Agatharchides

thumb|Ancient Africa Agatharchides or Agatharchus of Cnidus (Ancient Greek: Ἀγαθαρχίδης or Ἀγάθαρχος; fl. 2nd century BC) was a Greek historian and geographer. Of his two major works, only a few fragments survive, too few to provide us with any sense of the contents of either work. However, for his On the Erythraean Sea (Peri tes Erythras Thalasses or De Mari Erythraeo) in five books, almost the entire fifth book, a geographical treatise on the Horn of Africa and the lands around the Red Sea, has survived almost intact. Quotes On the Erythraean Sea Περί της Ερυθράς Θάλασσας (versions: a = in Photius; b = in Diodorus) In that part of Aithiopia that lies above Egypt there lives beside the river called the Asa [sic: Astabaras] the tribe of the Root-Eaters (Rhizophagi). . . . Adjacent to these people are the tribes called Fibre-Eaters (Hylophagi) and Seed-Eaters (Spermatophagi). V.51b–52b (tr. Stanley M. Burstein, 1989), Minor Peoples Between them [Fibre-Eaters and Seed-Eaters] there is little difference. For one group feeds on fruit that falls from the trees in the summer, but during the rest of the year they gather a plant that grows in shady places, is firm in character and has a stalk similar to the turnip. The other group eats the soft fibrous parts of plants. At night the latter sleep in a place chosen for its strength and security from the beasts there. At sunrise they and their children and females all scramble up into the trees striving to reach quickly the topmost branches. There they crush the tenderest shoots and eat them at leisure. They have developed this skill over the course of their whole life to such a degree that their climbing is an incredible sight as is the graceful movement not only of their hands and fingers and feet but, quite simply, also of their whole body. The leap easily from one tree to another, and they often catch one after another the branches in the most dangerous places and create such a display that a person seeing it is amazed and does not dare to report it to people who have not had experience of it. They masticate every succulent twig with their teeth and easily digest it with their stomachs. Should one fall from the heights, he is not severely injured because of their extreme leanness. They all live naked, possess their children and females in common and fight among themselves over their places. Most of them die worn down from hunger since cataracts spread over their eyes about the age of fifty. V.52a (tr. Stanley M. Burstein, 1989), Minor Peoples See: William Coffman McDermott, The Ape in Antiquity (Baltimore, 1938), pp. 69–70, 108 Their women are in common as are their children. Only with the wife of the tyrant is it not permitted to have sexual intercourse. A fine of one sheep is levied on any person who has dared to do this. V.62a (tr. Stanley M. Burstein, 1989), Troglodytes At the time of the Etesian winds, when there are heavy rains in their country, they draw their sustenance from blood and milk which they mix together and boil briefly. V.62b (tr. Stanley M. Burstein, 1989), Troglodytes It is customary for the other Trogodytes to circumcise their genital organs, just as do the Egyptians, but the tribe the Greeks call 'Colobi' have the custom of cutting off with razors during infancy the whole portion that others circumcise. V.62a (tr. Stanley M. Burstein, 1989), Troglodytes External links Category:BCE births Category:BCE deaths Category:Historians from Greece Category:Geographers from Greece