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''Regio Patalis'' is Latin for "the Region of Patala". It took its name from the ancient city of Patala (now Thatta) at the mouth of the Indus River. By medieval times its actual location had been lost to the Europeans, and it appeared on late 15th and early 16th century maps and globes in locations ever eastward and southward of India, eventually appearing as a promontory of the Antarctic continent, ''Terra Australis''. ==The ''Regio Patalis'' in classical literature== Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus, 23-79 AD) referring to “the island of Patale, at the mouth of the Indus”, wrote in ''Historia Naturalis'': “Also in India (well as at Aswan in Egypt ) at the well-known port of Patale the sun rises on the right and shadows fall southward”.〔“In eadem India Patalis, celeberrimo portu, sol dexter oritur, umbrae in meridiem cadunt”; Gaius Plinius Secundus, ''Historia Naturalis,'' Book II, cap.xii, 25 and cap.lxxv: 184; quoted in John Watson McCrindle, ''Ancient India as described in Classical Literature, being a Collection of Greek and Latin Texts relating to India,'' Westminster, Constable, 1901, p.188.〕 The geographer Strabo (c.64 BC–c.24 AD) had said: “The Indus falls into the southern sea by two mouths, encompassing the country of Patalênê, which resembles the Delta in Egypt”.〔Strabo, ''Geography,'' bk.XV, c.13, quoted in McCrindle (1901): 19.〕 He noted: “All these () were conquered by Alexander, and last of all he reduced Patalênê, which the Indus forms by splitting into two branches… Patalênê contains a considerable city, Patala, which gives its name to the island”.〔Strabo, ''Geography,'' bk.XV, c.33; quoted in McCrindle (1901): 40.〕 The 1507 Martin Waldseemüller map shows ''Patala'' in this location.〔The only surviving copy of Waldseemueller’s 1507 map is now held by the Library of Congress, Washington DC, and a hi-resolution image of it can be found at: http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/exh.html〕 In the late 2nd century BC, Agatharchides of Cnidus recorded merchants from Patala, or as he called it, ''Potana,'' coming to the island of Socotra to trade with Alexandrian merchants.〔Agatharchides of Cnidus, ''On the Erythraean Sea,'' translated and edited by Stanley M. Burstein (London, Hakluyt Society, 1989): 169.〕 The 2nd century AD author Dionysios Periegetes said in his ''Orbis Descriptio'': “This river (Indus ) has two mouths, and dashes against the island enclosed between them, called in the tongue of the natives, Patalênê”.〔Dionysios Periegetes, ''Orbis Descriptio,'' lines 1080-1165; quoted in McCrindle (1901): 188.〕 Siltation has caused the Indus to change its course many times since the days of Alexander the Great, and the site of ancient Patala has been subject to much conjecture. Ahmad Hasan Dani, director of the Taxila Institute of Asian Civilisations, Islamabad, concluded: “There has been a vain attempt to identify the city of Patala. If ‘Patala’ is not taken as a proper name but only refers to a city, it can be corrected to ‘Pattana’, that is, (for ) a city or port city par excellence, a term applied in a later period to Thatta (capital of Sindh ), which is ideally situated in the way the Greek historians describe”.〔A.H. Dani and P. Bernard, “Alexander and His Successors in Central Asia”, in János Harmatta, B.N. Puri and G.F. Etemadi (editors), ''History of civilizations of Central Asia'' (Paris, UNESCO, 1994) II: 85. Herbert Wilhelmy has pointed out that siltation had caused the Indus to change its course many times over the centuries and that in Alexander’s time it bifurcated at the site of Bahmanabad, 75 kilometres to the north east of Hyderabad, which John Watson McCrindle had considered to occupy the site of ancient Patala: Herbert Wilhelmy, “Verschollene Städte im Indusdelta“, Geographische Zeitschrift, 56: 4 (1968): 256-294, n.b. 258-63; McCrindle (1901): 19, 40, 124, 188; ''idem, The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great,'' Westminster, Constable, 1893, pp.356-7.〕 The eighteenth century French geographer, Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, also identified Thatta with Patala:“Tatta is not only a town, but also a province of India, according to modern travellers; this town has taken the place of the ancient Patala or Pattala, which formerly gave name to the country included between the mouths of the Indus.”〔Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, ''A Geographical Illustration of the Map of India,'' Translated by William Herbert, London, 1759, p.19; "Tatta est non seulement un ville, mais encore une province de l'Inde, selon les voyageurs modernes. La ville ainsi nommée a pris la place de l'ancienne Patala ou Pattala, qui donnoit autrefois le nom à terrain renfermé entre les bouches de l’Indus." Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, ''Eclaircissements géographiques sur la carte de l'Inde,'' Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1753, p.39. (D'Anville, ''Orbis Veteribus Notus'' )〕 This opinion was shared by Alexander Burnes, who voyaged up the Indus on a diplomatic mission in 1831-32, and wrote:"The antiquity of Tatta is unquestioned. The Pattala of the Greeks has been sought for in this position, and, I believe, with good reason; for the Indus here divides into two great branches; and these are the words of the historian:- ‘Near Pattala, the river Indus divides itself into two vast branches’ (Arrian, lib.vi). Both Robertson and Vincent appear to have entertained the opinion of its identity with Tatta". 〔Alexander Burnes, ''Travels into Bokhara: Containing the Narrative of a Voyage on the Indus,'' London, Murray, 1839, Vol.I, p.27. William Robertson, ''An Historical Disquisition concerning Ancient India,'' Basel, Tourneisen, 1792, pp.20: “Patala (the modern Tatta)”; p.40: “Pattala (now Tatta).” William Vincent, ''The Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean,'' London, Cadell and Davies, 1807, p.138. “Tatta, the Páttala of the ancients.”〕 The reason for Pliny mentioning Patala, or as he called it, ''Patale,'' was to indicate that it, like the other places mentioned in the same chapter of his Natural History, particularly Syene (Aswan, in Egypt), was situated on or below the Tropic of Cancer and so shadows there were cast southward in midsummer, thus demonstrating the rotundity of the Earth. Pliny, writing in Latin, used the form, Patale: in accordance with convention, he treats Patala, being for him a Greek-derived noun, as a third declension Latin noun with the genitive form Patalis, as though its nominative case was Patale: hence, Regio Patalis not Regio Patalae.〔Cf. J. André et J. Filliozat: “Patale (71) ou Patala (72) transcription de gr. τα Παταλα (Patala )”, ''Pline l’Ancien: Histoire Naturelle, Texte Établi, Traduit et Commenté,'' Paris, Société d’Éditions les Belles Lettres, Livre VI, 1980, p.109.〕 Syene had been used by Eratosthenes of Cyrene in c.220 BC as a point of reference to measure the circumference of the Earth (by observing the angle of a shadow cast at Alexandria on the day of the summer solstice—eighty-three degrees—and deducting that from the ninety-degree right angle of the sun over Syene on the same day, from that deducing the acute angle—seven degrees—at the apex of the segment of the Earth’s circumference represented by the known distance from Syene to Alexandria—504 stadia—and then multiplying that distance by the value of that angle and dividing it by the 360 degrees of the whole circumference of the Earth: 252,000 stadia, or 39,690 km, an error of less than one per cent.〔Carl Sagan, ''Cosmos,'' New York , Random House, 1980, p.15.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Regio Patalis」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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