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Sailing to the Other World: Lower Hemisphere and the Antipodes from Crates to Columbus

Following the acceptance of the earth’s sphericity its surface was divided into two hemispheres and four habitable landmasses, one of which was named ‘the antipodes’. The bipartition into hemispheres was accomplished either by the equator or a meridian. The latter division was most often conceived in terms of the alternation of daylight and night and resulted in the creation of a ‘lower hemisphere’. It is impossible to identify the inventor of the quadripartite division, but the name of Crates of Mallos was as a rule associated with this scheme throughout antiquity and the medieval period. Both divisions were often imperfectly understood by the authors who presented these concepts, which generated certain ambiguities in the understanding of the geographical features designated by the terms ‘lower hemisphere’ and ‘antipodes’. Some Greek and Roman authors speculated on the possibility of reaching the overseas landmasses, which was empirically verified by the explorers of the Age of Discoveries. The antipodean region with a daylight-night alternation contrary to that in the oikoumenê was sometimes conceived in eschatological terms. Alternatively, the localisation of the traditional world of the dead accessible by sailing was reconceptualised in terms of the new geographical and cosmological insights formulated by the application of the geometry of the sphere to the earth globe.

quadripartite earth, lower hemisphere, antipodes, Crates, sailing, Hades

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