It Is Easy To Conceive How It Happened That Too Much Space Is Assigned Between Places Situated East And West Of Each Other, As The Latitude Of A Place Is Much More Easily Determined Than Its Longitude.

At the same time, as the routes of the Roman armies generally were from east to west, the countries

Lying in that direction were better known than those lying to the north and south, though the longitudes, and general space assigned the world, in the former deviation, were erroneous. It was the opinion of most of the ancient geographers, that there was a southern continent or hemisphere, to correspond to and balance the northern; and this they formed by cutting off the great triangle to the south. The ancients also, while they curtailed those parts of the world with which they were unacquainted, extended the known parts.

The limit of the Roman geography of Europe to the north was the Baltic, beyond which they had some very imperfect and obscure notion of the south of Sweden, and perhaps of Norway. They were acquainted with the countries on the eastern boundary of Europe lying on the Danube and the Vistula, and the rivers Wolga and Tanais seem also to have been tolerably well known to them. Of the whole of the west of Europe they were well informed, with the exception of the general figure, and some part of the British isles.

With respect to Africa, the Romans seem to have been acquainted with one-third of it. The promontory of Prasum was the limit of their knowledge on the east coast: its limits on the western coast it is not so easy to fix. The western horn was the limit of the voyage of Hanno, which, according to some, is Cape Nun; and, according to others, Cape Three Points, in Guinea; and we have observed already, that the Gulf of St. Cyprian was probably the limit of Ptolemy's knowledge. The coasts of Africa on the Mediterranean, and on the Red Sea, were of course well known to the Romans; and some points of their information respecting the interior were clear and accurate, but, as for these, they trusted almost entirely to the reports of merchants, they were as frequently erroneous.

The northern, north-western, north-eastern, and east parts of Asia were almost utterly unknown to the Romans; but they possessed tolerably accurate information regarding the whole hither peninsula of India, from the Indus to the Ganges, and some partial and unconnected notices of the farther peninsula and of China.

[5] The most probable opinion is, that they were made of fluat of lime, or Derbyshire spar.

CHAPTER IV.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY AND OF COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE, FROM THE TIME OF PTOLEMY TILL THE CLOSE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

Although the period, which the present chapter embraces, extends to thirteen centuries, yet, as it is by no means rich or fruitful either in discovery or commercial enterprise, it will not detain us long. The luxuries and wealth of the east, which, in all ages of the world and to all nations have been so fascinating, had, as we have already seen, drawn to them the interest and the enterprise of the Romans, in the height of their conquests; and towards the east, with few exceptions, discovery and commerce pointed, during the whole of the period which this chapter embraces. Yet, notwithstanding this powerful attraction, geography made comparatively little progress: the love of luxury did not benefit it nearly so much as the love of science. The geography of Ptolemy, and the description of Greece by Pausanias, are, as Malte Brun justly remarks, the last works in which the light of antiquity shines on geography. We may further observe, that as circumstances directed the route to the east, during the middle ages, principally through the central parts of Asia, the countries thus explored, or visited, were among the least interesting in this quarter of the globe, and those of which we possess, even at the present day, very obscure and imperfect information.

The nations to whom geography and commerce were most indebted, during the period which this chapter embraces, were the Arabians, - the Scandinavians, - under that appellation comprehending the nations on the Baltic and in the north of Germany, - and the Italian states. Before, however, we proceed to notice and record their contributions to geography, discovery, and commerce, it will be proper briefly to attend to a few circumstances connected with those subjects, which occurred between the age of Ptolemy and the utter decline of the Roman empire.

We have already alluded to the intercourse which was begun between Rome and China, during the reign of Marcus Antoninus, for the purpose of obtaining silk. Of the embassy which preceded and occasioned this commercial intercourse, we derive all our information from the Chinese historians. A second embassy seems to have been sent in the year A.D. 284, during the reign of Probus: that the object of this also was commercial there can be no doubt; but the particulars or the precise object in view, and the result which flowed from it, are not noticed by the Chinese historians. There can be no doubt, however, that these embassies contributed to extend the geography and commerce of the Romans towards the eastern districts of Asia.

Of the attention which some of the Roman emperors, during the decline of the empire, paid to commerce, we possess a few notices which deserve to be recorded. The emperor Pertinax, whose father was a manufacturer and seller of charcoal, and who, himself, for some time pursued the same occupation, at that period an extensive and profitable one, preserved and exercised, during his reign, that sense of the value of commerce which he had thus acquired. He abolished all the taxes laid by Commodus on the ports, harbours, and public roads, and gave up his privileges as emperor, especially in all those points where they were prejudicial to the freedom and extension of commerce.

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