After all, the question is involved in very great obscurity; and the circumstance not the most probable, or reconcileable with a country even not further north than Jutland is, that, in the age of Pytheas, the inhabitants should have been so far advanced in knowledge and civilization, as to have cultivated any species of grain.
Till the age of Herodotus the light of history is comparatively feeble and broken; and where it does shine with more steadiness and brilliancy, its rays are directed almost exclusively on the warlike operations of mankind. Occasionally, indeed, we incidentally learn some new particulars respecting the knowledge of the ancients in geography: but these particulars, as must be obvious from the preceding part of this volume, are ascertained only after considerable difficulty; and when ascertained, are for the most part meagre, if not obscure. In the history of Herodotus, we, for the first time, are able to trace the exact state and progress of geographical knowledge; and from his time, our means of tracing it become more accessible, as well as productive of more satisfactory results. Within one hundred years after this historian flourished, geography derived great advantages and improvement from a circumstance which, at first view, would have been deemed adverse to the extension of any branch of science: we allude to the conquests of Alexander the Great. This monarch seems to have been actuated by a desire to be honoured as the patron of science, nearly as strong as the desire to be known to posterity as the conquerer of the world: the facilities he afforded to Aristotle in drawing up his natural history, by sending him all the uncommon animals with which his travels and his conquests supplied him, is a striking proof of this. With respect to his endeavours to extend geographical knowledge,--this was so intimately connected with his plans of conquest, that it may appear to be ascribing to him a more honourable motive than influenced him, if we consider the improvement that geography received through his means as wholly unconnected with his character as a conquerer: that it was so, in some measure, however is certain; for along with him he took several geographers, who were directed and enabled to make observations both on the coasts and the interior of the countries through which they passed; and from their observations and discoveries, a new and improved geography of Asia was framed. Besides, the books that till his time were shut up in the archives of Babylon and Tyre were transferred to Alexandria; and thus the astronomical and hydrographical observations of the Phoenicians and Chaldeans, becoming accessible to the Greek philosophers, supplied them with the means of founding their geographical knowledge on the sure basis of mathematical science, of which it had hitherto been destitute.
The grand maxim of Alexander in his conquests was, to regard them as permanent, and as annexing to his empire provinces which were to form as essential parts of it as Macedonia itself. Influenced by this consideration and design, he did not lay waste the countries he conquered, as had been done in the invasions of Persia, by Cimon the Athenian and the Lacedemonians: on the contrary, the people, and their religion, manners, and laws were protected. The utmost order and regularity were observed; and it is a striking fact, "that his measures were taken with such prudence, that during eight years' absence at the extremity of the East, no revolt of consequence occurred; and his settlement of Egypt was so judicious, as to serve as a model to the Romans in the administration of that province at the distance of three centuries."
The voyage of Nearchus from Nicea on the Hydaspes, till he arrived in the vicinity of Susa (which we shall afterwards more particularly describe); the projected voyage, the object of which was to attempt the circumnavigation of Arabia; the survey of the western side of the Gulf of Persia, by Archias, Androsthenes, and Hiero, of which unfortunately we do not possess the details; the projected establishment of a direct commercial intercourse between India and Alexandria; and the foundation of this city, which gave a new turn and a strong impulse to commerce, as will be more particularly shown afterwards;--are but a few of the benefits geography and commerce received from Alexander, or would have received, had not his plans been frustrated by his sudden and early death at the age of 33.
We have the direct testimony of Patrocles, that Alexander was not content with vague and general information, nor relied on the testimony of others where he could observe and judge for himself; and in all cases in which he derived his information from others, he was particularly careful to select those who knew the country best, and to make them commit their intelligence to writing. By these means, united to the reports of those whom he employed to survey his conquests, "all the native commodities which to this day form the staple of the East Indian commerce, were fully known to the Macedonians." The principal castes in India, the principles of the Bramins, the devotion of widows to the flames, the description of the banyan-tree, and a great variety of other particulars, sufficiently prove that the Macedonians were actuated by a thirst after knowledge, as well as a spirit of conquest; and illustrate as well as justify the observation made to Alexander by the Bramin mandarin, "You are the only man whom I ever found curious in the investigation of philosophy at the head of an army."
When Alexander invaded India, he found commerce flourishing greatly in many parts of it, particularly in what are supposed to be the present Multan, Attock, and the Panjob. He every where took advantage of this commerce, not by plundering and thus destroying it for the purpose of filling his coffers, but by nourishing and increasing it, and thus at once benefitting himself and the inhabitants who wore engaged in it. By means of the commerce in which the natives of the Panjob were engaged on the Indus, Alexander procured the fleet with which he sailed down that river. This fleet is supposed to have consisted of eight hundred vessels, only thirty of which were ships of war, the remainder being such as were usually employed in the commerce of the Indus. Even before he reached this river, he had built vessels which he had sent down the Kophenes to Taxila. By the completion of his campaign at the sources of the Indus, and by his march and voyage down the course of that river, he had traced and defined the eastern boundary of his conquests: the line of his march from the Hellespont till the final defeat of Darius, and his pursuit of that monarch, had put him in possession of tolerably accurate knowledge of the northern and western boundaries; the southern provinces alone remained to be explored: they had indeed submitted to his arms; but they were still, for all the purposes of government and commerce, unknown.
"To obtain the information necessary for the objects they had in view, he ordered Craterus, with the elephants and heavy baggage, to penetrate through the centre of the empire, while he personally undertook the more arduous task of penetrating the desert of Gadrosia, and providing for the preservation of the fleet. A glance over the map will show that the route of the army eastward, and the double route by which it returned, intersect the whole empire by three lines, almost from the Tigris to the Indus: Craterus joined the division under Alexander in the Karmania; and when Nearchus, after the completion of his voyage, came up the Posityris to Susa, the three routes through the different provinces, and the navigation along the coast, might be said to complete the survey of the empire."
The two divisions of his army were accompanied on their return to Susa by Beton and Diognetus, who seem to have united the character and duties of soldiers and men of science; or, perhaps, were like the quarter-masters- general of our armies. It appears from Strabo and Pliny, in whose time the surveys drawn by Beton and Diognetus were extant, that they reduced the provinces through which they passed, as well as the marches of the army, to actual measurement; and thus, the distances being accurately set down, and journals faithfully kept, the principles of geographical science, next in importance and utility to astronomical observations, were established. The journals of Beton and Diognetus, the voyage of Nearchus, and the works of Ptolemy, afterwards king of Egypt, and Aristobulus, who accompanied Alexander in his expedition and wrote his life, all prove that the authority or the example of the sovereign influenced the pursuits of his officers and attendants; and it is highly to the credit of their diligence and accuracy, that every increase of geographical knowledge tends to confirm what they relate respecting the general appearance and features of the countries they traversed, as well as the position of cities, rivers, and mountains.
Alexander appears to have projected or anticipated an intercourse between India and the western provinces of his dominions in Egypt, not only by land but by sea: for this latter purpose he founded two cities on the Hydaspes and one on the Axesimes, both navigable rivers, which fall into the Indus. And this also, most probably, was one reason for his careful survey of the navigation of the Indus itself. When he returned to Susa, he surveyed the course of the Tigris and Euphrates. The navigation near the mouths of those rivers was obstructed by cataracts, occasioned by walls built across them by the ancient monarchs of Persia, in order to prevent their subjects from defiling themselves by sailing on the ocean[4]: these obstructions he gave directions to be removed. Had he lived, therefore, the commodites of India would have been conveyed from the Persian Gulf into the interior provinces of his Asiatic dominions, and to Alexandria by the Arabian Gulf.
[4] The object of these dykes is supposed by Niebuhr to have been very different: be observes that they were constructed for the purpose of keeping up the waters to inundate the contiguous level: he found these dykes both in the Euphrates and Tigris. And Tavernier mentions one, 120 feet high, in the fall between Mosul and the great Zab.