Pomponius Mela
#3,296
Most Influential Person Across History
Roman geographer of the first century
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Earth Sciences
Why Is Pomponius Mela Influential?
(Suggest an Edit or Addition)According to Wikipedia, Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest known Roman geographer. He was born in Tingentera and died AD 45. His short work remained in use nearly to the year 1500. It occupies less than one hundred pages of ordinary print, and is described by the Encyclopædia Britannica as "dry in style and deficient in method, but of pure Latinity, and occasionally relieved by pleasing word-pictures." Except for the geographical parts of Pliny's Historia naturalis , the De situ orbis is the only formal treatise on the subject in Classical Latin.