A. D. 272. 20^ 



{hipped for Rome. His deftrudion was the confequence of his miftaken 

 Ambition *. 



282 — The emperor Probus is faid to have granted permiflion to the 

 people of Gaul and Pannonia, and alfo, according to Vopifcus, to the 

 Britons, to cultivate vines and make wine, which had been prohibited 

 by a decree of Domitian. 



284 — The Perfians, who had recovered the fovereignty of their coun- 

 try from the Parthians, were no lefs careful than they had been to ex- 

 clude the Romans from a participation in the trade with Serica, or 

 China. There was moreover at this time a war between the two em- 

 pires ; and the Romans, finding the intercourfe with China by the way 

 of India too tedious and expensive, had allowed the trade to fall off al- 

 moft to nothing. For thefe reafons a fecond embalTy was diipatched 

 from Rome to China f ; and probably fome new arrangements were 

 then fettled, which may have produced the caravan trade, whereof the 

 route by the way of the Stone tower will be noticed under the year 



353- 



285 — The Franks and other German nations, fituated near the mouth 



of the Rhine, ufed to infefl the adjacent coafts with piratical incurfions. 

 In order to reprefs thofe fea rovers, the emperor Maximian built a fleet 

 of fhips, the command of which he gave to Caraufius, an officer of 

 great experience in naval and military affairs, appointing Geflbriacum 

 (Boulogne) in Gaul for their principal ftation. The new admiral was 

 foon accufed of retaining for himfelf the prizes he retook, inftead of 

 delivering them to the owners, or to the imperial treafury ; and orders 

 were already given to put him to death. But Caraufius, having the 

 people in the fleet ftrongly attached to him, prevented his fate by fail- 

 ing over to Britain, where he perfuaded the military forces alfo to join 

 his fl:andard, and aflumed the title of emperor (a\ 286), his dominions 



* As an inftance of the opulence and luxury of of the antient authors, gives roum to fuppofe him 



Firmus, it is faid that he had fqiiares of glafs fix- equally ignorant of the ui'e of window gUus, tiiough 



ed wiih bitumen in his lioule ; and, though Vo- common in moil parts of Europe in his time, 



pifcus, the author who mentions the circumitance. In the rinlofof-hkal IrjrfaHions, V. \, part 2, isnd 



[^tila Ftrml, c. 3] has not a word of windows, V. Hi, part I, there are two papers by Mr. Nixcr. 



this has been fuppoled the earlicft ialtance of win- on the ule of plate glafs among the antients, oc- 



dows furnillied with glafs. However, Laclantius, cafioned by a piece of plnte glafs being found in 



an author contemporary with Firmus, fpeaks of the ruins of Herculaneum, which was overwhelm- 



glafs in a manner that infers, that it and the more ed by the lava from Mount Vefuvius in the year 79. 



antient thin plates of an almoll-tranfparent kind of Mr. Valois [-ffi/?. ile racad. ties inf.ripl. V. V\ 



ilone-were both ufed in windows ill his tune ;' per fuppofes the laph fpecularts of the antients the 



' feneftras lucente vitro aut fpcculari lapide.' \_De fame with the modem talc of Ruffia. This later 



ipifido Del, c. 5.] is a fulule fubftance called marienglas : it fplits in- 



Pliny, who defcribes the manufaflure and the to lamina:' like fheets of paper, quite tranfparent, 



various ufes -of glafs, [£. xxxvi, c. 26] appc*:-3 and is ufed for windows and lanterns all over Ruffia, 



to have been ignorant of the molt valuable appli- ha\ing this advantage over glafs, that it is not Labie 



cation of it in admitting the light into, and ex- to break by the explofion of cannon, 



eluding the cold and the rain from, our houfes. f For tiie knowlege of the fecond embalTy, as 



And Polydore Vergil, in his compilation upon In- well as the firft. We are indebted to the Chinefe 



vcntions, by merely tranfcribing the moll comrr.on Juftoriau-; and Mr. de Guignes. See above, p. 194.. 



C C 2 



