31 - Pseudo-Hippolytos, Stadiasmos (Stade Table or Circumnavigation of the Great Sea)

Summary

This chapter presents a new, annotated translation of the anonymous Stadiasmos, written no later than the 3rd century AD but possibly as early as the 1st, whose surviving extracts add up to a gazetteer of towns, harbour facilities, and distances from Tunisia around the eastern Mediterranean as far as the southern Aegean. The chapter introduction discusses the author’s use of technical terms and their meanings, and the work’s relationship to the Latin Maritime Itinerary, suggesting that in light of its detailed navigational content it was probably a ‘piloting manual’ rather than a desk-based study for an ‘armchair geographer’ or an administrative document. Four new maps show a selection of places along the coasts described.