of the diameter of the gulf, they might just as well have been taken for
the road-distance between Mesurata andBengazi; the measurements
which we find in the Itinerary of Antoninus, of the distance between
Leptis Magna and Berenice, come nearer to the actual road-distance
between these places, by one hundred and thirty Roman miles, than
that which is obtained by adding the seventy-three miles between
Lebida and Mesurata to the circumference of the gulf given by Pliny;
for the whole distance of the Itinerary from Leptis to Berenice is not
estimated at more than five hundred and sixty-eight Roman miles,
while those above mentioned being added together would make no less
than six hundred and ninety-eight. So that the circumference of the
gulf which may be deduced irom the Itinerary differs only from the
actual circuit by road-distance in thirty-seven Roman miles, or
twenty-nine and a half geographic.
But instead of being surprized at the differences which obtain between
the measurements which have descended to us from the ancients,
we ought rather, perhaps, to wonder that they do not differ even more
than they are usually found to do from each other. I t is true that
abundant materials were furnished to the early geographers, by the numerous
military and naval expeditions which enterprizing or ambitious
states had fitted out for the purposes of conquest or discovery*; but
* Sesostris is said to have recorded his march in maps, and to have given copies of
them not only to the Egyptians, but to the remote and uninformed inhabitants of Scythia,
who viewed them with the greatest astonishment. The expeditions of Alexander
furnished the materials for an interesting survey, a copy of which was given to Patroclus
the geographer; it was from the work of Patroclus that Eratosthenes derived his principal
materials in constructing the Oriental part of his map of the world, and it is
frequently quoted both by Strabo and Pliny.
Many
the maps and charts which resulted from them were laid down
without the aid of astronomy ; and the distances between the places
described in them were either measured or computed along the roads
which the armies traversed, or deduced from the track of vessels along
the coast. Major Rennell has observed, that the difference which
will generally be found between the measurements of Eratosthenes
and Strabo, and those which appear in modern geography, will be
that which exists between the measure of a direct line, drawn
from one place to another, and that of the road distance between
them. Nothing can speak more strongly to this point,” (says
the well-informed and intelligent writer here quoted,) “ than the
circumstance of Strabo’s giving the number of stades in ÎSTearchus’s
Many tolerably accurate surveys resulted from the conquests of the Romans ; and
we learn from Vegetius that their generals were always furnished with the maps
of the provinces which were to be the scenes of their operations. Julius Cæsar
ordered a general survey to be made of the wholé empire, which occupied twenty-five
years ; and the Itinerary of Antonine, -as well as that which was constructed in the
reign of Theodosius the Great, commonly called the Peutingerian table, are well known
as valuable authorities.
The expeditioii of Alexander” (says Major Rennell, in the preliminary remarks
attached to.his Illustrations of Herodotus,) “ besides the éclat of the military history
belonging to it, furnished in Greece and Egypt an epoch of geographical improvement
and correction, which may not unaptly be compared with that of the discoveries of the
Portuguese along the coasts of Africa aûd India; or of that of the present time, in
which geography has been improved in every quarter of the globe.”
“ Tp a philosopher,” -(observes the same author,) “ the changes in the comparative
state of nations, in different ages of the world, are very striking, and lead one to reflect
what may be the future state of some now obscure corner of New Holland or of North
America ; since our own island was known only for its tin-mines by the most celebrated
of ancient nations, whose descendants, in turn, rank no higher with us than as dealers
jn figs and çurrapts .'”