

INFLUENCE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE* 549 



ceeded in absolute magnitude by the Chinese empire under 

 the dynasty of Thsin and the Eastern Han (from thirty years 

 before, to one hundred and sixteen years after our era), by the 

 Mongolian empire under Ghengis Khan, and by the present 

 area of the Russian empire in Europe and Asia; but with the 

 single exception of the Spanish monarchy as long as it 

 extended over the new world there has never been combined 

 under one sceptre a greater number of countries favoured by 

 climate, fertility, and position, than those comprised under 

 the Roman empire from Augustus to Constantine. 



This empire, extending from the western extremity of 

 Europe to the Euphrates, from Britain and part of Caledonia 

 to Gastulia and the confines of the Lybian desert, manifested 

 not only the greatest diversities in the form of the ground, in 

 organic products and physical phenomena, but it also exhi- 

 bited mankind in all the various gradations from civilisation 

 to barbarism, and in the possession of ancient knowledge and 

 long practised arts, no less than in the imperfectly lighted 

 dawn of intellectual awakening. Distant expeditions were 

 prosecuted with various success to the north and south, to 

 the amber-lands, and under ^Elius Gallus and Balbus, to 

 Arabia, and to the territory of the Garamantes. Measure- 

 ments of the whole empire were begun even under Augustus, 

 by the Greek geometricians, Zenodoxus and Polycletus, whilst 

 itineraries and special topographies were prepared for the 

 purpose of being distributed amongst the different governors 

 of the provinces, as had already been done several hundred 

 years before in the Chinese empire.* These were the first 

 statistical labours instituted in Europe. Many of the prefec- 

 tures were traversed by Roman roads, divided into miles, and 

 Adrian even visited his extensive dominions from the Iberian 

 Peninsula to Judea, Egypt, and Mauritania, in an eleven years' 

 journey, which was not, however, prosecuted without frequent 

 interruptions. Thus the large portion of the earth's surface, 

 which was subject to the dominion of the Romans, was opened 

 and rendered accessible, realising the idea of the pervius orbis 

 with more truth than we can attach to the prophecy in the 

 chorus of the Medea as regards the whole earth.f 



* Veget, de He Mil, iii. 6. 



t Act ii. v. 371, in the celebrated prophecy which, from the time of 

 the son of Columbus, was interpreted to relate to the discovery of 

 America. 



