Describe the contributions of thales and hecataeus in ancient geography
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Explanation:
The Greeks not only extended the horizon of geography from the Aegean Sea to Spain and Gaul, the Russian steppes in Central Asia, the Indus river in the east and Ethiopia in the south, but also put the subject on a sound footing by making remarkable contributions in the field of mathematical, physical, historical and regional geography.
Mathematical geography developed by Thales (C-580 B.C.), Anaximender (611 B.C.) and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) reached its zenith with Eratosthenes (276-194 B.C.).
During the Golden Age of Greece—5th century B.C. to 2nd century B.C.—there was a bunch of scholars who were engaged in determining the shape, size, and climatic zones of the earth, and to ascertain the Ocean River, encompassing the habitable world. Moreover, philosophers like Plato and Aristotle encouraged their pupils to make efforts to determine the distances and latitudes with the help of astronomical observations. Heracleides Ponticus, the renowned associate of Plato, established the rotation of the earth on its axis, though still regarding it as the centre of the universe.Anaximender introduced the Babylonian gnomon to the Greek world.
He measured the latitudes of important places and prepared the first map of the world to scale. Thales and Anaximender are considered as the founders of mathematical geography. Thales and Aristotle established the spherical shape of the earth. Aristotle, by philosophical reasoning and astronomical observations, arrived at a conclusion that the earth was a sphere. His speculations about the shape of the earth were seconded by Eratosthenes based on a limited, measured arc of longitudes.
The astronomer Hipparchus of Rhodes (2nd century B.C.) developed a location system of lines on the surface of the earth—the forerunner of latitudes and longitudes. The spherical shape of the earth was a generally conceived idea among the Greeks. Hecataeus and Herodotus were, however, not the followers of the idea of the sphericity of the earth. Eudoxus of Cnidus—a contemporary of Plato—developed the theory of zones of climate based on increasing shape away from the sun on a spherical surface. All these formulations were deductions from pure theory that all observable things were created in perfect form and that the most perfect form was a sphere.
Aristotle was the first philosopher who wrote with definite arguments about the spherical shape of the earth. He gave two arguments in support of his statement about the sphericity of the earth. First, he deduced it from the law of gravitation, or, as he expressed it, the tendency of all things towards the centre. Through the operation of this principle, when the earth was in the course of formation, and the component elements were coming together equally from every quarter, the mass thus formed by acceleration was so constituted that its entire circumference must be equidistant from its centre.
Secondly, he infers it from what is seen to take place in lunar eclipses; for, when the earth is interposed between the sun and the moon, the special form of the obscured part of moon’s surface shows that the body which causes the obstruction is also spherical. Archimedes (250 B.C.) deduced from the interference that the surface of the sea must be convex—a conclusion which would naturally involve the gradual revelation of objects approaching upon it.