Clamor:
Which however is paying them no great compliment. To these respectable personages I must add the evidence of a modern; one too of no small repute, even the great Scaliger. He says, that he made a strict scrutiny about this affair, when in Italy; and the result of his observations was this: [[198]]Ferrariæ multos (cygnos) vidimus, sed cantores sane malos, neque melius ansere canere.
OF
TEMPLE SCIENCE.
The Egyptians were very famous for geometrical knowledge: and as all the flat part of their country was annually overflowed, it is reasonable to suppose that they made use of this science to determine their lands, and to make out their several claims, at the retreat of the waters. Many indeed have thought, that the confusion of property, which must for a while have prevailed, gave birth to practical [[199]]geometry, in order to remedy the evil: and in consequence of it, that charts and maps were first delineated in this country. These, we may imagine, did not relate only to private demesnes: but included also the course of the Nile in its various branches; and all the sea coast, and its inlets, with which lower Egypt was bounded.
It is very certain, that the people of Colchis, who were a colony from Egypt, had charts of this sort, with written descriptions of the seas and shores, whithersoever they traded: and they at one time carried on a most extensive commerce. We are told, says the [[200]]Scholiast upon Apollonius, that the Colchians still retain the laws and customs of their forefathers: and they have pillars of stone, upon which are engraved maps of the continent, and of the ocean: Εισι δε, φησι, και νομοι παρ' αυτοις των Προγωνον, και Στηλαι, εν ἁις γης και θαλασσης αναγραφαι εισι. The poet, upon whom the above writer has commented, calls these pillars, κυρβεις: which, we are told, were of a square figure, like obelisks: and on these, he says, were delineated all the passages of the sea; and the boundaries of every country upon the earth.
[[201]]Ὁι δη τοι γραπτας πατερων ἑθεν ειρυονται
Κυρβεας, ὁις ενι πασαι ὁδοι, και πειρατ' εασιν
Ὑγρης τε, τραφερης τε, περιξ επινεισσομενοισιν.