GEOGRAPHIA. 365
Ethicus, et aliquando infra tres dies ceciderunt ex utraque parte decics cenicna millia hominum. Alexander tamen magis arte et ingenio vicit quam armorum potestate. Et cum fuerunt excitati sicut ursi de cavernis suis, non potuit eos reprimere per violentiam, sed Deus juvit per terrae motum et clausuras montium. Nunc autem ruptae sunt, et diu est quod fractae sunt sive terrac motu sive vetustate.
Et considerandum est diligenter de locis istis. Nam Gog These
et Magog, de quibus Ezechiel prophetavit et Apocalypsis, in aoida be his locis sunt inclusi, secundum quod dicit Hieronymus secundo paiaeeee libro super Ezechielem. Gog Scythica gens trans Caucasum et Maecotim ct Caspium mare ad Indiam usque tenduntur ; et a principe Gog omnes qui subditi sunt Magog appellantur et Judaei similiter, quos Orosius et alii sancti referunt exituros. Atque sicut Ethicus scribit, Alexander inclusit viginti duo regna de stirpe Gog et Magog, exitura in dicbus Antichristi, qui mundum primo vastabunt et deinde obviabunt Antichristo, et vocabunt eum Deum Decorum, sicut et beatus Hieronymus confirmat. O quam necessarium est ecclesiae Dei, ut proelati et virt catholici haec loca considerent, non solum propter conversionem gentium in illis locis, et consolationem Christia- norum captivorum ibidem, sed propter persecutionem Anti- christi, ut sciatur unde venturus sit, et quando, per hanc considerationem et alias multas.
A portis vero Caspiis incipit mare Caspium‘ extendi in The Cas- longum ad orientem ; et in latum ad aquilonem, et est non laa. minus quam Ponticum mare, ut dicit Plinius, et habet spatium quatuor mensium in circuitu. Frater vero Willielmus in
1 The changes of opinion in antiquity as te this sea are curions, Herodatus and Aristotle held the true view that it was surrounded by land. See Arist. Meteor. ii. 1, 810. But Patrocles, an officer of Antiochus I, maintained that it was a gulf of the northern ocean, and that it would be passible to sail [rom it round to the Indian sea (Strabo, xi. 11, § 6). Pliny went so far as to say that Patrocles had actually accomplished this voyage (Aisi, Net. vi. 17). And nolwithstanding that Ptolemy reverted tu the belief that the Caspian was an inland sea (Cosmographita, vii. 5,§ 4), Pliny’s view continued to be reasserted through the Middle Ages, till Bacon, on the authority of Rubruquis, canfirmed the fact thal it was surrounded by land. Becon however did not tree himsclt from Ptolemy's error of supposing its greatest length to be from east to west, rather than from north to south.
