Salmasius, indeed, charges him with confounding the east and west
in his description of India. His geography, in the most important
particular of the relative distances of places, is rendered of very little
utility or authority, from the circumstance pointed out and proved by
D'Anville, that he indiscriminately reckons eight stadia to the mile,
without reference to the difference between the Greek and Roman stadium. He
has, however, added two articles of information to the geographical and
commercial knowledge of the east possessed before his time; the one is the
account of the new course of navigation from Arabia to the coast of
Malabar, which has been already described; the other is a description of
Trapobane, or Ceylon, which, though inaccurate and obscure in many points,
must be regarded as a real and important addition to the geographical
knowledge of the Romans.
Pliny's geography of the north is the most full and curious of all
antiquity. After describing the Hellespont, Moeotis, Dacia, Sarmatia,
ancient Scythia, and the isles in the Euxine Sea, and proceeding last from
Spain, he passes north to the Scythic Ocean, and returns west towards
Spain. The coast of part of the Baltic seems to have been partly known to
him; he particularly mentions an island called Baltia, where amber was
found; but he supposes that the Baltic Sea itself was connected with the
Caspian and Indian Oceans.
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