Ecumene - Ancient World

Ancient World

Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276-196 BC) deduced the circumference of the earth with remarkable accuracy. In his Geographia, Claudius Ptolemy (83 – 161 AD), refining existing knowledge of his day, provided a description of the known lands, and a calculation of the remainder of the Earth's surface. His Oecumene spanned 180 degrees of longitude from the so-called Blessed Islands (Μακάρων Νήσοι, probably the Cape Verde islands) in the Atlantic Ocean to the middle of China, and about 80 degrees of latitude from Shetland to anti-Meroe (east coast of Africa); Ptolemy was well aware that he knew about only a quarter of the globe, and an erroneous extension of China southward blocked off any awareness of the Pacific Ocean. Ptolemy knew that the oecumene, as then known, would not quite cover one-fourth of the calculated area of the globe. Having a love of symmetry, then, he predicted three additional continents along with the oecumene: Perioeci (lit. "same latitude, other side"), Antoeci (opposite the Perioeci) and Antipodes (lit., “opposite the feet”). The Greek cartographer Crates summed it all up on a globe created in about 150 BC.