Written by Julia Schulz

Biography

Pomponius Mela was a Roman author and geographer born in Iulia Traducta (modern Algeciras, Spain). He was born in Tingentera which was situated near the modern city Tarifa.¹

It is not clear when exactly he was born, but he probably lived during the reign of the Emperor Claudius and wrote his work in 43/44 CE.² His publication, which encompasses three volumes on the geography of the world known at that time, is called the Chorographia (see fig. 1).³

Pomponius Mela relied on other antique authors as sources of his books. Herodotus for example is partly used for the descriptions of the people of India, Scythia and inner Africa.⁴ Other indirect sources, especially for the descriptions of North Africa and Western Europe are Polybius, Artemidorus, Posidonius and Eratosthenes.⁵

His account of Syene

Pomponius Mela mentions Syene and Elephantine while listing important cities inhabited by Egyptians at the time of king Amasis’ rule⁶:

„They [the Egyptians] inhabited twenty cities when Amasis ruled, and now they inhabit numerous ones. The most famous of those cities far from the sea are Safe, Memphis, Syene, Bubastis, Elephantine, and, in particular, Thebes, which, as stated by Homer, has one hundred gates or, as others say, one hundred palaces, the homes, once, of one hundred important chiefs, each house accustomed to send out ten thousand armed soldiers when trouble had driven them to it. On the coast is Alexandria, bordering on Africa, and Pelusium, which borders on Arabia. The mouths of the Nile — the Canopic, Bolbitic, Sebennytic, Pathmetic, Mendesian, Cataptystic, and Pelusiac mouths — cut into those very shores.”⁷

Sources

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