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Posidonius

2 stories mention Posidonius on DeadlyCurious.

The Footnote June 25, 2026 · Amaseia, Pontus

The Greek Geographer Who Preserved Most of What We Know About Eratosthenes by Citing Him to Disagree With Him

Strabo of Amaseia wrote the seventeen-book *Geographika* between approximately 20 BC and 23 AD. The work was substantially the last great Hellenistic geographical synthesis. Strabo disagreed with most of Eratosthenes's specific positions on geographical method, but cited him so extensively in the process of disagreeing that Strabo is now the principal surviving source for Eratosthenes's lost work.

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The Footnote June 24, 2026 · Las Palmas, Canary Islands

Christopher Columbus Believed in a Smaller Earth Than Eratosthenes Had Measured and That Is Why He Sailed

The Eratosthenian Earth circumference (about 250,000 stadia, accurate to 2%) was the standard ancient figure but had been substantially undermined by a competing late-antique calculation by Posidonius. Columbus took the smaller Posidonian figure as his planning baseline. If he had used Eratosthenes's number, he would never have sailed.

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