Editing Antipodes (section)

==Historical significance==
[[Pomponius Mela]], the first Roman geographer, asserted that the earth had two habitable zones, a North and South one, but that it would be impossible to get into contact with each other because of [[Torrid zone|the unbearable heat at the Equator]] (''De orbis situ'' 1.4).{{refn|group=note|Almost the same assertion had been previously made in [[Ovid]]'s ''[[Metamorphoses]]'', Book 1, lines 45–51. See the fifth paragraph in More's translation of "The Creation".<ref name = "More1922">{{cite web |url= https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D5| title= Ovid's ''Metamorphoses''|last= More|first= B.|date= 1922|publisher= Cornhill Publishing Co.|access-date= 2019-04-07|location= Boston|oclc= 715284718}}</ref>}}
[[File:Crates Terrestrial Sphere.png|thumb|The Terrestrial Sphere of [[Crates of Mallus]] ({{circa|150}} BCE), showing the region of the antipodes in the southern half of the western hemisphere]]
Third-century AD Christian philosopher [[Augustine of Hippo]] was skeptical of the notion. Augustine asserted that "it is too absurd to say that some men might have set sail from this side and, traversing the immense expanse of ocean, have propagated there a race of human beings descended from that one first man."<ref>[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.XVI.9.html ''De Civitate Dei'', Book XVI, Chapter 9 — ''Whether We are to Believe in the Antipodes''], translated by [[Marcus Dods (theologian)|Rev. Marcus Dods]], D.D.; from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College</ref>

In the [[Early Middle Ages]], [[Isidore of Seville]]'s widely read [[Etymologiae|encyclopedia]] presented the term "antipodes" or, as he said "antipodas" as referring to [[antichthones]] (people who lived on the opposite side of the Earth), as well as to a geographical place:
{{blockquote|Apart from these three parts of the world, there exists a fourth part beyond the interior Ocean; it is in the south and is unknown to us because of the burning heat of the Sun; within its borders the fabled Antipodeans are reputed to dwell.<ref>"Extra tres autem partes orbis quarta pars trans Oceanum interior est in meridie, quae solis ardore incognita nobis est; in cuius finibus antipodas fabulose inhabitare produntur”; Isidorus Hispalensis (Isidore of Seville), ''Etymologiae'', Venice, Peter Loslein, 1483, liber xiv, cap.v, "De Libya", p.71v.[https://books.google.com/books?id=B3DEX08B67wC&dq=Etymologiae+antipodas&pg=PA71-IA1  ]</ref>}}

In using the form ''antipodas'' rather than the more usual Latin ''antipodes'' Isidore simply transcribed the original Greek αντίποδας, the singular case of the name: the plural case is αντίποδες (antipodes), used in converting the name into Latin. These people came to play a role in medieval discussions about the [[Flat earth#Europe: Early Middle Ages|shape of the Earth]].<ref>{{Citation | last = Stevens | first = Wesley M. | title = The Figure of the Earth in Isidore's "De natura rerum" | journal = Isis | volume = 71 | issue = 2 | page = 274 | date = 1980 | jstor = 230175 | doi = 10.1086/352464 | s2cid = 133430429 }}; Robert J. King, “The Antipodes on Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 World Map”, ''The Globe,'' no.91, 2022, pp. 43–60.</ref>

In 748, in reply to a letter from [[Saint Boniface|Boniface]], [[Pope Zachary]] declared the belief "that beneath the earth there was another world and other men, another sun and moon" to be heretical. In his letter, Boniface had apparently maintained that [[Vergilius of Salzburg]] held such a belief.<ref>{{citation
 | title= Antipodes in The Catholic Encyclopedia 
 | last= Loughlin
 | first= James
 | url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01581a.htm
 | date=1907
 }}</ref><ref>¥{{citation
   | title=The Classical Tradition and the Americas
   | editor1-first=Wolfgang
   | editor1-last=Hasse
   | editor2-first=Meyer
   | editor2-last=Reinhold
   | location=Berlin
   | publisher=Walter de Gruyter
   | date=1993
   | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I1LEmKPgJ8MC
   | isbn=3-11-011572-7
}}</ref><ref>{{citation
 | title= The Other World and the 'Antipodes'. The Myth of Unknown Countries between Antiquity and the Renaissance 
 | last= Moretti
 | first= Gabriella
 | postscript=. In [[#CITEREFHasseReinhold1993|Hasse & Reinhold]] (1993, pp.241–84).
 | page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=I1LEmKPgJ8MC&pg=265 265]
 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I1LEmKPgJ8MC&pg=241
 | year=1993
 | publisher= Walter de Gruyter
 | isbn=3-11-011572-7
 }}</ref><ref>''[[Monumenta Germaniae Historica|MGH]]'', Epistolae Selectae, 1, 80, pp. [http://www.dmgh.de/de/fs1/object/goToPage/bsb00000525.html?pageNo=178&sortIndex=040%3A040%3A0001%3A010%3A00%3A00 178–9] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140411211444/http://www.dmgh.de/de/fs1/object/goToPage/bsb00000525.html?pageNo=178&sortIndex=040%3A040%3A0001%3A010%3A00%3A00 |date=2014-04-11 }}; translation in M. L. W. Laistner, ''Thought and Letters in Western Europe'', pp. 184–5.; see also Jaffe, ''Biblioth. rerum germ.'', III, 191</ref>

The antipodes being an attribute of a [[spherical Earth]], some ancient authors used their perceived absurdity as an argument for a [[flat Earth]].<ref>
{{citation |chapter-url=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf07.iii.ii.iii.xxiv.html |author=Lactantius |chapter= ''The Divine Institutes'', Book III, Chapter XXIV |title=THE ANTE-NICENE FATHERS |volume=VII |editor1-first=Rev. Alexander |editor1-last=Roberts, D.D. |editor2-first=James |editor2-last=Donaldson, LL.D. |date=311 |publication-date=1979 |publisher= W. B. Eerdmans Publishing |location=Grand Rapids, Michigan |pages=94–95 |access-date=July 20, 2013}}
</ref> However, knowledge of the spherical Earth was widespread during the Middle Ages, only occasionally disputed—the medieval dispute surrounding the antipodes mainly concerned the question whether people could live on the opposite side of the earth: since the torrid [[clime]] was considered impassable, it would have been impossible to [[evangelize]] them. This posed the problem that [[Christ]] told the apostles to evangelize all mankind; with regard to the unreachable antipodes, this would have been impossible. Christ would either have appeared a second time, in the antipodes, or left the damned irredeemable. Such an argument was forwarded by the Spanish theologian [[Alonso Tostado]] as late as the 15th century and "St. Augustine doubts" was a response to Columbus's proposal to sail westwards to the Indies.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus |author1-link=Ferdinand Columbus |first=Ferdinand |last=Columbus |orig-year=1543 |translator1-link=Benjamin Keen |translator-first=Benjamin |translator-last=Keen |location=London |publisher=The Folio Society |year=1960 |page=62}}</ref>

The author of the Norwegian book ''[[Konungs Skuggsjá]]'', from around 1250, discusses the existence of antipodes. He notes that (if they exist) they will see the sun in the north in the middle of the day and that they will have seasons opposite those of the Northern Hemisphere.

[[Herodotus]] recorded that Pharaoh [[Necho II]] of the 26th Dynasty (610–595 BC) commissioned an expedition of Phoenicians which in three years sailed from the Red Sea around Africa back to the mouth of the Nile, and that "''as they sailed on a westerly course round the southern end of Libya (Africa), they had the sun on their right''"— to northward of them, proving that they had been in the Southern Hemisphere.<ref>Herodotus, ''The Histories'' 4.42.</ref> The earliest surviving account by a European who had visited the Southern Hemisphere is that of [[Marco Polo]] (who, on his way home in 1292, sailed south of the [[Malay Peninsula]]). He noted that it was impossible to see the star [[Polaris]] from there.
[[File:La Terre est ronde, Image du Monde, Gossuin de Metz.png|thumb|In this illustration of a thought experiment, two men walk in opposite directions and meet at the antipodes. 14th-century {{lang|fro|Image du monde}}.|alt=Six men with spears walking around a circle. An Old French text says "hőme qui va en tour le monde".]]
The idea of dry land in the southern climes, the ''[[Terra Australis]]'', was introduced by [[Ptolemy]] and appears on European maps as an imaginary continent from the 15th century.  ''Antipodes'' was what [[Giovanni Matteo Contarini|Giovanni Contarini]], on his world map of 1506 called the land later named ''America'' by [[Martin Waldseemüller]].<ref>Giovanni Contarini, ''Orbem terrarum in planam et maria omnia mappam Europam Lybiam atque Asiam Antipodesque redegit'' (“The world and all its seas reduced on a plane map, Europe, Lybia [Africa], Asia, and the Antipodes"); Robert J. King, “The Antipodes on Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 World Map”, ''The Globe,'' no.91, 2022, pp. 43–60.</ref> When the land discovered by [[Pedro Alvarez Cabral]] in April 1500, [[Brazil]], was formally named ''Santa Cruz'' by the assembled Portuguese court on 20 May 1503, it was also referred to in the  official record of the proceedings as the “Land of the Antipodes”: ''terra Antipodum''.<ref>Abel Fontoura da Costa, ''Cartas das ilhas de Cabo Verde de Valentim Fernandes,'' Lisbon, Divisao de Publicacoes e Biblioteca, Agencia Geral das Colonias, 1939, p.93;  Oscar Marcondes de Sousa, “O Ato Notarial de Valentim Fernandes de 20 de maio de 1503: Navegação dos Portugueses para além do Circulo Equinocial”, ''Revista de História,'' vol.16, no.34, 1958, pp.375, 378; Benjamin B. Olshin, ''A Sea Discovered: Pre-Columbian Conceptions and Depictions of the Atlantic Ocean,'' Toronto, University of Toronto, 1994,  p.141.</ref>

The land reached by Columbus in 1492 was identified as that of the Antipodes by the diplomatist Peter Martyr who, in a letter he wrote from Barcelona dated 14 May 1493, said: "A few days since, a certain Christopher Columbus, a Ligurian, returned from the Western Antipodes".<ref>“Poft paucos inde dies rediit ab antipodibus occiduis Chriftophorus quidam Colonus vir Ligur”; P. Martire ad Io. Borromeo, pridie id.Maii mccccxciii, in Pietro Martire d' Anghiera, ''Opus epistolarum Petri Martyris Anglerii Mediolanensis,'' Aedibus Michaelis de Eguia, 1530, lib.VI, f.xxxiv.</ref>  Perhaps influenced by this, Fernão Vaz Dourado in his Atlas of 1571 inscribed over the map of Mexico and adjacent parts of America, ''Tera Antipodum regis Castelle inventa a Xforo Columbo Januensi'' (Land of the Antipodes, discovered for the King of Castile by Christopher Columbus of Genoa).<ref>''Atlas de Fernão Vaz Dourado: reprodcão fidelissima do exemplar do Torre do Tombo, datado de Goa, 1571'', Porto, Livraria Civilizacao, 1948, fol.18.</ref>

In spite of having been discovered relatively late by European explorers, [[Australia]] was inhabited very early in human history; the ancestors of the [[Indigenous Australians]] reached it at least 50,000 years ago.