Note 8 — Chapter X

Sesostris is said to have recorded his march in maps, and to have given copies of them not only to the Egyptians, but to the remote and uninformed inhabitants of Scythia, who viewed them with the greatest astonishment. The expeditions of Alexander furnished the materials for an interesting survey, a copy of which was given to Patroclus the geographer; it was from the work of Patroclus that Eratosthenes derived his principal materials in constructing the Oriental part of his map of the world, and it is frequently quoted both by Strabo and Pliny.

Many tolerably accurate surveys resulted from the conquests of the Romans; and we learn from Vegetius that their generals were always furnished with the maps of the provinces which were to be the scenes of their operations. Julius Cæsar ordered a general survey to be made of the whole empire, which occupied twenty-five years; and the Itinerary of Antonine, as well as that which was constructed in the reign of Theodosius the Great, commonly called the Peutingerian table, are well known as valuable authorities.

“The expedition of Alexander” (says Major Rennell, in the preliminary remarks attached to his Illustrations of Herodotus,) “besides the éclat of the military history belonging to it, furnished in Greece and Egypt an epoch of geographical improvement and correction, which may not unaptly be compared with that of the discoveries of the Portuguese along the coasts of Africa and India; or of that of the present time, in which geography has been improved in every quarter of the globe.”

“To a philosopher,” (observes the same author,) “the changes in the comparative state of nations, in different ages of the world, are very striking, and lead one to reflect what may be the future state of some now obscure corner of New Holland or of North America; since our own island was known only for its tin-mines by the most celebrated of ancient nations, whose descendants, in turn, rank no higher with us than as dealers in figs and currants!”