Volume 1 — LECTURES ON ANCIENT ETHNOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHY.

All history resolves itself into a knowledge of the circumstances in the midst of which events occur, and of the events themselves; in an abstract point of view, the two are conveniently kept apart, although concretely they can never appear separated. A history which does not enter into the development of circumstances at all, and altogether pre-supposes them to be known, is scarcely conceivable, unless indeed it were written for contemporaries alone. Nevertheless, however, the one side or the other predominates, according to the predilection of the individual historian. Livy gives scarcely anything but the narration of events; earlier historians were fond of occupying themselves with the description of circumstances, and the more ancient the historian the more striking is this peculiarity. Thucydides, the greatest of all historians, whenever he has an opportunity, as in his description of nations, dwells upon the representation of circumstances. In the earliest times, therefore, ethnography and chorography were always the principal objects of attention, while subsequently this tendency decreased more and more, and the narration of events alone was attended to. The two, however, ought not to be separated, for without a knowledge of the circumstances in the midst of which events take place, the study of history is altogether useless. The mere knowledge of a country, however, is not sufficient; the peculiarities of its inhabitants, its products and the like, must be well known to the student; and without this history has no life. On the other hand, we are often unable to picture to ourselves even modern European nations from a mere narrative of events, unless we have at the same time some insight into their manners and customs. But the history of ancient nations more particularly cannot be understood without a knowledge of the circumstances arising from the peculiarities of their countries. Philological knowledge is the conditio sine qua non; but were a man ever so great a philologer, unless he be at the same time acquainted with the ancient constitutions, the political divisions, and the soil and climate of the countries, his ability to interpret the ancient authors would be nothing but “a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal”; he would be in the same condition in which we find the wretched grammarians of old.

A knowledge of the ancients may exist in an endless variety of degrees; a perfect knowledge is altogether unattainable. The time which separates us from them cannot be removed; but the difference of space presents no such insurmountable difficulty. The soil and the atmosphere of the classic countries have something so peculiar, and so utterly foreign to us, that to obtain a perfect familiarity with the ancient classics, it is necessary to know those countries and live in them, for unless we have seen them with our own eyes, we easily form erroneous notions; and this is required more particularly of him who wishes to understand the Latin poets. But still, even if a person cannot actually visit the countries, he may supply the defect, in a great measure, by a loving and diligent study. To initiate you into this, and at the same time to indicate to you those facts which are absolutely certain as points to start from, is the object of these Lectures. I shall give positive results which you may receive with confidence, and which I have arrived at by diligent and laborious research: they chiefly refer to changes of nations and countries, but at the same time topography shall not be excluded.

It is easy to perceive that this department of knowledge may be treated in various ways, for there are histories in which every thing that happened at the same period, is related synchronistically, while we may also look at events from the point of view of one particular nation. The same difference exists in ethnography and chorography. In the present Lectures it is my intention to give information about the classical nations of antiquity, and about the whole range of nations which are connected with them either by literature or by history, but I do not mean to treat of all the nations of antiquity in the widest sense of the term. I shall speak of the East and of Africa only so far as they come within the reach of the Greeks and Romans; I shall not touch upon the non-classical nations, though they are now better known from native accounts. I shall notice the migrations in Africa and those of the Scythians, as well as the Bactrian empire and other eastern countries. Of India I shall not speak according to Indian authorities, which were unknown to the ancients, but I shall follow the accounts furnished by the Greeks. Scandinavia will, for the most part, be dealt with in the same manner; the Finnian nations will be passed over altogether, as well as those parts of Africa which do not come in contact with the classical nations.

The time, which for us forms the boundary between antiquity and the middle ages, cannot be determined with absolute precision; ancient and middle-age history cannot, in their whole extent, be separated by a straight line; the line undulates without any definite law. With some nations it falls at an earlier, and with others at a later time, according as their countries were taken possession of by barbarous tribes at an earlier or later period. For most European nations, the migration of nations forms the line of demarcation, and the immigration of the Franks, Suevi, Vandals, Burgundians and others forms the close of antiquity, while in the eastern empire it lasted till the Arab conquest. It is but seldom that in this respect we shall be apparently inconsistent, when, for example, we describe the condition of Rome and Ravenna during the period of the exarchate; for in point of fact, these two cities down to the restoration of the western empire, belong to ancient, and not to mediaeval history. Such lines of demarcation cannot be slavishly adhered to without pedantry.

We may further raise the question, as to whether the geographical knowledge of the ancients, that is, an examination of their notions about the earth, its parts and its inhabitants should come within our sphere. In so far as their notions were erroneous, such discussions would be tedious and disagreeable; and they form no part of our objective consideration of ethnography and chorography. This science, however, the creation of Voss, is a very essential part of the propaedeutics to a right understanding of the ancient authors: it belongs, in a subjective point of view, to the history of geography, and the gradual extension of geographical knowledge. We shall take into our consideration only those parts of that science which have a direct bearing upon our object, by shewing us the condition of the countries at the time, and the connections and relations among peoples distant from one another. Whoever treats of geography as a science, that is, whoever intends to give a history of geography, must dwell upon these points; but then he cannot confine himself to the Greeks and Romans, he must at the same time discuss the geographical knowledge of the Arabs, Scandinavians, and other nations.

The history of ancient geography and ethnography after the revival of letters, is the same as that of all other studies connected with the investigation of antiquity. After the restoration of learning, all information about ancient geography was sought exclusively in the ancient authors; the whole of the middle ages had added nothing to it; whatever advances were made, proceeded from practical men, and not from the learned. The consequence of this state of things was the unfortunate separation of dead learning from practical life: the knowledge of the learned had its root in their books, and was thereby spoiled in its very beginning; it is true, all erudition is based on books, but it must be amalgamated with practical knowledge. To transfer that which was handed down in books to the actual, visible world was a very difficult task, and the acquisition of practical experience was no part of a scholar’s business. This state of things remained the prevailing evil until the 17th century; and during that period, the ἰδιῶται were much more learned than the λόγιοι. The first attempts of geographers consisted of lifeless compilations from ancient books; and only that which was not found in them was sparingly derived from the actual and living knowledge. The most striking example of this kind is Raphael Volaterranus, in that part of his Encyclopaedia, in which he treats of geography; for in describing the countries of Europe, which had become entirely changed, he copies Pliny and Mela, and it is not till they cease to furnish him with information, that he borrows a few things from the actual knowledge of his time. Although he lived at Rome, he describes it as it had been a thousand years before him. In the East, and especially at Constantinople, the maps of Ptolemy were used throughout the middle ages—whether the same was the case in Italy, I cannot decide; the earliest Italian maps are not older than the fifteenth century. The maps of Ptolemy were then brought over to the western countries; and from them the learned formed some sort of notion of the geographical and ethnographical knowledge of the ancients. But as early as the thirteenth century—the Arabs had done so even before—the Venetians, Genoese, and Catalanians had become acquainted with the Greek and Arabic maps, and it was these unlearned men that, in extending geographical knowledge, took these maps as their basis, and remodelled them into new and practical maps, especially sea-charts, which they had so much improved. But this was unknown to the scholars of the fifteenth century; and even in the sixteenth, their ignorance is almost inconceivable. It was not till the seventeenth century that the nations of western Europe arrived at the age of maturity; that century checked this irrational philological tendency, and for a time, philology itself; it gave a different direction to scholarship, and thus laid the foundation of our modern philology. The time had now come, when a living account of ancient geography based on autopsy could be undertaken.

The first work of eminence was the production of a German, Philip Cluver, on Italy, Sicily, and Germany; it ranks very high, though all its parts are not equal in value, the Germania being very considerably inferior to the two others. The Italia and Sicilia must be regarded as one work; what he has done for these countries is excellent, and nearly all the passages of the ancients referring to them have been fully collected by him. When we are told, that he collected the materials for his work in the space of eighteen months, we must probably understand this to mean, that, after having previously read through all the ancient authors, he collected in his mature age his reminiscences within the short period alluded to. He was professor in the university of Leyden; and the states general of Holland, which were usually very active in their support of learned men, granted him permission for a journey to Italy, and at the same time allowed him the enjoyment of his salary.⁠[1] He had great tact in discovering and remembering localities; he knew how to see things with his own eyes, and at the same time had a clear intellect in examining things impartially. His reputation is firmly established, his work is immortal among scholars, it will always be great and classical, and there is but very little that can be added to it. But he did not rightly understand the ethnography and history of the Italian nations, nor did he sufficiently attend to the stages through which ancient history passes, and by which the nations ascend as by the steps of a ladder. Ancient history becomes confused by the supposition that no event is historical, which is not recorded in the extant ancient authors. Such a view can be entertained only by timid minds. There are often manifest gaps in history, which are not noticed by the ancients, because they themselves did not perceive them, or because they did not find them pointed out in earlier writers. Even the great Perizonius combats such narrow views; and it is for this reason that Cluver’s accounts of nations are often full of mistakes. This is the defect in his excellent work, but its details are not the less valuable on that account. He did not live long enough to revise his work, for he did not attain an advanced age.

His example was followed by a no less distinguished man, who attempted to compose a chorography of Greece, which was even far more difficult than that of Italy. This undertaking was the more laborious, because there were scarcely any preparatory works that could be made use of; for Italy had been visited before, and the travels of Baptista Alberti furnished Cluver with a very good foundation. The maps of Greece, which were then in use, were very wretched; those of Ptolemy are badly projected, and only a few countries are treated with any degree of minuteness. In the middle ages, Greece was very little visited by Europeans, so that during that period it was almost as unknown as Ethiopia is now; and a geography of Greece was therefore a want that was seriously felt. Paulmier de Grentemesnil (Palmerius), a French nobleman of Normandy, undertook a journey to Greece. He, together with the two brothers Valois, closes the glorious array of the great French philologers, who combined the knowledge of language with that of things. Unfortunately he did not complete his work, because he had planned it on too grand a scale: his scheme also embraced Illyricum and Macedonia, and he completed only his account of these two countries, together with that of Epirus and Acarnania. He, too, has left much that requires to be rectified, but this does not detract from his greatness. The idea of continuing the work has occurred to no one, though at present there are men who possess all the qualifications for such a task. However, the completion of the work in the form given to it by its author is now no longer a desideratum.

In the reign of Louis XIV, when a friendly intercourse with the Ottoman Porte commenced, and when the relations with it became more intimate, Greece was first visited by French travellers; maps were then drawn, which were not indeed quite accurate, but still tolerably good. Thus De la Guilletiere described Peloponnesus, but his work, which contains many a valuable observation, has no maps. The first real journey of discovery to Greece was that undertaken by Spon and Wheler; light was afterwards thrown upon the geography of Peloponnesus, about the end of the 17th century, by the campaigns of the Venetian admiral Morosini, who, for the purpose of his military operations against the Porte, caused charts and plans to be made of several places by Coronelli; the struggle for the possession of Candia also was beneficial. Then followed the excellent travels of Tournefort; some natives of Greece likewise collected important materials for a description of their country: thus the archbishop of Janina, known under the name of Meletias, gave a description of Greece. Yet the materials brought together were never wrought out in the manner in which Palmerius would have done it.

Italy and Greece therefore are the only countries which were at all made the subjects of any learned inquiries. In the meantime books of travels, which combined ancient and modern geography, also furnished many materials to increase the knowledge of other countries. Much was gained by the voyages of the English to India: Egypt was thus brought to light; and Syria and some of the countries of Asia Minor were laid open, by Richard Pococke; and many a discovery was made accidentally during the active intercourse with those countries. The travels of Shaw are an excellent work for the ethnography of northern Africa, especially Numidia and the Roman province of Africa: he did for those countries what Cluver and Paulmier before him had done for others. During the eighteenth century, the great D’Anville, one of the most brilliant geniuses I know, without writing many books, contributed, by his maps, more than any other man to advance geographical knowledge at a gigantic rate. I cannot allow any opportunity to pass without avowing my admiration of that man’s greatness: by the light he has thrown upon ancient geography, he has acquired as much merit in historical philology as in ancient history. Major Rennell, who is still alive, has undeservedly been placed by the side of D’Anville; he has done much that is invaluable, he is diligent and indefatigable in collecting materials; but there is one point in which he differs from D’Anville, and in which he is far inferior to him. D’Anville possessed a peculiar power of divination and of estimating the value of his materials; he was not only extremely industrious in collecting them, but knew how to value each point most correctly, and how to use and combine his matter in the most sagacious manner, always clearly distinguishing between what he knew and what he did not know; while Major Rennell, on the other hand, has spoiled his best materials by his scrupulous attempts to reconcile what is incorrect with what is correct. D’Anville’s Mémoire sur la Mer Rouge, for example, is the most excellent chart of the Arabian Gulf. All the earlier ones were copied from the ancient Venetian ones; but all at once D’Anville furnished an accurate, detailed, and astronomically correct description of the coasts, islands, and countries, which he had compiled from the most different and wretched materials, furnished by Portuguese, Turkish, and other maps. He discerned with the most marvellous tact which statements were entitled to belief and which not. Any one knowing what geography was before the time of D’Anville, cannot sufficiently admire him. Two of his works, that on ancient and modern Egypt and that on Gaul, are particularly excellent; his little manual is of less value. But the whole series of maps in his Atlas of the ancient world will be unsurpassed, until another D’Anville arises who shall draw his maps according to the improved geographical knowledge we now possess. Southern Italy is not yet perfect in his map; but whenever his representations are incomplete, he himself points it out; as, for example, in his map of Epirus, which country has now become much better known in consequence of several military officers of learning having resided in it. After D’Anville’s death, Barbié du Bocage unjustly made several alterations in his maps, but in subsequent editions he has withdrawn them.

Chorography thus made constant progress, but ethnography did not keep pace with it. The German work of Mannert, which is extensively used and has acquired great celebrity, arose out of the materials then accumulated; the author has worked at it for a period of more than thirty years, and new and improved editions of the first volumes were published before the whole was completed. It contains many valuable materials, but they are by no means wrought out as they should be. The author commenced his work with very slender scholarship, such as it was at the time, and without extensive reading. These disadvantages became the more dangerous, because he was not sufficiently conscious of them, and because he wrote with animation and interest: he has no survey of his subject, he wants the real historical tact, and has not read the ancients thoroughly. He has made many hasty combinations, without sufficient foundation. If any one wished to review the work, mistakes might be discovered in great numbers. Thus, e.g., he sets up the hypothesis, that the Herodotus who during the insurrection against Persia was sent as ambassador from Ionia to Greece, was the same as the historian, without considering that, in this case, he must have been at least ninety years old when he began to write his history, and accordingly must have lived at least to the age of one hundred and twenty years. The maps of Reichardt are thoroughly bad⁠[2]⁠.

A work on ancient topography is still a desideratum, and one of the many tasks which a good scholar might undertake; every year in our time furnishes means to make it more complete.