272 GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE. 



born at Rome and the other in Calabria, both of whom rose to the highest 

 dignities in the new kingdom of the Ostrogoths, combined with learning of a 

 very varied kind an extensive and thorough knowledge of geography, which 

 made their services exceedingly valuable. Cassiodorus has disseminated in his 

 "Letters" a mass of valuable information and of interesting remarks concerning 

 places, men, and customs. Boethius himself translated into Latin the books of 

 Ptolemy, so as to put them within the reach of those who did not speak Greek. 



In the pagan schools which remained open at Constantinople and through- 

 out the empire of the East, until closed by Justinian in 529, were taught, 

 after the writings of Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, of Strabo and Ptolemy, 

 both cosmography and geography, in addition to simple astronomy this latter 

 as a guide to the forecast of weather, the variations of the atmosphere, and 

 navigation. Stephen of Byzantium, who lived in the sixth century, composed 

 a large Dictionary of Geography, of which all that remains extant is a dry 

 and useless abridgment. But it may be learnt from the works of the Greek 

 historians of this epoch, especially of Procopius, that geography was con- 

 sidered to be inseparable from history. Thus Procopius and his successor, 

 Agathias, are true geographers. We meet but one Latin geographer in the 

 sixth century, viz. Vibius Sequester, who, in a work dedicated to the nomen- 

 clature of rivers, springs, and lakes, seems to have learnt from the poets 

 what little he knew upon the subject. The Christians of Africa still 

 read Syriac translations of the Latin and Greek works on geography by 

 Aristotle, Ptolemy, Pliny, Pomponius Mela, &c., which had been studied 

 after the original texts in the schools of Athens and Alexandria, and these 

 Syriac translations were afterwards retranslated into Arabic, when the 

 Caliphs, successors of Mahomet, had founded Mussulman schools in the 

 countries which they occupied and conquered. Very naturally geography 

 must have had a special attraction for a warlike people which aspired to 

 conquer the world, and to propagate throughout it the religion of the Koran. 



The schools of Cordova and Toledo in Spain, as well as those of Bagdad 

 and of D,schindesabour in Asia Minor, accordingly remained open for 

 geographical instruction at a period when geography was no longer taught 

 throughout the West, which was at that time plunged in barbarian darkness. 



From the sixth to the tenth century there were but few manuscripts 

 which escaped destruction ; all the coloured maps and traced itineraries were, 

 like the images, ruthlessly destroyed by the iconoclasts. The only remaining 



