Before Chrift 1 1 8 — loo. rii 



fun and the moon for fix hundred years, ' as if he had aififted at the 

 councils of Nature,' fays Pliny, who adds, that his predidions were ve- 

 rified by time. He undertook the arduous tafk of making a catalogue 

 of the ftars, and defer ibing the pofuion and magnitude of each. He 

 alfo wrote feveral aflronomical treatifes ; and he was the firft, who ap- 

 plied the principles of aftronomy to geography. In his geography he 

 often differed from Eratofthenes, for which he is reprehended by Stra- 

 bo. Inflead of correding the error of Eratofthenes in the circumfer- 

 ence of the earth, he augmented it by about 25,000 ftadia. Indeed the 

 geographical knowlege of Eratofthenes was fuch, that his calculations 

 could not well be correded without the aid of inftruments of fuperior 

 accuracy. [Plin. Hi/i. nat. L. ii, cc. 18, 32, 26. — Ptolem. LI. iij, v.] 



1 1 8 — A Roman colony was fettled at Narbo in Gaul ; [Vel. Paterc, 

 L. i, c. 15] whence it has been fuppofed that it was only founded now. 

 We have juft feen, from Polybius, that it was a trading town in his 

 time, and apparently engaged in the Britifh trade. 



105 Jugurtha king of Numidia, who had learned the arts of war 



and perfidy in the camp of the Romans at Numantia, was now con- 

 quered by them after a refiftance of about feven years, 3,700 pounds 

 of gold, 5,775 pounds of filver in bars, and a great quantity in coin, 

 conftituted part of the plunder carried to Rome. Numidia muft have 

 been a very opulent country to afford fo much wealth, after being drain- 

 ed by the war, and by very great bribes profufely fcattered among the 

 Romans and Mauritanians by Jugurtha. 



100 — About this time flourifhed Artemidorus, an Ephefian Greek, 

 who is quoted by Strabo, [i^. iv, p. 304] as mentioning an ifland near 

 Britain, wherein the flime religious ceremonies were performed, which 

 were eftabliflied in Samothrace. It is very probable, that in both iflands 

 the fame ceremonies were introduced by the Phoenicians. [See Bocharto 

 Chatiaan, coll. 394, 650.] 



Strabo repeats a ftory of a veffel being found in the Red fea vvith on- 

 ly one man, almoft dead, onboard, who reported, that he was from In- 

 dia, and that all his ftiipmates had died of famine. He undertook to pilot 

 a veffel to India ; and Ptolemy Euergetes II, king of Egypt, thereupon 

 fent Eudoxus, who made the voyage, and returned with aromaiics and 

 pretious ftones. This is, I believe, the onlyantient account of a voyage 

 made to India from Egypt during the Macedonian dominion in that 

 country « and the fabrication of fuch a ftory (for it has every appear- 

 tmce of a fidion) is of itfelf a ftrong prefumption againft the previous ex- 

 iftence of an India trade. The fame Eudoxus is alfo faid to have af- 

 terwards explored the coaft of Africa, which he pretended that he cir- 

 cumnavigated, though not in one voyage. His firft departure was from 

 the Red fea ; and his fecond was from Gadir, whence he ftretched along 

 the weft coaft, till he reached, or fuppofed, or pretended, he reached, 



