Hecataeus

Hecataeus (d. c.476 BC), of Miletus (an Ionian Greek city in Asia Minor), one of the earliest composers of Greek prose history and geography (see LOGOGRAPHERS). The results of his extensive travels in the Persian empire, Egypt, Greece, and around the coasts of the Mediterranean and Black Sea were embodied in a map of the world, showing a flat, circular earth with a hole in the middle, representing the Mediterranean, and the stream of Ocean running like a river around the outside. (This was said to be the second map made in Greece: see ANAXIMANDER.) Makers of this style of map were much derided by Herodotus for their ignorance. Hecataeus wrote in (Ionic) Greek a Periēgēsis (or Periodos gēs, ‘guide’) to illustrate his map, many fragments of which survive in quotations, mostly too short to be illuminating. Herodotus seems to have made extensive use of this work without acknowledgement. Hecataeus also wrote a work entitled the Histories or Genealogies, the few surviving fragments of which show that he was tracing back to mythical times the families (including, apparently, his own) of those who claimed a god or hero as their ultimate ancestor. The first sentence is famous for embodying a new critical approach: ‘I write these things as they seem to me; for the stories of the Greeks are many and ridiculous in my opinion.’

Hecataeus (Ἑκαταῖος) is a Greek name shared by several historical figures:

• Hecataeus of Miletus (born ca. 550 BC), historian
• Hecataeus of Abdera (born ca. 300 BC), philosopher and historian
• Hecataeus of Eretria (born ca. 300 BC), historian
• Hecataeus of Mytilene (born ca. 100 BC), sculptor

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