We Have Contented Ourselves With This Short Abstract Of The Periplus Of The Euxine, Because We Have Already Given All The Important Information It Contains On The Subject Of The Commerce Of This Sea.

It is very inferior in merit to the Periplus of the Euxine, which has also been attributed to this Arrian, though Dr. Vincent, we think, has proved that it is the work of an earlier writer, and of a merchant.

As the Roman conquests extended, their geographical knowledge of course increased. In the reign of Antoninus Pius, their armies had forced a passage much further north in Britain than they had ever ventured before. One of the results of this success was a maritime survey, or rather two partial surveys of the north part of Britain, from which the geography of that part of the island was compiled by Ptolemy.

The maritime laws of the Rhodians, or those which passed under their name, seem to have been the basis and authority of the Roman maritime laws at this period; for we are told, that when a merchant complained to the emperor that he had been plundered by the imperial officers at the Cyclades, where he had been shipwrecked, the latter replied, that he indeed was lord of the earth, but that the sea was governed by the Rhodian laws, and that from them he would obtain redress. This part of the Rhodian law, however, had been but lately adopted by the Romans; for Antoninus is expressly mentioned as having enacted, among other laws, that shipwrecked merchandize should be the entire property of the lawful owners, without any interference or participation of the officers of the exchequer, and that those who were guilty of plundering wrecks should be severely punished.

One of the most important and complete surveys of the Roman empire (the idea of which, as has been already stated, was first formed by Julius Caesar) was begun and finished in the reign of Antoninus, and is well known under the appellation of his Itinerary. It has, indeed, been objected to this date of the Itinerary, that it contains places which were not known in the time of Antonine, and names of places which they did not bear till after his reign; thus mention is made of the province of Arcadia in Egypt, and of Honorius in Pontus, so styled in honor of the sons of the emperor Theodosius. But the fact seems to be that alterations and additions were made to the Itinerary, and that occasionally, or perhaps under each subsequent emperor, new editions of it were published. From the maritime part of this Itinerary of Antoninus we derive a clear idea of the timidity or want of skill and enterprise of the Mediterranean seamen in their commercial voyages. All the ports which it was prudent or necessary, for the safety of the voyage, to touch at, in sailing from Achaia to Africa are enumerated; and of these there are no fewer than twenty, some of them at the heads of bays on the coasts of Greece, Epirus, and Italy, and within the Straits of Sicily as far as Messina.

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