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Ptolemy's Map of Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

James J. Tierney
James J. Tierney
Affiliation:
University College, Dublin
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Extract

It has long been recognised as a puzzling fact that in Ptolemy's map of the British Isles Great Britain is turned abruptly to the east from about latitude 55° north (corresponding roughly to the area of Scotland) so as to make a right angle approximately with the southern part of the country. It may be of interest to review briefly various tentative explanations of this peculiar fact which have been advanced during the last three-quarters of a century, and to add yet another to the list.

In 1885 H. Bradley suggested that either Ptolemy or one of his predecessors had before him three sectional maps representing respectively England, Scotland, and Ireland, and that in fitting the three maps together Ptolemy or his predecessor fell into the mistake of turning the oblong map of Scotland the wrong way. T. G. Rylands next put forward his view that the error was due to a faulty observation of a lunar eclipse at Duncansby Head causing an error of longitude, together with a faulty gnomonic observation at the same place causing an error of latitude. In 1894 H. Kiepert was clearly getting nearer the truth when he wrote: ‘The only coherent, though often deficient source for the knowledge of the [British] islands that has come down to us from the most flourishing period of the Empire, is the map of Ptolemy, the result of a combination of the lines of roads and of the coasting expeditions during the first century of Roman occupation. One great fault, however, has crept into the map by his having made use also of a totally different source, namely the astronomical fixations of latitude executed by Pytheas in the time of the earliest Greek mercantile expeditions to these regions of high latitudes.’ In a footnote to this observation he added: ‘These fixations stop at a borderline at the highest point reached in the north, which according to the itinerary sources would have been crossed in a northward direction, and thus the Alexandrian scholar was forced to give the northern half of the island a bend towards the east, the only possible direction, in consequence of which all the localities of Caledonia have been shifted from their proper positions by about a quarter of a circle.’

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 79 , November 1959 , pp. 132 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1959

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References

1 I append a list of the chief modern works quoted, to which I refer merely by the name of the author, except where he has written more than one work:

Anderson, J. G. C., Tacitus. Agricola (1922).Google Scholar

Berger, H., (1) Die geographischen Fragmente des Hipparch (Leipzig 1869)Google Scholar; (2) Die geographischen Fragmente des Eratosthenes (Leipzig 1880); (3) Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen, 2nd ed. (1903); (4) Berichte der Verh. der Ges. der Wiss., Leipzig Phil.-Hist. xlix.

Bradley, H., Archaeologia xlviii (1885).Google Scholar

Cuntz, O., Die Geographie des Ptolemaios (1923).Google Scholar

Fischer, J., Cl. Ptolemaei Geographiae Cod. Urb. Gr. 82Google Scholar, Tomus Prodromus, Pars i (1932).

Petrie, Flinders, Proc. Soc. Ant. Scotland lii (1917–1918).Google Scholar

Honigmann, E., RE iv A (1931).Google Scholar

Kiepert, H., Formae Orbis Antiqui; commentary on Map xxvi: Insulae Britannicae.

Kubitschek, W., RE x (1919).Google Scholar

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Ramsay, W. M., The Historical Geography of Asia Minor; Royal Geographical Soc. Suppl. Papers iv (1890).Google Scholar

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Thomson, J. O., Hist. of Anc. Geography (1948).Google Scholar

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2 Rylands, 32, 66, 77 ff.

3 Flinders Petrie, 15.

4 Anderson, 56.

5 Berger, , Erat. 373.Google Scholar

6 Agathemeros i 2, GGM ii 471.

7 Arist. Ach. 704.

8 Hdt. iv. 31; cf. the story of Sataspes iv 43.

9 Strabo ii 4.1 f., p. 104; Mette F 7a.

10 E.g. i 4.3–4, p. 63; iv 5.5, p. 201.

11 ii 1.40–1, pp. 92–4; 4.1–2, p. 104; 4.4, p. 107; Berger, , Erat. 190.Google Scholar

12 i 4.2, p. 63

12a ii 1.12, p. 72; 1.18, p. 75.

13 Berger, , Hipp. 67 ff.Google Scholar

14 i 4.3–4, p. 63; ii 1.13, p. 72; 1.18, p. 75; iv 5.1, p. 199; 5.4, p. 201.

15 ii 1.18, p. 75.

16 Thomson here accepts Berger's view that Strabo garbled the evidence of Pytheas (Thomson 207, cf. 147).

17 ii 1.18, p. 75; 5.42, p. 135.

18 Berger, , Hipp. 25, 34, 36–7Google Scholar; Geschichte 468–9, 473.

19 ii 1.12, p. 72; iv 1.11, pp. 185–6.

20 Cf. Berger, , Geschichte 579 ff.Google Scholar; Fischer, 61 ff.; Schnabel, 226 ff.

21 Berger, , Hipp. 25Google Scholar; Strabo i 4.1, p. 62; ii 5.7, p. 113; 5.34, p. 132.

22 Berger, , Hipp. 67.Google Scholar

23 On Strabo's psychology, cf. Honigmann, 90 ff.

24 Berger, , Erat. 217.Google Scholar

25 Berger, Despite, Erat. 219.Google ScholarCf. Strabo ii 4.2, p. 104.

26 1 4.3, p. 63; ii 5.28, p. 128; iv 5.1, p. 199.

27 iv 3.3, p. 193; 4.1, p. 194; 5.2, p. 199.

28 Strabo 1 4.4, p. 63; ii 5.42–3, p. 135.

29 That Caesar should do this throws a glaring light on the standard of education of the upper classes in the late Roman Republic.

30 BG vi 24.2.

31 Berger, , Erat. 214 ff.Google Scholar; Strabo ii 5.28, p. 128; iv 5.1, p. 199.

32 Berger, , Erat. 213Google Scholar; Strabo iv 5.1, p. 199; vii 3.1, p. 295.

33 Erat. 376.

34 On the map of Agrippa see Kubitschek 2100–12.

35 Cf. Agathemeros i 2, GGM ii 471; Arist., Meteor, ii 5, 362b; Strabo ii 4.7, p. 108; iii 1.3, p. 137.

36 Agathemeros ibid.

37 Compare for instance Pliny's phrase about the length of the coast of Germany, (NH iv 99)Google Scholar: ‘haud multum ora deerit Graecorum opinioni et longitudini ab Agrippa proditae’.

38 Ptol., Geog. i 6.1, 17.1.

39 Ptol., Geog. i 8.5.

40 Ptol., Geog. i 11.7–8.

41 Schütte, xxxi 580–9.

42 Cf. Plut., de def. orac. xviii, and the valuable series of articles by Zimmer.

43 If we accept Berger, argument, Geschichte 577–82Google Scholar, more fully developed in Berger, , Berichte 53–77.Google Scholar Thomson, in accord with the plan of his work, only mentions this problem and does not discuss it in detail (Thomson, 212–13, 334).

44 Berger, , Geschichte 593.Google Scholar

45 Berger, , Geschichte 612.Google Scholar

46 Ptol., Geog. i 20.4.

47 Ptol., Geog. iv 5.9, 5.73.

48 Berger, , Geschichte 511, 543 ff.Google Scholar, 629 ff.

49 On this question see Ptol., Geog. i 11.2, vii 5.12; Schnabel; Fischer; Kubitschek, 2069 ff., 2077 ff.; Berger, , Geschichte 579 ff.Google Scholar Berger's view seems more acceptable than that of Schnabel.

50 On the reckonings of Pytheas, see Berger, , Geschichte 327 ff.Google Scholar; cf. Caesar, , BG v 13Google Scholar, quoted above.

51 Berger, , Geschichte 630Google Scholar; Ptol., Geog. ii 8.1 f., 9.1.

52 Ptol., Almagest ii 6.

53 Ptol., Almagest ii 6.

54 Thomson (p. 236) here represents a view rather close to that of Mannert (quoted from Berger on p. 132 above). It is true that Strabo is strongly inclined to compress the width of the oikownene at various points, yet he leaves Britain a triangle. Marinos has rather the opposite inclination and yet he distorts the north of Britain. It would be absurd to attribute the distortion to a deliberate falsification of Marinos, and consequently it must be due to his following the older information regarding the north of Britain available to him in the work of Pytheas, Eratosthenes and others.

55 Schütte, xxx 67 ff.; cf. Kubitschek, 2070 ff.

56 Ptol., Geog. ii 1.2, cf. 9.8.

57 Ptol., Geog. i 2.4.

58 Ptol., Geog. i 7 and following chapters.

59 J. Fischer, in his work on Ptolemy (see n. 1), states that the πρόχειροι κανόνες, of which there is as yet no critical edition, is a still later work giving additions to and differences from the tables of Geog. viii, agreeing more closely with the data of the earlier books. Fischer thinks that these tables are an improved version of those in the Geography, based largely on new information. Otto Cuntz argues on the contrary that the positions given in this work are borrowings or corruptions from the data of the Geography. It would be premature to express a definite opinion before adequate critical editions of both this work and the Geography are available. Meanwhile it may be said that the MSS. readings given by Fischer on the British Isles provide nothing of interest other than a tendency to reduce the latitude of the middle of Ireland by 1° 10′. The latitude of 66° for Thule in the printed Oxford edition of 1712 (Geog. veteris scriptores Graeci minores, vol. iii) seems to be a retention of the old latitude of Thule from one of the early works of Marinos. Considering the fact that no information reached Ptolemy about his major inaccuracies regarding Scotland it seems very unlikely that he was in a position to get information causing him to shift the positions of towns in Ireland by seventy or less miles, and indeed he states that the evidence of Marinos was most lacking in regard to cities of the interior (Geog. i 18.6).

60 Ptol., Geog. i 1.5–6.

61 Ramsay, 69–74; Kubitschek.

62 στοχασμός, Strabo, , Geog. i 4.4, p. 63.Google Scholar