The Whole Of His Information Respecting The North Seems To Have Been Drawn From The Expeditions Of Drusus, Varus, And Germanicus, To The Elbe And The Weser, And From The Accounts Of The Merchants Who Traded Thither For Amber.

Tacitus, who died about twenty years after Pliny, seems to have acquired a knowledge of the north more accurate in some respects than the latter possessed.

In his admirable description of Germany, he mentions the Suiones, and from the name, as well as other circumstances, there can be little doubt that they inhabited the southern part of modern Sweden.

The northern promontory of Scotland was known to Diodorus Siculus under the name of Orcas; but the insularity of Britain was certainly not ascertained till the fleet sent out by Agricola sailed round it, about eighty-four years after Christ. Tacitus, who mentions this circumstance, also informs us, that Ireland, which was known by name to the Greeks, was much frequented in his time by merchants, from whose information he adds, that its harbours were better known than those of Britain: this statement, however, there is much reason to question, as in the time of Caesar, all that the Romans knew of Ireland was its relative position to Britain, and that it was about half its size.

The emperor Trajan, who reigned between A.D. 98 and A.D. 117, was not only a great conqueror, carrying the Roman armies beyond the Danube into Dacia, and into Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria, and thus extending and rendering more accurate the geographical knowledge of his subjects; but he was also attentive to the improvement and commercial prosperity of the empire.

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