page_title: Classical compass winds
section_title: Timosthenes
hierarchical_section_title: Classical compass winds / Greek / Timosthenes
caption_attribution_description: English: This image is a zoomed-in version of Eastern Hemisphere in 200 BC. Author: Thomas A. Lessman. Source URL: http://www.ThomasLessman.com/History/images/East-Hem_200bc.jpg. Image was created by me (Thomas Lessman) based on map of Eastern Hemisphere in 200 BC. Image is free for public and/or educational use. I would appreciate a mention if this image is used elsewhere. If anyone is interested in helping further this work, please contact Thomas Lessman at talessman@yis.us. Other Historical Maps by Thomas Lessman 1.&#91;1&#93;. 2.&#91;2&#93;. 3. 200 BC. 4. 100 BC. 5.&#91;3&#93;. 6.&#91;4&#93;. 7.&#91;5&#93;. 8.&#91;6&#93;. 9.&#91;7&#93;. 10.&#91;8&#93;. 11.&#91;9&#93;. 12.&#91;10&#93;. 13.&#91;11&#93;. 14.&#91;12&#93;. 15.&#91;13&#93;. 16.&#91;14&#93;. 17.&#91;15&#93;. 18.&#91;16&#93;. 19.&#91;17&#93;. 20.&#91;18&#93;. 21.&#91;19&#93;. 22.&#91;20&#93;. 23.&#91;21&#93;. ↑ 500 BC ↑ 323 BC ↑ 050 BC ↑ 001 AD ↑ 050 AD ↑ 100 AD ↑ 200 AD ↑ 300 AD ↑ 400 AD ↑ 475 AD ↑ 476 AD ↑ 477 AD ↑ 500 AD ↑ 565 AD ↑ 600 AD ↑ 700 AD ↑ 800 AD ↑ 900 AD ↑ 1025 AD ↑ 1100 AD ↑ 1200 AD
context_page_description: In the ancient Mediterranean world, the classical compass winds were names for the points of geographic direction and orientation, in association with the winds as conceived of by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Ancient wind roses typically had twelve winds and thus twelve points of orientation, sometimes reduced to eight or increased to twenty-four.
  Originally conceived as a branch of meteorology, the classical wind rose had only a tentative relationship with actual navigation. The Classical 12-point wind rose was eventually displaced by the modern compass rose, adopted by seafarers during the Middle Ages.
context_section_description: The Greek-Roman physician Agathemerus (c. 250 CE), in his Geographia, gives the eight principal winds. But Agathemerus goes on to note that nearly five hundred years earlier, the navigator Timosthenes of Rhodes (c. 282 BCE) had developed a system of 12 winds by adding four winds to the eight.  (Agathemerus is, of course, incorrect – Aristotle had at least ten winds, not eight).
  Timosthenes's list (according to Agathemerus) was Aparctias (N), Boreas (not Meses, NNE), Caecias (NE), Apeliotes (E), Eurus (SE), "Phoenicias is also called Euronotos" (SSE), Notos (S), "Leuconotos alias Libonotos" (first mention, SSW), Lips (SW), Zephyrus (W), Argestes (NW) and "Thrascias alias Circius" (NNW).
  In many ways, Timosthenes marks a significant step in the evolution of the compass rose. Depending on how Ventorum Situs is dated, Timosthenes can be credited with turning Aristotle's asymmetric ten-wind compass into a symmetric twelve-wind compass, by introducing the SSW wind (Leuconotos/Libonotos) omitted by Aristotle and Theophrastus and assigning the compound "Euronotos" (already alluded to by Aristotle, no mention of Theophrastus's Orthonotos here) in place of the local Phoenicias (SSE). His highlighting of the Italian "Circius" as a major variant of Thrascias (NNW) could be the first indication of the notorious Mistral wind of the west Mediterranean. Another major change in Timoesthenes is that he shunts Boreas out of the North position and into NNE (replacing Meses) – which will become customary in later authors.
  Timosthenes is also significant for being perhaps the first Greek to go beyond treating these "winds" merely as meteorological phenomena and to begin viewing them properly as points of geographic direction. Timosthenes (through Agathemerus) assigns each of the 12 winds to geographical locations and peoples (relative to Rhodes):
  Aparctias (N) are the "Scythians above Thrace",
  Boreas (NNE) are "Pontus, Maeotis and the Sarmatians"
  Caecias (NE) is "the Caspian Sea and the Sakas",
  Apeliotes (E) are "the Bactrians"
  Eurus (SE) are "the Indians",
  Phoenicias/Euronotos (SSE) is "the Red Sea and "Aethiopia" (prob.Axum)
  Notos (S) are the " "Aethiopians beyond Egypt" (Nubia)
  Leuconotos/Libonotos (SSW) are "the Garamantes beyond Syrtes",
  Lips (SW) are "the Ethiopians in the west beyond the Mauroi" (Numidia, Mauri people)
  Zephyrus (W) lie "the Pillars of Hercules and the beginning of Africa and Europe"
  Argestes (NW) is "Iberia or Hispania"
  Thrascias/Circius (NNW) are "the Celts".
  Modern scholars to conjecture that Timosthenes, in his lost periplus, might have made ample use of these winds for sailing directions (which may help explain Agathemerus's eagerness to credit Timosthenes for "inventing" the twelve winds).
  (Timosthenes's geographic list above is reproduced almost verbatim centuries later, in the 8th-century work of John of Damascus and a Prague manuscript from the early 1300s.)
  The pseudo-Aristotelean work De Mundo (normally attributed to an anonymous copier of Posidonius, probably written between 50 BCE and 140 CE), the winds are named practically identically to Timosthenes (e.g. Aparctias alone in the North, Boreas shunted to NNE, Euronotus instead of Phoenicias, Circius as alternate of Thrascias). The differences of De Mundo from Timosthenes are that (1) it introduces Libophoenix as another name for Libonotos (Leuconotos not mentioned); (2) two alternates to Argestes are mentioned – Iapyx (as in the Ventorum) and Olympias (as in Aristotle) (Timosthenes mentions no variants for this wind), (3) like Aristotle, De Mundo refers to a collective of north winds, the Boreae.
caption: Ancient world, c. 200 BCE)
exif: {}