"And their army shall come and overthrow all, whereat the king of the South being moved with choler, shall come forth and fight with him and conquer,"--Ptolemy Philopator against Antiochus the Great at Raphia--"and his troops shall become insolent, and his heart shall be lifted up,"--this Ptolemy desecrated the temple--Josephus--"and he shall cast down many ten thousands, but he shall not be strengthened by it.
I have always read that the world, both land and water, was spherical, as the authority and researches of Ptolemy and all the others who have written on this subject demonstrate and prove, as do the eclipses of the moon and other experiments that are made from east to west, and the elevation of the North Star from north to south.
"But out of a branch of her roots"--Ptolemy Euergetes was the son of the same father as Berenice--"shall one stand up in his estate, who shall come with an army into the land of the king of the north, and shall put all under subjection, and carry captives into Egypt their gods, their princes, their gold, their silver, and all their precious spoils, and shall continue many years when the king of the North can do nought against him."--If he had not been called into Egypt by domestic reasons, says Justin, he would have entirely ruined Seleucus.
In twelve whole figures the cosmography of the miniature world will be shown to you in the same manner as Ptolemy in his cosmography. And so I will divide it afterwards into limbs as he divided the world into provinces; then I will explain the function of the parts in every direction, and put before your eyes a description of the whole figure and substance of man as regards his movements by means of his limbs. And thus if it please our great author I will demonstrate the nature of man and his habits in the way I describe his form.
Absolutism tempered by assassination. A Cadmean victory.[807-2] After us the deluge.[807-3] All is lost save honour.[807-4] Appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober.[807-5] Architecture is frozen music.[807-6] Beginning of the end.[808-1] Boldness, again boldness, and ever boldness.[808-2] Dead on the field of honour.[808-3] Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.[808-4] Extremes meet.[808-5] Hell is full of good intentions.[808-6] History repeats itself.[808-7] I am here: I shall remain here.[808-8] I am the state.[808-9] It is magnificent, but it is not war.[808-10] Leave no stone unturned.[809-1] Let it be. Let it pass.[809-2] Medicine for the soul.[809-3] Nothing is changed in France; there is only one Frenchman more.[809-4] Order reigns in Warsaw.[809-5] Ossa on Pelion.[809-6] Scylla and Charybdis.[810-1] Sinews of war.[810-2] Talk of nothing but business, and despatch that business quickly.[810-3] The empire is peace.[810-4] The guard dies, but never surrenders.[810-5] The king reigns, but does not govern.[810-6] The style is the man himself.[811-1] "There is no other royal path which leads to geometry," said Euclid to Ptolemy I.[811-2] There is nothing new except what is forgotten.[811-3] They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.[811-4] We are dancing on a volcano.[811-5] Who does not love wine, women, and song Remains a fool his whole life long.[811-6] God is on the side of the strongest battalions.[811-7] Terrible he rode alone, With his Yemen sword for aid; Ornament it carried none But the notches on the blade.
Why expect that extraordinary virtues should be in one person united, when one virtue makes a man extraordinary? Alexander is eminent for his courage; Ptolemy for his wisdom; Scipio for his continence; Trajan for his love of truth; Constantius for his temperance.--_Zimmermann._
"For the king of the North"--Antiochus the Great--"shall return with a greater multitude than before,"--in the reign of the young Ptolemy Epiphanes--"and then a great number of enemies shall stand up against the king of the south, also the apostates and robbers of thy people shall exalt themselves to establish the vision; but they shall perish"--those who abandon their religion to please Euergetes, when he will send his troops to Scopas. For Antiochus will again take Scopas and conquer them.
"And in the end of years they shall join themselves together, and the king's daughter of the South,"--Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy Philadelphus, son of the other Ptolemy--"shall come to the king of the North to make peace between these princes"--to Antiochus Deus, king of Syria and of Asia, son of Seleucus Lagidas.
"And the king--Ptolemy son of Lagos,--of the south,"--Egypt,--"shall be strong,--but one of his princes shall be strong above him,"--Seleucus king of Syria,--"and his dominion shall be a great dominion,"--Appian says that he was the most powerful of Alexander's successors.
11:1. In the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, Dositheus, who said he was a priest, and of the Levitical race, and Ptolemy his son brought this epistle of Phurim, which they said Lysimachus the son of Ptolemy had interpreted in Jerusalem.
While Menelaus thus the cares engross'd Of all those Chiefs, the shielded powers of Troy 'Gan move toward them, and the Greeks again Put on their armor, mindful of the fight. Then hadst thou not great Agamemnon seen Slumbering, or trembling, or averse from war, But ardent to begin his glorious task. His steeds, and his bright chariot brass-inlaid He left; the snorting steeds Eurymedon, Offspring of Ptolemy Piraïdes Detain'd apart; for him he strict enjoin'd Attendance near, lest weariness of limbs Should seize him marshalling his numerous host. So forth he went, and through the files on foot Proceeding, where the warrior Greeks he saw Alert, he roused them by his words the more.
Fifth: As in the ordinary floating posture of the leviathan the flukes lie considerably below the level of his back, they are then completely out of sight beneath the surface; but when he is about to plunge into the deeps, his entire flukes with at least thirty feet of his body are tossed erect in the air, and so remain vibrating a moment, till they downwards shoot out of view. Excepting the sublime BREACH--somewhere else to be described--this peaking of the whale's flukes is perhaps the grandest sight to be seen in all animated nature. Out of the bottomless profundities the gigantic tail seems spasmodically snatching at the highest heaven. So in dreams, have I seen majestic Satan thrusting forth his tormented colossal claw from the flame Baltic of Hell. But in gazing at such scenes, it is all in all what mood you are in; if in the Dantean, the devils will occur to you; if in that of Isaiah, the archangels. Standing at the mast-head of my ship during a sunrise that crimsoned sky and sea, I once saw a large herd of whales in the east, all heading towards the sun, and for a moment vibrating in concert with peaked flukes. As it seemed to me at the time, such a grand embodiment of adoration of the gods was never beheld, even in Persia, the home of the fire worshippers. As Ptolemy Philopater testified of the African elephant, I then testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most devout of all beings. For according to King Juba, the military elephants of antiquity often hailed the morning with their trunks uplifted in the profoundest silence.
_Geography._--The writing of geographical books naturally began with the description of the Moslem world, and that for practical purposes. Ibn Khordadhbeh, in the middle of the 9th century, wrote a _Book of Roads and Provinces_ to give an account of the highways, the posting-stations and the revenues of the provinces. In the same century Ya'qubi wrote his _Book of Countries_, describing specially the great cities of the empire. A similar work describing the provinces in some detail was that of Qudama or Kodama (d. 922). Hamdani (q.v.) was led to write his great geography of Arabia by his love for the ancient history of his land. Muqaddasi (Mokaddasi) at the end of the 10th century was one of the early travellers whose works were founded on their own observation. The study of Ptolemy's geography led to a wider outlook, and the writing of works on geography (q.v.) in general. A third class of Arabian geographical works were those written to explain the names of places which occur in the older poets. Such books were written by Bakri (q.v.) and Yaqut (q.v.)[9] Entry: A
_History._--The first hint to reach Europe concerning the existence of habitable lands to the eastward of the Ganges is to be found in the writings of Pomponius Mela (A.D. 43) which speak of Chryse, or the Golden Isle, as lying off Cape Tamus--supposed to be the most easterly point in Asia--and over against the estuary of the Ganges. Thereafter there occur vague references to Chryse in the _Periplus of the Erythrean Sea_, &c., but the earliest trace of anything resembling first-hand knowledge concerning the peninsula of Indo-China and Malaya is revealed in the writings of Ptolemy, whose views were mainly derived from those of his predecessor Marinus of Tyre, who in his turn drew his deductions from information supplied to him by the mariner Alexander who, there is every reason to think, had himself voyaged to the Malay Peninsula and beyond. In the light of present knowledge concerning the trade-routes of Asia, which had been in existence for thousands of years ere ever Europeans attempted to make use of them, it is safe to identify Ptolemy's Sinus Perimulicus with the Gulf of Siam, the Sinus Sabaricus with the Straits of Malacca from their southern portals to the Gulf of Martaban, the Aurea Chersonesus with the Malay Peninsula, and the island of Iabadius or Sabadius--the reading of the name is doubtful--with Sumatra, not as has often been mistakenly attempted with Java. Although the first definite endeavour to locate the Golden Chersonese thus dates from the middle of the 2nd century of our era, the name was apparently well known to the learned of Europe at a somewhat earlier period, and in his _Antiquities of the Jews_, written during the latter half of the 1st century, Josephus says that Solomon gave to the pilots furnished to him by Hiram of Tyre commands "that they should go along with his stewards to the land that of old was called Ophir, but now the Aurea Chersonesus, which belongs to India, to fetch gold." After the time of Ptolemy no advance in knowledge concerning the geography of south-eastern Asia was made until Cosmas Indicopleustes, a monk and an Alexandrian Greek, wrote from personal knowledge between A.D. 530 and 550. His primary object was to prove that the world was built after the same shape and fashion as the Ark made by the Children of Israel in the desert; but he was able to show that the Malay Peninsula had to be rounded and thereafter a course steered in a northerly direction if China was to be reached. Meanwhile inter-Asiatic intercourse by means of sea-routes had been steadily on the increase since the discovery of the way to utilize the monsoons and to sail directly to and fro across the Indian Ocean (attributed to the Greek pilot Hippalus) had been made. After the decline of the power of Rome, the dominant force in Asiatic commerce and navigation was Persia, and from that time onward, until the arrival of the Portuguese upon the scene early in the 16th century the spice trade, whose chief emporia were in or near the Malay Peninsula, was in Persian or Arab hands. There is considerable reason to think, however, that the more frequent ports of call in the Straits of Malacca were situated in Sumatra, rather than on the shores of the Malay Peninsula, and two famous medieval travellers, Marco Polo and Ibn Batuta, both called and wintered at the former, and make scant mention of the latter. Entry: MALAY
EUCLID, Greek mathematician of the 3rd century B.C.; we are ignorant not only of the dates of his birth and death, but also of his parentage, his teachers, and the residence of his early years. In some of the editions of his works he is called _Megarensis_, as if he had been born at Megara in Greece, a mistake which arose from confounding him with another Euclid, a disciple of Socrates. Proclus (A.D. 412-485), the authority for most of our information regarding Euclid, states in his commentary on the first book of the _Elements_ that Euclid lived in the time of Ptolemy I., king of Egypt, who reigned from 323 to 285 B.C., that he was younger than the associates of Plato, but older than Eratosthenes (276-196 B.C.) and Archimedes (287-212 B.C.). Euclid is said to have founded the mathematical school of Alexandria, which was at that time becoming a centre, not only of commerce, but of learning and research, and for this service to the cause of exact science he would have deserved commemoration, even if his writings had not secured him a worthier title to fame. Proclus preserves a reply made by Euclid to King Ptolemy, who asked whether he could not learn geometry more easily than by studying the _Elements_--"There is no royal road to geometry." Pappus of Alexandria, in his _Mathematical Collection_, says that Euclid was a man of mild and inoffensive temperament, unpretending, and kind to all genuine students of mathematics. This being all that is known of the life and character of Euclid, it only remains therefore to speak of his works. Entry: EUCLID
GEMINI ("The Twins," i.e. Castor and Pollux), in astronomy, the third sign in the zodiac, denoted by the symbol II. It is also a constellation, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.), and catalogued by Ptolemy, 25 stars, Tycho Brahe 25, and Hevelius 38. By the Egyptians this constellation was symbolized as a couple of young kids; the Greeks altered this symbol to two children, variously said to be Castor and Pollux, Hercules and Apollo, or Triptolemus and Iasion; the Arabians used the symbol of a pair of peacocks. Interesting objects in this constellation are: [alpha] Geminorum or Castor, a very fine double star of magnitudes 2.0 and 2.8, the fainter component is a spectroscopic binary; [eta] Geminorum, a long period (231 days) variable, the extreme range in magnitude being 3.2 to 4; [zeta] Geminorum, a short period variable, 10.15 days, the extreme range in magnitude being 3.7 to 4.5; _Nova_ Geminorum, a "new" star discovered in 1903 by H.H. Turner of Oxford; and the star cluster M.35 Geminorum, a fine and bright, but loose, cluster, with very little central condensation. Entry: GEMINI
_Map Printing._--Maps were first printed in the second half of the 15th century. Those in the _Rudimentum novitiarum_ published at Lübeck in 1475 are from woodcuts, while the maps in the first two editions of Ptolemy published in Italy in 1472 are from copper plates. Wood engraving kept its ground for a considerable period, especially in Germany, but copper in the end supplanted it, and owing to the beauty and clearness of the maps produced by a combination of engraving and etching it still maintains its ground. The objection that a copper plate shows signs of wear after a thousand impressions have been taken has been removed, since duplicate plates are readily produced by electrotyping, while transfers of copper engravings, on stone, zinc or aluminium, make it possible to turn out large editions in a printing-machine, which thus supersedes the slow-working hand-press.[9] These impressions from transfers, however, are liable to be inferior to impressions taken from an original plate or an electrotype. The art of lithography greatly affected the production of maps. The work is either engraved upon the stone (which yields the most satisfactory result at half the cost of copper-engraving), or it is drawn upon the stone by pen, brush or chalk (after the stone has been "grained"), or it is transferred from a drawing upon transfer paper in lithographic ink. In chromolithography a stone is required for each colour. Owing to the great weight of stones, their cost and their liability of being fractured in the press, zinc plates, and more recently aluminium plates, have largely taken the place of stone. The processes of zincography and of algraphy (aluminium printing) are essentially the same as lithography. Zincographs are generally used for producing surface blocks or plates which may be printed in the same way as a wood-cut. Another process of producing such blocks is known as cerography (Gr. [Greek: kêros]), wax. A copper plate having been coated with wax, outline and ornament are cut into the wax, the lettering is impressed with type, and the intaglio thus produced is electrotyped.[10] Movable types are utilized in several other ways in the production of maps. Thus the lettering of the map, having been set up in type, is inked in and transferred to a stone or a zinc-plate, or it is impressed upon transfer-paper and transferred to the stone. Photographic processes have been utilized not only in reducing maps to a smaller scale, but also for producing stones and plates from which they may be printed. The manuscript maps intended to be produced by photographic processes upon stone, zinc or aluminium, are drawn on a scale somewhat larger than the scale on which they are to be printed, thus eliminating all those imperfections which are inherent in a pen-drawing. The saving in time and cost by adopting this process is considerable, for a plan, the engraving of which takes two years, can now be produced in two days. Another process, photo- or heliogravure, for obtaining an engraved image on a copper plate, was for the first time employed on a large scale for producing a new topographical map of the Austrian Empire in 718 sheets, on a scale of 1 : 75,000, which was completed in seventeen years (1873-1890). The original drawings for this map had to be done with exceptional neatness, the draughtsman spending twelve months on that which he would have completed in four months had it been intended to engrave the map on copper; yet an average chart, measuring 530 by 630 mm., which would have taken two years and nine months for drawing and engraving, was completed in less than fifteen months--fifty days of which were spent in "retouching" the copper plate. It only cost £169 as compared with £360 had the old method been pursued. Entry: MEASUREMENT
Among the astronomers of antiquity, two great men stand out with unchallenged pre-eminence. Hipparchus and Ptolemy entertained the same large organic designs; they worked on similar methods; and, as the outcome, their performances fitted so accurately together that between them they re-made celestial science. Hipparchus fixed the chief data of astronomy--the lengths of the tropical and sidereal years, of the various months, and of the synodic periods of the five planets; determined the obliquity of the ecliptic and of the moon's path, the place of the sun's apogee, the eccentricity of his orbit, and the moon's horizontal parallax; all with approximate accuracy. His loans from Chaldaean experts appear, indeed, to have been numerous; but were doubtless independently verified. His supreme merit, however, consisted in the establishment of astronomy on a sound geometrical basis. His acquaintance with trigonometry, a branch of science initiated by him, together with his invention of the planisphere, enabled him to solve a number of elementary problems; and he was thus led to bestow especial attention upon the position of the equinox, as being the common point of origin for measures both in right ascension and longitude. Its steady retrogression among the stars became manifest to him in 130 B.C., on comparing his own observations with those made by Timocharis a century and a half earlier; and he estimated at not less than 36" (the true value being 50") the annual amount of "precession." Entry: A
The masterpiece of Camoens, the _Lusiads_, is the _epos_ of discovery. It is written in hendecasyllabic _ottava rima_, and is divided into ten cantos containing in all 1102 stanzas. Its argument is briefly as follows. After an exordium proposing the subject, invoking the Tagus muses and addressing King Sebastian, Vasco da Gama's ships are shown sailing up the East African coast on their way to India. At a council of the gods the fate of the fleet is discussed, and Bacchus promises to thwart the voyage, while Venus and Mars favour the navigators. They arrive at Mozambique, where the governor endeavours to destroy them by stratagem, and, this failing, Bacchus tries other plots against them at Quiloa and Mombasa which are foiled by Venus. In answer to her appeal, Jupiter foretells the glorious feats of the Portuguese in the East, and sends Mercury to direct the voyagers to Melinde, where they are hospitably received and get a pilot to guide them to India. The local ruler visits the fleet and asks Gama about his country and its history, and in response the latter gives an account of the origin of the kingdom of Portugal, its kings and principal achievements, ending with the incidents of the voyage out. This recital occupies cantos 3, 4 and 5, and includes some of the most admired and most powerful episodes in the poem, e.g. those of Ignez de Castro, King Manoel's dream of the rivers Ganges and Indus, the speech of the old man of Belem and the apparition of Adamastor off the Cape of Good Hope. Canto 6 describes the crossing of the Indian Ocean from Melinde to Calicut and a fresh hostile attempt on the part of Bacchus. He descends to Neptune's palace, and at a council of the sea-gods it is resolved to order Aeolus to loose the winds against the Portuguese, but the tempest is quelled by Venus and her nymphs in answer to Gama's prayer, and the morning light reveals the Ghats of India. Just before the storm, occurs the night scene in which Velloso entertains his shipmates with the story of the Twelve of England, another of the famous episodes. Canto 7 is taken up with the arrival at Calicut, a description of the country and the details of Gama's reception by the raja. The governor of the city visits the fleet and inquires about the pictures on their banners, whereupon Paulo da Gama, Vasco's brother, tells him of the deeds of the early Portuguese kings. Meanwhile Bacchus, not to be baulked, appears to a priest in the guise of Mahomet, and stirs up the Moslems against the Christian adventurers, with the result that the raja charges Gama with being a leader of convicts and pirates. To this the captain makes a spirited reply and gets his despatch, but he has new snares to avoid and further difficulties to overcome before he is finally able to set sail on the return voyage. Pitying their toils, Venus determines to give the voyagers repose and pleasure on their way home, and directs their course to an enchanted island, which is described in canto 9, in the longest and perhaps the most beautiful episode in the poem. On landing they are received by the goddess and her nymphs, and general joy ensues, heightened by banquets and amorous play. In a prophetic song, the siren tells of the exploits of the Portuguese viceroys, governors and captains in India until the time of D John de Castro, after which Tethys ascends a mountain with Gama, shows him the spheres after the system of Ptolemy and the globe of Asia and Africa, and describes the Indian life of St Thomas the apostle. Finally the navigators quit the island and reach Lisbon, and an epilogue contains a patriotic exhortation to King Sebastian and visions of glory, which ended so disastrously at the battle of Alcacer. Entry: CAMOENS
There are other interesting places on Loch Etive, an arm of the sea, measuring 19¼ m. in length and from 1/8 m. to fully 1 m. in width. Near the mouth, where the lake narrows to a strait, are the rapids which Ossian called the Falls of Lora, the ebbing and flowing tides, as they rush over the rocky bar, creating a roaring noise audible at a considerable distance. In the parish of Ardchattan, on the north shore, stands the beautiful ruin of St Modan's Priory, founded in the 13th century for Cistercian monks of the order of Vallis Caulium. It is said that Robert Bruce held within its walls the last parliament in which the Gaelic language was used. On the coast of Loch Nell, or Ardmucknish Bay, is the vitrified fort of Beregonium, not to be confounded with Rerigonium (sometimes miscalled Berigonium) on Loch Ryan in Wigtownshire--a town of the Novantae Picts, identified with Innermessan. The confusion has arisen through a textual error in an early edition of Ptolemy's _Geography_. Entry: DUNSTAFFNAGE
4. _Reign of Merwan I._--Merwan strengthened his position according to the old oriental fashion by marrying the widow of Yazid, and soon felt himself strong enough to substitute his own son Abdalmalik for Khalid b. Yazid as successor-designate. Khalid contented himself with protesting; he was neither a politician nor a soldier, but a student of alchemy and astronomy; translations of Greek books have been ascribed to him (Jahiz, _Bayan_, i. p. 126). In the year A.H. 435 there was still in Egypt a brazen globe attributed to Ptolemy which had belonged to Khalid (Ibn Qifti, p. 440, 1.15). He was also consulted about future events. There were, however, not a few who deplored the fact that the throne had passed from the descendants of Abu Sofian. This feeling gave rise to the prophecy that there should appear later a Sofiani on the throne, who would reign with might and wisdom. 'Amr Ashdaq made no opposition till the death of Merwan. After the victory at Merj Rahit, Merwan conquered Egypt, and installed as governor his second son Abdalaziz. An army sent to the rescue by Ibn Zobair under the command of his brother Mus'ab was beaten in Palestine by 'Amr Ashdaq. But a division sent by Merwan to the Hejaz was cut to pieces. Obaidallah b. Ziyad set out with the purpose of subduing Mesopotamia and marching thence against Irak. But he was detained a whole year in the former country, by a rising of the Shi'ites in Kufa, who were still in mourning for Hosain and had formed an army which called itself "the army of the penitent." They were routed at Ras 'Ain, but Obaidallah had still to fight Zofar. Entry: 4