Reading Polybius, I was intrigued by the map of the ancient world that he describes in book 3,37-39. I think it's simply brilliant. Of course Polybius could have drawn a map, but that drawing would not have made its way into the text books for the next millennia. What he did was instead describe a map in terms of angles and distances and in a way anyone with a piece of papyrus could reproduce for themselves. He starts by dividing the world into three:
Asia, Europe and
Africa. Three straight lines form their boundaries: the Pillars of
Hercules, the river Don and the river Nile. He describes what angles those lines should be placed at (Pillars WSW, Don ENE, Nile S). He assumes only a general awareness that
Italy protrudes into the Mediterranean. From a viewpoint seated in
Rome he describes the relative directions of other points. He counts off distances along coastlines. For example, the entire coast of
Iberia,
Gaul and
Italy from the Pillars to
Rome is paced off, with check lines at the Pyrenees, the river Aude and the river Rhone. So he divides the coast of the Med into segments and names the territory within each. The basis of using the Don, Nile and Pillars of
Hercules as the big segments for continents, and then segmenting continents into territories, is inspired. He was careful to state nothing he didn't know for a fact. So,
north of
Germany is land and possibly sea. The same applies to south of
Africa.
I
sat down with a postcard and followed Polybius instructions, word for word. Here is the map he drew for me: