This was a grievous and
arbitrary exaction: rendered still more so "by the partial injustice of
weights and measures, and the expence and labour of distant carriage." In a
time of scarcity, Justinian ordered an extraordinary requisition of corn to
be levied on Thrace, Bithynia, and Phrygia; for which the proprietors, (as
Gibbon observes,) "after a wearisome journey, and a perilous navigation
received so inadequate a compensation, that they would have chosen the
alternative of delivering both the corn and price at the doors of their
granaries."
Having thus given a connected and general view of the Roman commerce, we
shall next proceed to investigate the progress of geographical knowledge
among them. In our chronological arrangement of this progress, incidental
and detached notices respecting their commerce will occur, which, though
they could not well be introduced in the general view, yet will serve to
render the picture of it more complete.
It is evident that the principal accessions to geographical knowledge among
the Romans, at least till their ambition was satinted, or nearly so, by
conquest, must have been derived from their military expeditions. It is
only towards the time of Augustus that we find men, whose sole object in
visiting foreign countries was to become acquainted with their state,
manners, &c.
Polybius is one of the earliest authors who give us a glimpse of the state
of geographical knowledge among the Romans, about the middle of the second
century before Christ, the period when he flourished.
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