Primary-source dossier
The excerpts below are reproduced from the Ictis Anthology — a working paper produced during research for the project. Some of the results were spun off into New Perspectives on the Ictis of Pytheas of Massalia.
Text from: ToposText, Pomponius Mela — De situ orbis
Book 3 Chapters 47-57 Around the World: Islands
§ 3.47 In Lusitania are the isle of Erythia, which we are told was the home of Geryon, and other islands without fixed names. The fields of Erythia are so fertile that as soon as grain is planted, as soon as the seed falls to the ground and renews the crop, they produce at least seven harvests, sometimes even more. On the Celtic coast are a number of islands that, because they are all rich in lead, people call by one name, the Cassiterides.
§ 3.49 Next, as to what kind of place Britain is and what kind of people it produces, information that is more certain and better established will be stated. The reason is that — lo and behold! — the greatest princeps is opening the long-closed island, and as conqueror of previously unsubdued and previously unknown peoples, the princeps brings with him the proof of his own accomplishments, since he will reveal in his triumph as much as he has laid claim to in war.
§ 3.50 Moreover, just as we have thought until now, Britain projects between the west and the north in a wide angle and looks toward the mouths of the Rhenus. It then draws its sides back obliquely, facing Gaul with one side, Germany with the other; then returning with a continuous line of straight shore on its rear side, Britain again wedges itself into two different angles — being triangular and very much like Sicily. Britain is fiat, huge, fertile, but more generously so for what feeds sheep than for what sustains humans.
§ 3.51 It supports groves and meadows and colossal rivers that sometimes flow to the sea, sometimes back again, with alternating currents, and certain other rivers that produce gems and pearls. It supports peoples and their kings, but all are uncivilized. The farther from the sea, the more ignorant they are of other kinds of wealth, being wealthy only in sheep and land, and — whether for beauty or for some other reason — they have their bodies dyed blue.
§ 3.52 They produce, nevertheless, the causes of war and actual wars, and they take turns harassing one another constantly, mainly because they have a strong desire to rule and a strong drive to expand their holdings. They make war not only on horseback or on foot but also from two-horse chariots and cars armed in the Gallic fashion — they call them covinni — on which they use axles equipped with scythes.
§ 3.53 On the far side of Britain, Iuverna is more or less equal in area, but it is oblong with equally extended lateral coastlines. Its climate is hideous for ripening seeds, but the island is so luxuriant with grass — not only abundant but sweet — that sheep stuff themselves in a fraction of the day, and unless they are kept from the pasture, they burst from feeding too long. Its inhabitants are undisciplined and ignorant of all virtue, to a greater degree than any other nation, and they are very much inexperienced in piety.
§ 3.54 The thirty Orcades are separated by narrow spaces between them; the seven Haemodae extend opposite Germany in what we have called Codanus Bay; of the islands there, Scandinavia, which the Teutoni still hold, stands out as much for its size as for its fertility besides.
§ 3.55 Because of the sea’s tidal ebb and flow, and because the distance between them is sometimes covered by waves and other times bare, what faces the Sarmatae1 sometimes seems to be islands and at other times seems to be one continuous land mass.2
§ 3.56 In addition to what is handed down in legend, I discover — in authors whom I am not embarrassed to follow — that on these islands are the Oeonae, who feed only on oats and the eggs of marsh birds, and that the Hippodes, with their equine hooves, are also there, and the Panotii too, who for clothing have big ears broad enough to go around their whole body (they are otherwise naked).
§ 3.57 Thule is located near the coast of the Belcae, who are celebrated in Greek poetry and in our own. On it — because there the sun rises far from where it will set — nights are necessarily brief, but all winter long they are as dark as anywhere, and in summer, bright. All summer the sun moves higher in the sky at this time, and although it is not actually seen at night, the sun nevertheless illuminates adjacent places when its radiance is dose by; but during the solstice there is no night, because at that time the sun is now more visible and shows not only its brilliance but most of itself too.
Bibliography and editions
Critical editions and further reading
- Latin critical edition. C. Frick (ed.), Pomponii Melae De chorographia libri tres (1880). Open reference.
- Standard geography. A. Silberman (ed.) / modern commentaries; compare the anthology’s cited translation and chapter divisions. Google Books record: Rivet & Smith (comparative Roman geography).
Rights boundary. Ancient texts and public-domain images are not relicensed by Kassiteros. Modern editions and translations retain their own rights. Only Kassiteros-authored commentary and original project metadata are intended to fall under the project’s CC BY 4.0 policy.
Why this source matters
Mela is valuable as a compact Roman chorography in which the Cassiterides remain tied to the Atlantic façade of Iberia while Britain receives its own island geography. The anthology uses that spatial separation to test later attempts to identify all tin-island traditions with Britain.