View source for Pomponius Mela

{{short description|1st century AD Roman geographer}}
{{redirect|De situ orbis|the work of Strabo|Geographica|the Carolingian treatise|Anonymus Leidensis}}
[[File:Karte Pomponius Mela.jpg|thumb|Reconstruction of Pomponius Mela's world map by {{illm|Konrad Miller|de}} (1898)]]

'''Pomponius Mela''', who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest known [[Roman geographer]]. He was born at the end of the 1st century BC in Tingentera (now [[Algeciras]]) and died {{circa}}&nbsp;AD 45. 

His short work (''De situ orbis libri III.'') remained in use nearly to the year 1500.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kish|first=George|title=A Source Book in Geography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_6qF4vjZvhYC&pg=PA128|access-date=6 May 2018|year=1978|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=9780674822702|page=128}}</ref> It occupies less than one hundred pages of ordinary print, and is described by the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' (1911) as "dry in style and deficient in method, but of pure [[Latinity]], and occasionally relieved by pleasing word-pictures."<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|wstitle=Mela, Pomponius|volume=18|first1= Edward Herbert |last1 =Bunbury |author1link= Edward Herbert Bunbury|first2=Charles Raymond|last2=Beazley|authorlink2=Raymond Beazley|page= 87 |short=1}}</ref> Except for the geographical parts of [[Pliny the Elder|Pliny]]'s ''Historia naturalis'' (where Mela is cited as an important authority), the ''De situ orbis'' is the only formal treatise on the subject in [[Classical Latin]].

== Biography ==
[[File:Europa by Pomponiusz Mela 1st century.jpg|thumb| Pomponius Mela's description of Europe (F. Nansen, 1911)]]
Little is known of Pomponius except his name and birthplace—the small town of Tingentera or Cingentera (identified as [[Iulia Traducta]]) in southern [[Spain]], on [[Algeciras]] Bay (Mela ii. 6, § 96; but the text is here corrupt).<ref name="Tegg">{{cite book|title=Chronology, or The historian's companion |edition=3rd |last=Tegg |first=Thomas |author-link=Thomas Tegg |year=1824 | publisher=Thomas Tegg |location=London |page=284 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=-9IGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PP1}}</ref> The date of his writing may be approximately fixed by his allusion (iii. 6 § 49) to a proposed [[Great Britain|British]] expedition of the reigning emperor, almost certainly [[Roman conquest of Britain|that of Claudius]] in AD 43. That this passage cannot refer to Julius Caesar is evidenced by several references to events of [[Augustus]]'s reign; especially to certain new names given to Spanish towns. Mela, like the two [[Seneca (disambiguation)|Seneca]]s, [[Lucan]], [[Martial]], [[Quintilian]], [[Trajan]], [[Hadrian]], were all part of Italic communities settled in various parts of Spain that eventually relocated in Rome.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015042048507&view=1up&seq=46 | isbn=9780472107735 | title=Pomponius Mela's description of the world | series=De chorographia.English | year=1998 | publisher=University of Michigan Press }}</ref> It has been conjectured that Pomponius Mela may have been related in some way to [[Marcus Annaeus Mela]], son of [[Seneca the Elder]] and father of [[Lucan]].<ref name="Ker1919"/><ref name="Duff1920"/><ref>Romer 1998, "Introduction", p. 4.</ref>

== Geographical knowledge ==
The general views of the ''De situ orbis'' mainly agree with those current among [[Greek language|Greek]] writers from [[Eratosthenes]] to [[Strabo]], though the latter was probably unknown to Mela. But Pomponius is unique among ancient geographers in that, after dividing the Earth into five zones, of which two only were habitable, he asserts the existence of [[antichthones]], inhabiting the southern temperate zone inaccessible to the folk of the northern temperate regions due to the unbearable heat of the intervening [[torrid zone]]. On the divisions and boundaries of [[Europe]], [[Asia]] and [[Africa]], he repeats Eratosthenes; like all classical geographers from [[Alexander the Great]] (except [[Ptolemy]]) he regards the [[Caspian Sea]] as an inlet of the Northern Ocean, corresponding to the Persian and Arabian ([[Red Sea]]) gulfs on the south.

[[File:Codanus sinus.PNG|thumb|The shores of ''Codanus sinus'' (southwestern [[Baltic Sea]]) in red with its many islands in green]]
His [[India]]n conceptions are inferior to those of some earlier Greek writers; he follows Eratosthenes in supposing that country to occupy the south-eastern angle of Asia, whence the coast trended northwards to Scythia, and then swept round westward to the Caspian Sea. As usual, he places the [[Riphean Mountains]] and the [[Hyperboreans]] near the [[Scythia]]n Ocean. In western Europe his knowledge (as was natural in a Spanish subject of Imperial Rome) was somewhat in advance of the Greek geographers. He defines the western coastline of Spain and [[Gaul]] and its indentation by the [[Bay of Biscay]] more accurately than Eratosthenes or Strabo, and his ideas of the [[British Isles]] and their position are also clearer than his predecessors. He is the first to name the Orcades or [[Orkney Islands]], which he defines and locates fairly correctly. Of northern Europe his knowledge was imperfect, but he speaks of a great bay ("[[Codanus sinus]]") to the north of Germany, among whose many islands was one, "Codanovia", of pre-eminent size; this name reappears in [[Pliny the Elder]]'s work as ''Scatinavia''. ''Codanovia'' and ''Scatinavia'' were both Latin renderings of the [[Proto-Germanic]] *''Skaðinawio'', the Germanic name for [[Scandinavia]].{{citation needed|date=September 2011}}

=== Descriptive method ===
Mela's descriptive method follows ocean coasts, in the manner of a [[periplus]], probably because it was derived from the accounts of navigators. He begins at the [[Straits of Gibraltar]], and describes the countries adjoining the south coast of the [[Mediterranean]]; then he moves round by [[Syria]] and [[Asia Minor]] to the [[Black Sea]], and so returns to Spain along the north shore of the Euxine, [[Propontis]], etc. After treating the Mediterranean islands, he next takes the ocean [[littoral]]—to west, north, east and south successively—from Spain and Gaul round to India, from India to [[Persian Empire|Persia]], [[Arabia]] and [[Ethiopia]]; and so again works back to Spain. Like most classical geographers he conceives of the continent of Africa as surrounded by sea and not extending very far south.

== Editions ==
[[File:Pomponius Mela, illustrated title page, 1518.jpg|thumb|upright|Title page of 1518 Vadian's first edition]]
The ''[[editio princeps]]'' of Mela was published at [[Milan]] in 1471; the first critical edition was by [[Joachim Vadian]] (Wien, 1518), superseded by those of [[Johann Heinrich Voss]] (1658), [[Johann Friedrich Gronovius]] (1685 and 1696), A. Gronovius (1722 and 1728), and Tzschucke (1806–1807), in seven parts (Leipzig; the most elaborate of all); G. Paithey's (Berlin, 1867) for its text. The English translation by [[Arthur Golding]] (1585) was celebrated.<ref>See also [[Edward Bunbury]], ''Ancient Geography'', ii. 352–368, and D. Detlefsen, ''Quellen und Forschungen zur alten Gesch. und Geog.'' (1908).</ref>

A recent English translation is that of F. E. Romer, originally published in 1998.

[[File:Mela, Pomponius – De situ orbis , 1557 – BEIC 110541.jpg|thumb|upright|''I tre libri di Pomponio Mela del sito, forma, e misura del mondo'', 1557]]
* {{Cite book|title=I tre libri di Pomponio Mela del sito, forma, e misura del mondo|publisher=Gabriele Giolito de Ferrari|location=Venezia|year=1557|language=it|url=https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=110541}}

==References==
{{Reflist|refs=

<ref name="Ker1919">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w4ZfAAAAMAAJ |title=Martial's Epigrams |author=Walter C. A. Ker |publisher=William Heinemann |location=London |date=1919 |quote=[By 'Seneca's house illustrious for its triple names'] [[Martial|M.]] means Seneca, the philosopher and tutor of Nero, his brother Gallio, and Annaeus Pomponius Mela, the writer on geography.}}<br>J. Wight Duff characterizes this as "a serious confusion between [[Marcus Annaeus Mela|Annaeus Mela]], who was Seneca's brother, and Pomponius Mela, the geographer."</ref>

<ref name="Duff1920">{{cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KusnAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA177 |author=J. Wight Duff |title=Martial: Epigrams (review) |journal=[[The Classical Review]] |volume=34 |issue=7–8 |page=177 |publisher=John Murray |location=London |date=November–December 1920}}</ref>

}}

==Sources==
*{{cite book |title=Pomponius Mela's Description of the World |first=Frank E. |last=Romer |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015042048507 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |location=Ann Arbor |date=1998 |isbn= 9780472084524}}
*[https://archive.org/search.php?query=De+situ+orbis+libri+III&sin= Editions in the original Latin] in the [[Internet Archive]]
*Books [https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/pomponius1.html I], [https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/pomponius2.html II] and [https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/pomponius3.html III] in Latin, digitised at ''The Latin Library''

;Attribution
{{EB1911|wstitle=Mela, Pomponius|volume=18|first1= Edward Herbert |last1 =Bunbury |author1link= Edward Herbert Bunbury|first2=Charles Raymond|last2=Beazley|authorlink2=Raymond Beazley|page= 87 |short=1}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pomponius Mela}}
[[Category:40s deaths]]
[[Category:Ancient Roman geographers]]
[[Category:1st-century Romans]]
[[Category:Romans from Hispania]]
[[Category:Year of birth unknown]]
[[Category:1st-century geographers]]
[[Category:Silver Age Latin writers]]