus a dextra sui sub axe septentrionis incipientem contingit Europam, a sinistra autem Africam dimittit, sub Aegypto uero et Syria mare nostrum quod Magnum generaliter dicimus habet. 4 Europa incipit ut dixi sub plaga septentrionis, a flumine Tanai, qua Riphaei montes Sarmatico auersi oceano Tanaim fluuium fundunt, 5 qui praeteriens aras ac terminos Alexandri Magni in Rhobascorum finibus sitos Maeotidas auget paludes, quarum inmensa exundatio iuxta Theodosiam urbem Euxinum Pontum late ingreditur. 6 Inde iuxta Constantinopolim longae emittuntur angustiae, donec eas mare hoc quod dicimus Nostrum accipiat. 7 Europae in Hispania occidentalis oceanus termino est, maxime ubi apud Gades insulas Herculis columnae uisuntur et Tyrrheni maris faucibus oceani aestus inmittitur. 8 Africae principium est a finibus Aegypti urbisque Alexandriae, ubi Parethonio ciuitas sita est, super mare hoc Magnum, quod omnes plagas terrasque medias interluit. 9 unde per loca quae accolae Catabathmon uocant haud procul a castris Alexandri Magni et super lacum Chalearzum, deinde iuxta superiorum fines Auasitarum missa in transuersum per Aethiopica deserta meridianum contingit oceanum. 10 Termini Africae ad occidentem idem sunt qui et Europae, id est fauces Gaditani freti. 11 Vltimus autem finis eius est mons Athlans et insulae quas Fortunatas uocant.
Translation 1. Our ancestors divided the whole world, surrounded as it is by the belt of the Ocean, into three rectangular blocks, and called these three parts Asia, Europe, and Africa, although there are some who believe that there are two parts: namely Asia and Europe, including Africa in the latter part. 2. Asia is surrounded on three sides by the Ocean and extends across the entire East. 3. To the West on her right she borders Europe, which begins at the North Pole, and to her left Africa, but by Egypt and Syria she is bounded by Our Sea, which is usually called the Great Sea. 4. Europe begins, as I have said, in the North from the river Tanaïs at the point where the Riphaean mountains facing the Sarmatian Ocean give rise to the Tanaïs. 5. The Tanaïs flows by the altars set up as boundaries by Alexander the Great in the lands of the Rhobascians and feeds the Maeotid marshes whose immense mouth pours its waters into the Euxine Sea by the city of Theodosia. 6. Thence it flows as a long, narrow channel past the city of Constantinople until the sea, which we call Our Sea, absorbs its waters. 7. The Ocean by Spain is Europe’s Western boundary: more specifically where the Columns of Hercules are to be seen by the islands of Cadiz and where the Ocean swell comes in through the straits of the Tyrrhenian Sea. 8. Africa begins at the borders of Egypt and those of the city of Alexandria where the town of Parethonium lies above the Great Sea, which washes all lands and shores in the middle of the world. 9. From there it extends through the area, which the natives call Catabathmon, not far from the camp of Alexander the Great and above Lake Chalearzum. Thence it runs past the upper borders of the Avasitae through the Ethiopian Desert to the Southern Ocean. 10. The Western bounds of Africa are the same as those of Europe: namely the narrows of the Straits of Cadiz. 11. However, its uttermost end is Mount Atlas and the so‑called Blessed Isles.
Quotation source Lib. 1, Cap. 2, 1-11 (pp. 13-15, trans. Fear, pp. 36-7)
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