OF THE UNIVERSE. ROMAN EMPIRE. 181 



even under Augustus, by Greek geometers, Zenodorus and 

 Polycletus; and itineraries and special topographies were 

 prepared (as had indeed been done some centuries earlier in 

 the Chinese empire), for distribution amongst the several 

 governors of provinces. ( 28 ) These were the first statistical 

 works which Europe produced. Many extensive prefec- 

 tures were traversed by Roman roads, divided into miles ; 

 and Hadrian even visited the different parts of his empire, 

 though not without interruption, in an eleven years' journey, 

 from the Iberian peninsula to Judea, Egypt, and Mauritania. 

 Thus a large portion of the globe, subject to the Roman 

 dominion, was opened and made traversable ; "pervius orbis," 

 as the chorus in Seneca's Medea less justly prophesies of the 

 whole earth. ( 281 ) 



We might, perhaps, have expected that during the en- 

 joyment of long-continued peace, and the union under a 

 single monarchy of such extensive countries and different 

 climates, the facility and frequency with which the provinces 

 were traversed by civil and military functionaries, often ac- 

 companied by a numerous train of educated men possessed 

 of varied information, would have been productive of extra- 

 ordinary advances, not only in geography, but also in the 

 knowledge of nature generally, and in the formation of higher 

 views concerning the connection of phenomena. Such high 

 expectations were not, however, realised. In the long 

 period of the undivided Eoman empire, occupying almost 

 four centuries, there arose as observers of nature only Dios- 

 corides the Cilician, and Galen of Pergamos. The first of 

 these, who augmented considerably the number of described 

 species of plants, is far inferior to the philosophically com- 

 bining Theophrastus ; whereas Galen, who extended his 



