IV.] HECATAEUS OF MILETUS. 71 strong enthusiasm1. In all these proceedings he appears in the character of a clear-sighted statesman—a faculty which may have been in great measure the result of his study of past events, for by the ancients he was known as an " annalist," on account of his historical work which was entitled Histories or Genealogies. He is often supposed to have travelled extensively, and Herodotus makes mention of a visit of his to Thebes in Egypt8; but with regard to other countries there is no sufficient ground for this belief, for it rests mainly on the acquaintance which he shews with various lands, such as Spain and the coasts of the Euxine. This however is amply accounted for by his residence at Miletus, the colonies of which place on the Black Sea would furnish their native city with abundant information about the countries in their neighbourhood; and the same thing would happen with regard to Spain by means of the trading stations founded by Massilia on its shores, from which intelligence would be transmitted to the parent state in Ionia, Phocaea. A confirmation of this view is found in the closeness with which Hecataeus' geographical knowledge corresponds to the position of the Greek colonies. Thus, while he names a number of insigni- ficant Illyrian and Liburnian tribes, an acquaintance with which might have been gained by the cities of Epidamnus and Apollonia on the Adriatic Sea, there is no mention in his writings of any place on the Italian and Ligurian coasts between Campania and the Portus Herculis Monoeci, evidently on account of the absence of Greek settlements throughout that region. The geographical work of Hecataeus was called a Periodos, or ; General Survey, of the inhabited world as known at „. . I •