190 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. [CHAP.
another enterprise under royal patronage in the same direction,
which was again successful; but on his return voyage he was
driven by stress of weather for some distance down the coast of
Africa. There he met with a trophy, which he brought back
with him to Alexandria, in the form of the ornamented prow of a
ship, which was said by the natives to have come from the west-
ward; and when he was assured by the traders to whom he
displayed it, that from its appearance it must have belonged to
one of a class of vessels that were despatched from Gades, he
concluded that this particular ship had sailed round the south of
Africa, and thus he was prompted to attempt the same feat of
circumnavigation. Accordingly he organised an expedition on
his own account, and after visiting Dicaearchia (Puteoli) and
Massilia, and obtaining assistance from those cities, he reached
Gades, and from thence proceeded southward along the African
coast. The difficulties, however, which he encountered, seem to
have been greater than he anticipated, and he was ultimately
obliged to return to Europe; but there can be little doubt that,
as he was inspired from the first with the spirit of research, he
must have contributed largely to the stock of knowledge of his
time. Somewhat later in date than these two was
Artcxnidorus.
Artemidorus of Ephesus (drc. IOOB.C.), whose work
on geography was highly prized in ancient times, and is frequently
referred to by Strabo. He also was an extensive traveller, and
his account of the shores of the Mediterranean and the Euxine,
and of the customs of their inhabitants, to which he devoted
special attention, was largely derived from personal observation.
But a far more important authority on geography than any of
posidonius ^ese was Posidonius (T35—5° B-C')» who deserves
the title of the most intelligent traveller in an-
tiquity. He was a striking representative of that encyclopaedic
knowledge which was characteristic of the Hellenistic age. The
list of subjects on which he composed treatises comprises philo-
sophy, mathematics, physics, grammar and history; and though
probably the only work in which he dealt with geography as a
separate study was one on The Ocean, he was regarded as an
eminent authority on that science. In philosophy he was a
leader of the Stoic school, and he lectured on that subject in