GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE. 



Latin and Greek Geographers. Measurement of the Roman World. Voyages of Hippalus and 

 Diogenes. Marinus of Tyre, Pomponius, Mela, and Ptolemy. Coloured and Figuratve 

 Itineraries. Barbarian Invasions. Stephen of Byzantium. Geographical Ignorance from 

 the Sixth to the Tenth Century. Charlemagne and Albertus Magnus. Dicuil. Geography 

 amongst the Arabs. Master Peter and Roger Bacon. Vincent of Beauvais. Asiatic 

 Travellers in the Thirteenth Century. Portuguese Navigation. The Planisphere of Fra 

 Mauro. First Editions of Ptolemy. Maritime Expeditions in the Fifteenth Century. 

 Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci. Spanish, Dutch, and French Travellers, Sec., 

 in the Sixteenth Century. 



REAT as was the progress of geographical 

 knowledge after the establishment of the 

 Roman empire, still greater, in contrast, 

 were its decadence and disfavour in the 

 early part of the Middle Ages ; that is to 

 say, in the beginning of the fifth century. 

 Geography, in fact, was one of the most 

 useful auxiliaries of the aggressive policy 

 of Rome, directing the march of her ex- 

 peditions all over the world, and enabling 

 her to acquire useful knowledge concern- 

 ing the countries which she had conquered. It may, therefore, be said that 

 the science of geography was in general practice during the reign of 

 Augustus. A perusal of the principal writers of that period is sufficient to 

 show how widely spread were the general notions of geography in a society 

 which, being well versed in letters and highly educated, was acquainted with 

 the great works of the ancient Greek geographers, especially those of 

 Eratosthenes (276 194 u.e.) and Polybius (204 121 B.C.), and which used 

 Sn;il>u's Greek Geography as a manual for reading the Latin historians and 

 poets, and as a guide-book for the most distant provinces of the empire. 

 Poets such as Virgil, Ovid, Manilius, and Lucan, and historians such as 



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