V.] SEAS AND CONTINENTS. 81

inlets as penetrating into the land from this outer ocean, namely,
the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, or, as he
designates it, the Arabian Gulf. With the Per-
sian Gulf he shews no acquaintance, for he not
only omits all mention of it, but he describes the Tigris and
Euphrates as falling into the Erythraean sea, without any sug-
gestion of the existence of an intervening space of water. With
respect to another point, however, he is more accurate than
either his predecessors or those who came after him in geo-
graphy. He regarded the Caspian as an inland
sea1, whereas in all probability the lonians at an
earlier time, and certainly the writers of the
period subsequent to Alexander the Great, treated it as being
connected with the ocean. But he was in error with regard to
the Palus Maeotis, the size of which he greatly
overrates. "The Pontus," he says, "has also a
lake belonging to it, not very much inferior to
itself in size. The waters of this lake run into the Pontus: it
is called the Maeotis, and also the mother of the Pontus3." In
reality the Sea of Azov is not much more than one-twelfth of the
size of the Euxine, so that, even if we make a considerable allow-
ance for the contraction of its area since classical times by the
alluvium brought down by the Don, the historian's estimate of its
extent is still greatly exaggerated. His conception of its position
also is inexact, for he regarded it as running from north to south,
so that it formed the eastern boundary of Scythia3.

The division of the world into three continents, together with
the names of Europe, Asia, and Libya, which were
assigned to them, Herodotus accepts with a protest continents.6
as being sanctioned by custom, though he can
discover no principle which would justify such a partition: but he
speaks of Europe—including under that name the whole of the
northern continent from west to east—as being equal in length

1 i. 203; ^ 81 Kwrviij ftrrt frtpr) hf &nrri}s.
2 4. 86.
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\v rt vpbt fJLfffCL/j,ppli)vt teal rty irpbt r^v ^ Kttrfartp r?i 'Arn/rifc X<^»*
T. 6