This book started its official life as an Oxford D.Phil, thesis, written at St. John's College and Christ Church. As a student at St. John's I benefited enormously from the expert guidance and inspirational teaching of Michael Comber and Nicholas Purcell. Both have continued to provide support in all kinds of ways; and it was while I was an undergraduate at St. John's that the seeds of the idea to research ancient geography and conceptions of the wider world were sown in my mind