A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

the first Roman author who composed a formal treatise upon Geography. From one passage in his work (2.6.74) we learn that he was born at a town situated on the bay of Algesiras, and the name of the place seems to have been Tingentera or Cingentera ; but the text is here so corrupt, that it is impossible to speak with certainty. From a second passage (3.6.25, comp. Sueton. Claud. 17) it is highly probable that he flourished under the emperor Claudis ; but at all events it is certain that he must have written after the campaigns of Augustus in Spain, for he speaks of the ancient Jol as having been ennobled by the appellation of Caesareia (1.6.5), and mentions two towns in the country of the Cantabri which had been named after their con queror. Beyond these particulars our knowledge does not extend. Funceius indeed conjectures that the designation Pomponius was acquired by adoption, and that he is in reality the L. Annaeus Mela of Corduba, who was the son of Seneca the rhetorician--the brother of Seneca the philosopher, and of Junius Gallio -- and the father of the poet Lucan; but there appears to be no evidence in favour of this hypothesis beyond the bare facts that both of these personages were Spaniards, and that both bore the surname of Mela. (Senec. Controv. lib. ii. praef.; Tac. Ann. 16.17; Hieron. in Chron. Euseb. Olymp. ccxi.; comp. Plin. Nat. 19.33, who, probably by mistake, wrote Tiberio for Nerone.)

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