M* ASIA. 



inhabitant* of that country went only to a few places on the western 

 coart of Asia Minor, and perhaps occasionally to Tyre ; their geogra- 

 phical knowledge of Asia was consequently circumscribed within very 

 narrow limit*. But confined as their navigation was for a long time, 

 it at Ust contributed to bring about the settlement of the Greek 

 colonies in Ionia ; and this event was followed by another of greater 

 importance in a geographical point of view, namely, the extension of 

 the navigation of these colonies to the countries round the Black Sea, 

 and the exclusion of the Phoenicians from the commerce of this part 

 of the world. The subjection of the Greek colonies in Asia Minor to 

 the kings of Lydia seems not to have injured their commerce, and it 

 doubtleas extended their knowledge at least as far as the Halys, 

 the boundary of the kingdom of Croesus, and perhaps somewhat 

 beyond it 



The progress of geographical knowledge, which hitherto had been 

 rery (low, was accelerated by the establishment of the Persian 

 monarchy, B.C. 550. The different states into which till then Western 

 Asia had been divided, and which had much impeded the commercial 

 intercourse of its inhabitants, were incorporated into the extensive 

 Persian empire, which comprehended nearly all the countries between 

 the Mediterranean Sea on the west, and the Belur-Dagh on the east, 

 the Caspian on the north, and the mountains which border the valley 

 of the Indus on the south-east ; these countries were inhabited by 29 

 different nations. The Greek colonies on the coast of Asia Minor, 

 on the overthrow of the Lydian kingdom, had been compelled to 

 submit to the Persian monarch, which circumstance soon led to their 

 intimate acquaintance with Asia beyond the limits of Anatolia. We 

 may judge of the rapid progress made by the Ionian Greeks in their 

 knowledge of Asia, when we find that hardly fifty years after the 

 foundation of the Persian monarchy, Aristagoras, the governor of 

 Miletus, the most commercial and powerful of these colonies, was 

 able to produce at Sparta a copper tablet or map (Herod, v. 49), the 

 first of which we have any distinct record, on which the countries 

 ami military stations between Ionia and Susa were exhibited. About 

 the same time the Persian dominion over all the above-mentioned 

 countries being firmly established, a regular plan of administration 

 was formed by Darius the son of Hystaspes: this king probably 

 caused a geographical and statistical account of the whole empire to 

 be composed, a custom common in Asia at more recent periods, as the 

 ' Ayiu-i-Akbari ' of the Mogul emperor shows, and one still in use in 

 the Chinese empire. Some such work as this must have existed in 

 Persia, for otherwise we can hardly account for the geographical 

 description of the empire which Herodotus has inserted in his history 

 (iii. 89, Ac. ; vii. 61, &.C.). The sketch of the Greek historian enables 

 us to form a pretty exact idea of all the countries subject to the 

 Persian monarch*, and even of those which he had not an opportunity 

 of examining personally. His information about the countries of 

 Asia beyond the boundaries of the Persian empire is scanty, und 

 much less exact: as it was acquired by oral communication with 

 travellers and traders, it is not surprising that it is often incorrect and 

 mixed with fables, though even the latter in many instances are 

 founded on fact*. 



Before the time when Herodotus wrote, the Persian empire had 

 become stationary. Accordingly we find that the geographical know- 

 ledge of the Greeks for more than a century did not advance beyond 

 the ancient boundaries of that empire. But as the intercourse both 

 hostile and pacific between the Greeks and Persians had during that 

 period considerably increased, their knowledge of the different pro- 

 vince* composing the Persian empire was also enlarged. The most 

 valuable information of this kind we find embodied in Xenophon's 

 1 Anabasis.' It was usual for the Persian kings to have Greek physi- 

 cians about their persons, as we see in the instance of Democedes 

 (Herod, iii. 129), Ctesiu, and others. Such men had of course 

 considerable opportunities for acquiring exact information. If the 

 work of Cteaias bad come down to us entire, we might have formed 

 a better ntimnt-g of the value of his history of Pentia, now known to 

 us solely by the extracts of Photius and a few other writers. 



The foundation of this extensive empire had proved advantageous 

 to geography ; it* destruction also was favourable to its program. By 

 the conquests of Alexander the remoter provinces of the Fenian 

 monarchy, of which a great part till then had only been known in 

 such general outline* as those given by Herodotus and by the vague 

 information of individual*, were at once opened to the Greeks, who 

 had been prepared for increasing their geographical information l,y 

 their education and previous habits. The operations of military 

 expedition*, and the observations of military men, have always 

 rendered signal services to geography. Alexander attempted to cross 

 Uw boundaries of the Persian empire on the north and on th> 

 and though his success was limited in the former quarter, the Greeks 

 began from thai time to have some notion of the nomadic tribes 

 beyond the laxartes (Hihoon), who then as at present wandered 

 about in those extensive desert*. But his attempts on the south and 

 "* "** crowned with nieces*. He crossed the Indus and four of 

 the river* which traverse the Panjab, and had advanced to no great 

 distaoo* from the banks of the Jumna and the valley of the Ganges, 

 wbrn be was obliged to abandon his design of conquering India, 

 owing to a mutiny of his army. On his return to Persia he made an 

 important addition to the geographical knowledge of the Greeks by 



ASIA. &60 



exploring with his army and navy the course and the valley 

 lower Indus, and still more by ordering his admiral, Nearchus, to soil 

 along the coast from the Delta of the Indus to the mouth of the 

 Euphrates. Besides the geographical knowledge acquired by these 

 military operations, and the successful execution of the orders of the 

 Macedonian conqueror by his admiral, this expedition first gave the 

 Greeks a more exact notion of the great extent of India, of it* riches, 

 and the peculiarities of the nations which inhabit this great peninsula. 

 The geographical information acquired during the expeditions of 

 Alexander was incorporated in a map by one of his companions in 

 arms, Dicojarchus, a pupil of Aristotle. 



Less satisfactory, though not less important, was the information 

 which resulted more remotely from the conquest* of Alexander. The 

 Macedonian king destroyed Tyre, and transferred its commerce to 

 Alexandreia, which he founded near the western mouth of th. 

 As the Phoenicians for perhaps a thousand years and upwards had 

 carried on a lucrative commerce with the countries to the east and 

 south of the Persian empire, especially with India, by way of the 

 Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, their merchants had frequent oppor- 

 tunities of collecting such information as tended to increase their 

 commercial advantages. Accordingly the Phoenicians had more nautical 

 and geographical knowledge than any other nation of the ancient world, 

 and they had embodied it in writings. These were likewise transported 

 to Alexandreia, and probably aided the merchants of the new emporium 

 in entering at once into the path of their commercial predecessors, and 

 renewing the intercourse between Europe and India by the Nile and 

 the Red Sea, which had been interrupted by the expeditions of Alex- 

 ander. Accordingly we find that, soon after the death of the founder 

 of Alexandreia, Egyptian vessels from the ports of the Red Sea began 

 to visit the shores of Malabar, and to venture as far as Cape Comorin 

 and the island of Ceylon (called Taprobone by the Greeks). But though 

 the geographical information acquired by commerce is often of the 

 most valuable kind, its progress is extremely slow even in our time, 

 and must have been still more so among the ancients on account of 

 the numerous defects of their shipbuilding, and the backward state 

 of their navigation. Besides, such information is commonly limited 

 to the harbours and shores, and rarely extends to any great distance 

 in the interior. Accordingly we find that though the commercial 

 intercourse between Alexandreia and India was continued without 

 interruption for many centuries, the additional geographical knowledge 

 was scanty and vogue ; and though many of the harbours of Malabar 

 were annually visited by Egyptian vessels, the information thus 

 obtained concerning Ceylon, the coast of Coromandel, and the 

 country farther to the east, is limited to a few places, and was 

 obviously obtained by the Greeks of Egypt from native navigators, 

 none of them probably having ventured to advance beyond the inland 

 of Ceylon and Cape Comorin. 



The successors of Alexander, being almost continually engaged in 

 wars among themselves, did not disturb the unsubdued uatioux which 

 surrounded the Greek empire in Asia, with the exception of Seleucus 

 Nicator, the king of Syria, who made it is thought a successful 

 attempt to subdue a part of the valley of the Ganges. This opinion 

 rest* on the statement of Pliny (vi. 17). It is however certain that 

 he sent an ambassador, Megasthenes, to Sandrocottus, king of the 

 Proaii, to whom a considerable part of Hindustan was subject ; and to 

 thin individual we owe some further particulars respecting India and 

 its inhabitants. (Strabo, 702, 724, Ac.) The Greek empire of Bactria, 

 though its kings remained for many years in possession of the Indian 

 conquest* of Alexander, added little or nothing to the previous know- 

 ledge of the Greeks concerning that country. 



Most of the Greek kingdoms in Asia were destroyed by the Romans, 

 but they did not extend their dominion over all the provinces wlii.'h 

 once Iwlongod to the Persian monarchy. The extreme eastern boundary 

 of the Roman empire was formed by the Tigris, the Euphrates, and 

 the mountains of Armenia. Their military expeditions being carried 

 on in countries previously known, could odd very little to the geogra- 

 phical knowledge of Asia. We ought however to make an exception 

 with respect to the Caucasus. In their warn with Mithridnten, king 

 of Pontus, the armies of the Romans passed th. boundaries of the 

 known world and arrived at Mount < 'am-amm, with whose extent and 

 -itn-ition they became acquainted, though th, -y did n..t end -rthe valleys 

 which lie in its bosom. In proceeding farther to the shores of the 

 Caspian Sea they got information of a commercial rood through 

 Bactria, by which the countries on the south of the Caspian Sea carried 

 on an active commerce with India ; and soon after another route was 

 discovered, which led over the high table-land of I'ppi-r Asia to the 

 Seres or Chinese, probably the rood which still ]>oKeH through the 

 town of Kashghar. NothiiiR further was added to our geographical 

 knowledge of Asia by the military expedition* of the Romans ; but 

 the immense riches which many Romnn families had accumulated 

 during the commonwealth, and which still continued to increase under 

 the emperor*, created a taste and demand for the exquisite productions 

 .,f India and eastern Asia; and accordingly we find that not only the 

 lately discovered roads to China and India were much frequented by 

 it , lint also that the commercial enterprise of Alexandreia was 

 .wed, that in the time of Strabo a hundred and twenty vessels 

 were annually ncnt to the coast of Malabar. This intercourse was 

 considerably facilitated by the discovery of the monsoons in the Indian 



