24 GEOGRAPHY. 



240.000, but subsequently at 180,000 stadia, or | of its actual size. The last- 

 mentioned estimate was accepted by most of the subsequent astronomers and 

 geographers, even by Ptolemy. 



The Greek compass or wind card (on pi. 8, according to Aristotle) is 

 divided into eight main winds, which, from west round by north, are as 

 follows : Zephyros, Argestes, Boreas or Aparctias, Csecias, Apeliotes, Euros, 

 Notes, Lips. Between Boreas and Argestes blow Thrascias or the north-north- 

 west wind, and between Boreas and Csecias, Meses, or the north-north-east 

 wind. Two additional winds were subsequently added to these ten ; phoenicias 

 or south-south-east wind, and Libonotos or south-south-west ; the twelve winds 

 then divided the card into equal parts, so that excepting the four main 

 Avinds, the rest had an entirely different signification from those on our card. 

 Yitruvius enumerates twenty-four winds (see the wind card of the Romans on 

 plate 8). 



Plate 9 represents the kingdom of Alexander the Great. This renowned 

 conqueror was originally only a king of Macedonia, a country of small 

 extent, bounded on the east by Thrace and the Egaean Sea, south by 

 Epirus and Thessaly, west b}'' Illyria, and north by Dardania and Moesia ; 

 it now constitutes part of Turkey in Europe. Philip, the father of Alexander, 

 had already subjected numerous Thracian, Illyrian, and Dardanian tribes, 

 and in fact all Greece, by the battle of Chaeronea (338 B.C). Alexander, 

 after ascending the throne in 336 B.C., conquered the Thracians, Triballi, 

 Getas. and Illyrians, reduced Thebes, and first commenced his victorious 

 career as Emperor of Greece, by his expedition against the Persians in 334 

 B.C. After the battle of the Granicus, he overran Asia Minor, passing 

 through Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, to the borders of Egypt : Egypt he 

 conquered without any difficulty, and founded, in 332, the city of Alexandria. 

 After a pilgrimage to the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, in the Lybian desert, 

 Alexander took up his march towards Central Asia, overthrew the Persian 

 empire by the victory at Gaugamela or Arbela (331), and afterwards 

 conquered Media, Parthia, Hyrcania, Margiana, Aria (329), Arachosia, 

 Bactriana, and Sogdiana. In 327, Alexander crossed the Indus, Hydaspes, 

 Acesines, and Ilydraotes, as far as the Hyphasis (Sudletsch), until his 

 warriors refused to go any further. He now returned by another route to 

 the Hydaspes, embarked on the Acesines. and passing into the Indus, ulti- 

 mately gained the great ocean. Erom the mouth of the Indus he returned 

 by land through the deserts of Gedrosia and Carmania (Nearchus conducting 

 his fleet through the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Euphrates) to 

 Babylon, where he died in 323. After his death his empire fell to pieces, 

 forming several smaller kingdoms, as : 1, the Macedonian Greek ; 2, the 

 Syrian or kingdom of the Seleucidae (founded by Seleucus Nicator), which 

 included the principal portion of the old Persian empire, and by whose 

 downfall there arose various minor governments, as Bactria, Parthia, 

 Armenia, Judsea, &c. ; 3, the Egyptian empire under the Ptolemies ; 4, 

 Pergamos in Asia Minor, Pontus, Bithynia, &c. (See the small chart on 

 pi. 9.) 



PI. 10 represents the Roman Empne under Constantitie the Great. 

 24 



