Allow current 2 . 
miles per hour. 
Mean rate. 
xxxviii APPENDIX. 
in the course of a week ; and as it cannot be reckoned at less than 
one thousand three hundred Roman miles (supposing it to have been 
a coasting voyage), or at less than one thousand two hundred and 
twenty-five M.P., in straight course to the southward of Sardinia, we 
must conclude that the vessel in which it was performed actually 
sailed at the rate of more than one hundred and eighty-five M.P. in 
the first instance, and one hundred and seventy -five in the latter. 
Other examples follow, of the coasting voyage just mentioned in 
detail — viz. from Ostia to the Provincia Narbonensis (say, the south- 
east point of the Gulf of Lyons), the Gallicus Sinus of the Romans, a 
distance of four hundred and fifty M.P., performed in the space of 
three days ; this gives a rate of one hundred and fifty miles per day. 
From Ostia to the coast of Spain (Hispania Citerior), say the 
south-western point of the same Gulf, which is the nearest that can 
be taken, is four days ; this would give a rate of more than one hun- 
dred and sixty M.P. per day. 
Again, from the same port (Ostia) to the coast of Africa, in two 
days ; which, taken at the nearest points, Carthage, or Utica, on the 
extremity of the .Hermseum Promontorium, could not be less than 
three hundred and fifty Roman miles in straight course. This 
will afibrd us a rate of one hundred and seventy-five M.P. per day, 
the exact rate of the sailing from Ostia to Gibraltar, in the straight 
course imagined above. 
It does not appear that there is any mistake in the numbers here 
mentioned by Pliny ; for the instances are all of them consistent 
with each other ; one only being a little below one hundred and 
forty M.P. per day, and another one hundred and forty-three ; two 
examples afford one hundred and fifty, one hundred and sixty, two 
one hundred and seventy -five, and one one hundred and eighty-five. 
The lowest of these rates of sailing may be reckoned at between six 
and seven M.P. per hour, and the highest at something less than 
eight; giving a mean of seven M.P. per hour, which would be 
reckoned a good one for ships of the present day. 
One of the reasons to which this great improvement in ancient 
