X.] EPHORUS. 207
of Macedon, which included in its scope the barbarian nations as
well as the Greeks. Another point in which he anticipated
Polybius was in devoting a separate section of
, . , i i j f Geographical
his work to geography—a method of arrangement section of his
which Strabo notices as being common to both of History-
them1; and in consequence of the prominence which they gave
to that subject, the same writer enumerates them, notwithstanding
that history was their primary object, among the leading geogra-
phers8. In the case of Ephorus this section was the fourth and
fifth books of his l Histories,' the former of which was devoted to
Europe, the latter to Asia and Africa8. If we may judge from
some of the passages which Strabo has quoted from
him, the praise which he received was well deserved.
He strikes the keynote of the geography of Greece,
when he says that the determining element in it is the sea*. No-
thing could be truer than his remark concerning Boeotia, that
its inhabitants possessed an extremely advantageous position in
Greece from their commanding three seas—on the one side the
Corinthian and Crisaean gulfs, which opened towards Italy,
Sicily, and Libya; on the other the bays of the Euboic sea, both
north and south of the Euripus, which looked towards Macedonia
and the Hellespont, and also towards Cyprus and Egypt—and
moreover, that Euboea, after it was joined by a bridge to the
mainland, almost formed part of that country: but that these gifts
of nature had been wasted on them, because they undervalued
the civilising influences of education5. Again, in the case of
Aegina he notices how the thinness of the soil caused the inhabit-
ants to take to the sea, and by this means to become a successful
commercial people6. Comments such as these prove that the
1 Strabo, 8. I. I; ol 51 Iv T§ xoiyy rrjs ivTopfas ypa^jj %wpfc <«ro$«£Jawes TJJV
T&V yvctpw Toiroypaiplav, jca0ajrep*E0o/>6s re eirdipt icai JloXtfjSioi.
» I. I. I-
8 See C. Muller's Fragments Hist. Gr., vol. i. p. Ix.
4 Strabo, 8. i. 3; ifytyiow^r n rty 66\array Kpbfuv vp&s ris rovoypafotLt*
5 Ibid., 9. 2. a.
6 /£&, 8. 6. 16; "E0opos fi1 h Alyb% apyvpw irp&rw Kmrfyal typi* fab
yap