Hekataios of Mile ̄tos (ca 520 – 490 BCE)
Mythographer and geographer, of whom H made use. Hekataios traveled to
Egypt, the Black Sea, and probably elsewhere in Asia and Greece. He took part in the
councils at the start of the Ionian Revolt (499–494), at which time he had substantial
knowledge of the Persian Empire. He improved on the first map of the inhabited world
created by A. He wrote a mythographical work in four books, later called
Genealogies, Histories or Heröology, which to some degree rationalized the Greek myths, by
setting them in plausible geographical contexts. His major geographical work, Periodos
Ge ̄s or Perie ̄ge ̄sis, was a catalogue of places, divided into two scrolls, Europe and
Asia. Many brief fragments survive, although doubts were raised about their authenticity
in antiquity. The opus, arranged as an itinerary with basic directional and topographical
indicators, probably followed the order of the earliest Periploi, tracing the Mediterranean
shore from the Pillars of He ̄rakle ̄s east along the European coast, and returning west
along the African Coast. His treatment of the interiors of Egypt and Asia was limited.
Hekataios claimed to have visited Thebes in Egypt, but his information about the east
may have derived from Persian sources or predecessors such as S K.
Hekataios recorded toponymy and tribal names, and the location of rivers, mountains,
plains, capes and gulfs, along with some data concerning mythology, ethnography and
natural history.
Ed.: FGrHist 1.
C. van Paassen, The Classical Tradition of Geography (1957) 65–71; S. West, “Herodotus’ Portrait of
Hecataeus,” JHS 111 (1991) 144–160.
Philip KaplanH ⇒ B A A
Hekato ̄numos (?) of Khios (50 – 250 CE)
Cited by PSI .3011 on the medicinal properties of bitumen. Only “]to ̄numos of
Khios” is preserved, but of the three possible names, Aristo ̄numos although by far the
most frequent is not attested on Khios (LGPN), whereas Hekato ̄numos is (LGPN 1.148);
the archaic name Kleito ̄numos is very rare (LGPN 1.260, 2.265). The papyrus also cites
an “–os” of Thessalia and an “– ̄es” of Mile ̄tos, who could perhaps be the agronomist
A.
(*)
PTK
Heldebald (500 – 600 CE)
Wrote in Gothic a geography of Europe, covering Denmark to Spain, sketching the physical
geography, and cited extensively by the R C, Book 4. See also
A and M.
Staab (1976); DPA 3 (2000) 707–708, R. Goulet.
PTK
HELDEBALD