This Seems To Have Been The Only Beneficial
Consequence Resulting From The Expedition Of Gallus.
We must now attend to the expedition of Petronius against the Ethiopians.
This was completely successful, and Candake, their queen, was obliged, as a
token of her submission, to send ambassadors to Augustus, who was at that
time in the island of Samos.
About this period the commerce of the
Egyptians, - which, in fact, was the commerce of the Romans, - was extended
to the Troglodytes, - with whom previously they had carried on little or no
trade.
The first account of the island of Ceylon, under the name of Taprobane, was
brought to Europe by the Macedonians, who had accompanied Alexander into
the east. It is mentioned, and a short description given of it, by
Onesicritus and Eratosthenes. Iambulus, however, who lived in the time of
Augustus, is the first author who enters into any details regarding it; and
though much of what he states is undoubtedly fabulous, yet there are
particulars surprizingly correct, and such as confirm his own account, that
he actually, visited the island. According to Diodorus Siculus, he was the
son of a merchant, and a merchant himself; and while trading in Arabia for
spices, he was taken prisoner and carried into Arabia, whence he was
carried off by the Ethiopians, and put into a ship, which was driven by the
monsoon to Ceylon. The details he mentions, that are most curious and most
conformable to truth, are the stature of the natives and the flexibility of
their joints; the length of their ears, bored and pendant; the perpetual
verdure of the trees; the attachment of the natives to astronomy; their
worship of the elements, and particularly of the sun and moon; their cotton
garments; the men having one wife in common; the days and nights being
equal in length; and the Calamus, or Maiz. It is extraordinary, howeve'r,
that Iambulus never mentions cinnamon, which, as he was a dealer in spices,
it might have been supposed would have attracted his particular attention.
One of the most celebrated geographers among the ancients, flourished
during the reign of Augustus; - we allude to Strabo: his fundamental
principles are, the globosity of the earth, and its centripetal force; he
also lays down rules for constructing globes, but he seems ignorant of the
mode of fixing the position of places by their latitude or longitude, or,
at least, he neglects it. In order to render his geographical knowledge
more accurate and complete, he travelled over most of the countries between
Armenia on the east and Etruria on the west, and from his native country,
on the borders of the Euxine sea, to the borders of Ethiopia. The portion
of the globe which he describes, is bounded on the north by the Baltic, on
the east by the Ganges, on the south by the mouth of the river Senegal, and
on the west by Spain. In describing the countries which he himself had
visited, he is generally very accurate, but his accounts of those he had
not visited, are frequently erroneous or very incomplete.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 187 of 524
Words from 97342 to 97858
of 273188
