In some maps, especially that drawn up
from the celebrated Peutingerian Tables, which contain an itinerary of the
whole Roman empire, thirty-five degrees of longitude occupy twenty-eight
feet eight inches, whereas thirteen degrees of latitude are compressed
within the space of one foot. It is easy to conceive how it happened that
too much space is assigned between places situated east and west of each
other, as the latitude of a place is much more easily determined than its
longitude. At the same time, as the routes of the Roman armies generally
were from east to west, the countries lying in that direction were better
known than those lying to the north and south, though the longitudes, and
general space assigned the world, in the former deviation, were erroneous.
It was the opinion of most of the ancient geographers, that there was a
southern continent or hemisphere, to correspond to and balance the
northern; and this they formed by cutting off the great triangle to the
south. The ancients also, while they curtailed those parts of the world
with which they were unacquainted, extended the known parts.
The limit of the Roman geography of Europe to the north was the Baltic,
beyond which they had some very imperfect and obscure notion of the south
of Sweden, and perhaps of Norway. They were acquainted with the countries
on the eastern boundary of Europe lying on the Danube and the Vistula, and
the rivers Wolga and Tanais seem also to have been tolerably well known to
them.
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