Although the Romans had but little sympathy for science or philosophy, being essentially political and warlike in their turn of mind, yet when they had conquered the world, and had turned their attention to arts, medicine received great attention. The first physicians were Greek slaves. Of these was Asclepiades, who enjoyed the friendship of Cicero. It is from him that the popular medical theories as to the "pores" have descended. He was the inventor of the shower-bath. Celsus wrote a work on medicine which takes almost equal rank with the Hippocratic writings. Medical science at Rome culminated in Galen, as it did at Athens in Hippocrates. He was patronized by Marcus Aurelius, and availed himself of all the knowledge of preceding naturalists and physicians. He was born at Pergamus about the year A.D. 165, where he learned, under able masters, anatomy, pathology, and therapeutics. He finished his studies at Alexandria, and came to Rome at the invitation of the emperor. Like his patron, he was one of the brightest ornaments of the heathen world, and one of the most learned and accomplished men of any age. "Medicorum dissertissimus atque doctissimus." [Footnote: St. Jerome, Comment. in Aoms, c. 5, vol. vi.] He left five hundred treatises, most of them relating to some branch of medical science, which give him the merit of being one of the most voluminous of authors. His celebrity is founded chiefly on his anatomical and physiological works. He was familiar with practical anatomy, deriving his knowledge from dissection. His observations about health are practical and useful. He lays great stress on gymnastic exercises, and recommends the pleasures of the chase, the cold bath in hot weather, hot baths to old people, the use of wine, three meals a day, and pork as the best of animal food. The great principles of his practice were that disease is to be overcome by that which is contrary to the disease itself, and that nature is to be preserved by that which has relation with nature. As disease cannot be overcome so long as its cause exists, that, if possible, was first to be removed, and the strength of the patient is to be considered before the treatment is proceeded with. His "Commentaries on Hippocrates" served as a treasure of medical criticism, from which succeeding annotators borrowed. No one ever set before the medical profession a higher standard than Galen, and few have more nearly approached it. He did not attach himself to any particular school, but studied the doctrines of each—an eclectic in the fullest sense. [Footnote: See Leclerc, Hist. de la Medicine; Hartt Shoengel, Geschichte der Arzneykunde. W. A. Greenhill, M.D., of Oxford, has a very learned article in Smith's Dictionary.] The works of Galen constituted the last production of ancient Roman medicine, and from his day the decline in medical science was rapid, until it was revived among the Arabs.
The physical sciences, it must be confessed, were not carried by the ancients to any such length as geometry and astronomy. In physical geography they were particularly deficient. Yet even this branch of knowledge can boast of some eminent names. When men sailed timidly on the coasts, and dared not explore distant seas, the true position of countries could not be ascertained with the definiteness that it is at present. But geography was not utterly neglected, nor was natural history.
[Sidenote: Physical geography.]
Herodotus gives us most valuable information respecting the manners and customs of oriental and barbarous nations, and Pliny has written a natural history, in thirty-seven books, which is compiled from upwards of two thousand volumes, and refers to twenty thousand matters of importance. He was born A.D. 23, and was fifty-three when the eruption of Vesuvius took place which caused his death. Pliny cannot be called a scientific genius, in the sense understood by modern savants; nor was he an original observer. His materials are drawn up second hand, like a modern encyclopedia. Nor did he evince great judgment in his selection. He had a great love of the marvelous, and is often unintelligible. But his work is a wonderful monument of human industry. It treats of every thing in the natural world—of the heavenly bodies, of the elements, of thunder and lightning, of the winds and seasons, of the changes and phenomena of the earth, of countries and nations, seas and rivers, of men, animals, birds, fishes, and plants, of minerals and medicines and precious stones, of commerce and the fine arts. He is full of errors; but his work is among the most valuable productions of antiquity. Buffon pronounced his natural history to contain an infinity of knowledge in every department of human occupation, conveyed in a dress ornate and brilliant. It is a literary rather than a scientific monument, and as such it is wonderful—a compilation from one hundred and sixty volumes of notes. In strict scientific value, it is inferior to the works of modern research; but there are few minds, even in these times, who have directed inquiries to such a variety of subjects.
[Sidenote: Strabo.]
[Sidenote: Construction of maps.]
[Sidenote: Ptolemy.]
Geographical knowledge was advanced by Strabo, who lived in the Augustan era; but researches were chiefly confined to the Roman empire. Strabo was, like Herodotus, a great traveler, and much of his geographical information is the result of his own observations. It is probable he is much indebted to Eratosthenes, who preceded him by three centuries, and who was the first systematic writer on geography. The authorities of Strabo are chiefly Greek, but his work is defective, from the imperfect notions which the ancients had of astronomy; so that the determination of the earth's figure by the measure of latitude and longitude, the essential foundations of geographical description, was unknown. The enormous strides, which all forms of physical science have made since the discovery of America, throw all ancient descriptions and investigations into the shade, and Strabo appears at as great disadvantage as Pliny or Ptolemy; yet the work of Strabo, considering his means, and the imperfect knowledge of the earth's surface, and astronomical science, was really a great achievement of industry. He treats of the form and magnitude of the earth, and devotes eight books to Europe, six to Asia, and one to Africa. His great authorities are Eratosthenes, Polybius, Aristotle, Antiochus of Syracuse, Posidonius, Theopompus, Artemidorus Ephorus, Herodotus, Anaximenes, Thucydides, and Aristo, chiefly historians and philosophers. Whatever may be said of the accuracy of the great geographer of antiquity, it cannot be denied that he was a man of immense research and learning. His work in seventeen books is one of the most valuable which have come down from antiquity, both from the discussions which run through it, and the curious facts which can be found nowhere else. It is scarcely fair to estimate the genius of Strabo by the correctness and extent of his geographical knowledge. All men are lost in science, and science is progressive. The great scientific lights of our day may be insignificant, compared with those who are to arise, if profundity and accuracy of knowledge is the test. It is the genius of the ancients, their grasp and power of mind, their original labors which we are to consider. Anaxagoras was one of the greatest philosophical geniuses of all ages; but, as philosophy is a science, and is progressive, his knowledge could not be compared with that of Aristotle. Again, who doubts the original genius and grasp of Aristotle, but what was he, in accuracy of knowledge and true method, in comparison with the savants of the nineteenth century; yet, it would be difficult to show that Aristotle was inferior to Bacon or Cuvier, or Stuart Mill. If, however, we would compare the geographical knowledge of the ancients with that of the moderns, we confess to the immeasurable inferiority of the ancients in this branch. When Eratosthenes began his labors, it was known that the surface of the earth was spherical. He established parallels of latitude and longitude, and attempted the difficult undertaking of measuring the circumference of the globe by the actual measurement of a segment of one of its great circles. Posidonius determined the arc of a meridian between Rhodes and Alexandria to be a forty-eighth part of the whole circumference—an enormous calculation, yet a remarkable one in the infancy of astronomical science. Hipparchus introduced into geography a great improvement, namely, the relative situation of places, by the same process that he determined the positions of the heavenly bodies. He also pointed out how longitude might be determined by observing the eclipses of the sun and moon. This led to the construction of maps; but none have reached us except those which were used to illustrate the geography of Ptolemy. Hipparchus was born B.C. 276, the first who raised geography to the rank of a science. He starved himself to death, being tired of life, like Eratosthenes, more properly an astronomer, and the most distinguished among the ancients, born about 160 B.C., although none of his writings have reached us. The improvements he pointed out were applied by Ptolemy himself, an astronomer who flourished about the year 160 at Alexandria. His work was a presentation of geographical knowledge known in his day, so far as geography is the science of determining the position of places on the earth's surface. The description of places belongs to Strabo. His work was accepted as the textbook of the science till the fifteenth century, for in his day the Roman empire had been well surveyed. He maintained that the earth is spherical, and introduced the terms longitude and latitude, which Eratosthenes had established, and computed the earth to be one hundred and eighty thousand stadia in circumference, and a degree five hundred stadia in length, or sixty-two and a half Roman miles. His estimates of the length of a degree of latitude were nearly correct; but he made great errors in the degrees of longitude, making the length of the world from east to west too great, which led to the belief in the practicability of a western passage to India. He also assigned too great length to the Mediterranean, arising from the difficulty of finding the longitude with accuracy. But it was impossible, with the scientific knowledge of his day, to avoid errors, and we are surprised that he made so few.
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REFERENCES.—An exceedingly learned work has recently been issued in London, by Parker and Son, on the Astronomy of the Ancients, by Sir George Cornwall Lewis, though rather ostentatious in his parade of authorities, and minute on points which are not of much consequence. Delambre's History of Ancient Astronomy has long been a classic, but richer in materials for a history than a history itself. There is a valuable essay in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which refers to a list of authors, among which are Biccoli, Weilder, Bailly, Playfair, La Lande. Lewis makes much reference to Macrobius, Vitruvius, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, and Suidas, among the ancients, and to Ideler, Unters. uber die Art. Beob. der Alten.