Before Chrift 170 — 149. 105 



thofe Ibvereigns, who conftantly keep on foot great armies ready to in- 

 vade every country ; or, inftead of being the principals, and having the 

 command of the commerce between the eallern and weftern worlds, 

 they would foon be reduced to the condition of agents, and be compell- 

 ed to condud the trade for the emolument of others. \^Agatharchides, 

 L. V, cc. 50, 51, ap. Photii Bibl — See alfo Diod. Sic. L. iii, § 46, 47 — 

 Strabo, L. xvi, p. 1 1 24.] 



This defcription of the happy condition of the Sabaeans, which is 

 much more copious than thofe ufually given by antient writers upon 

 fimilar fubjefts (and it is even prolix in fome parts of the original) does 

 not appear to give any fupport to the fuppoiition of an active trade from 

 Egypt to India. Surely an author, who was in the fervice of the king 

 of Egypt, would not have negleded to mention fuch a trade, if it had at 

 all exifted, when he particularizes the various countries, to which the 

 Sabaean veffels made their voyages. It feems even probable, that the 

 Sabaeans failed to the ports of Egypt, and that it was by the agency and 

 duties paid on their trade there, that the merchants of Egypt and their 

 fovereign were enriched. And it is certain, that the Sabaeans, and the 

 Gerrhaeans, who feem to have been conneded with them in commerce, 

 enjoyed a monopoly of the commerce with India, and thereby acquired 

 the opulence which has ever attended thofe who have obtained the 

 command of that univerfally-coveted trade. 



168 — Sulpicius Gallus was the firft of the Romans who could fore- 

 tell an eclipfe. Previous to a lunar one he made a fpeech to the army, 

 alTuring them that it was a natural event, and noway portentous. \_Plin. 

 Hiji. nat. L. i, c. 12. — Fronthii Stratag. L. i, c. 12.] 



161 — Some years afterwards they got the firll fun-dial conftruded for 

 the latitude of Rome, after having for about a century had nothing bet- 

 ter than a dial, made for the latitude of Sicily, to regulate their time. 

 A few years after (a". 158) Scipio Nafica, obferving the defedivenefs of 

 the dial in cloudy weather and in the night-time, introduced the clep- 

 fydra, an inftrument for meafuring time by the running of water. 

 [Plin. Hi/i. nat. L. vii, c. 40.] 



Such, by the account of one of the bed of their own writers, was the 

 tardy progrefs of fcience among the Romans, whom many fuppofe to 

 have been at this time a very polifhed and enlightened people. 



149 — Fifty years were required to pay up the whole of the tribute 

 exacted from Carthage by the Romans : and that time being now elapf- 

 ed, they were defirous of renewing .the operations of plunder. With 

 that view they had encouraged Mafinifla, a king of Numidia, whom they 

 kept in a flate of dependent alliance, to harafs the Carthaginians with 

 perpetual quarrels, which they carefully prevented from ever being 

 fully accommodated, and in vrhich they continually interfered with the 



Vol. I O 



