XClV.
REICHART>⅛ ATLAS.
it is true, places him in contradiction with other divisions; but
we must be on our guard, if we should feel inclined to censure
him for it. According to Livy, Samnium, for instance, com-
prises a large district which D’ An ville makes a part of Apulia,
because he represents Italy according to the description of
Pliny.1
I must caution you against the maps of Beichard.3 His map
of Italy, costs about six shillings, and none can be worse. He
is quite an ignorant man, and has no idea of ancient geogra-
phy. Places which never existed are marked in his map as
towns of great importance. In the Roman Itineraries, the
post-stages are mentioned, which were not towns, but merely
points at which horses were changed. Places of this kind are,
for instance, Sublanuvium and Subaricia (both places were
situated on hills), which Reichard metamorphoses into large
towns. A point at which a road branched out into two, was
called ad bivium, and of this Rcichard makes a considerable
town, Ad Bivium, of the size of Praeneste, in Latium; Aquila,
a town founded in the middle ages, bears a Roman name, and
is therefore forthwith represented as an ancient Sabine town.
Some places mentioned by Roman writers as belonging to the
immediate neighbourhood of Rome, such as Politorium, Me-
dullia, and Tellene, which were conquered by the Romans,
and of which we can only conjecture in what direction they
lay, are placed by Reichard at random, and on spots were they
cannot have existed—a just punishment for falsehood. He
makes the Volscians extend as far as the mouth of the Tiber,
although no Roman author mentions that their territory ex-
tended farther than Antium. Numberless faults of this kind
might be collected; but I have not been able to overcome the
disgust which prevented my going through the whole.
Reichard’s atlas owes the favourable reception it has met with,
only to the beauty with which the maps are executed, and to
the audacity of its author. We must confess, that in geogra-
phy, properly so called, we have no one who can be compared
' The reprint of D’Anville's Atlas published by WeigeI at Niirnberg
(1781—85) is beautiful and cheap. At Diisseldorf a School-Atlas has been
published (1820, and a second edition in 1825), which gives the maps of
D’Anville on a small scale. It is correct, and costs a mere nothing.—N.
2 The Atlas of Christ. Theoph. Reichard, of which Niebuhr here speaka,
is entitled “ Orbis terrarum antiqmis.” It was published at Nürnberg, 1818
—27, and consists of fifteen maps in folio.
IMPORTANCE OE ROMAN HISTORY.
XCV
with D’Auville. My father, who was certainly a competent
judge in. these matters, entertained the most sincere admiration
for him. Major Rennell was a great man; but he did not
possess the unerring tact of D’Anville, and always drew middle
results. Further discoveries in Africa will show, for instance,
that Rennell has assigned a wrong place to Timbuctoo, al-
though D’Anville with fewer resources had given it its proper
place.
LECTURE XIL
The importance of the history of Rome is generally acknow-
ledged, and will probably never be disputed. There may be
persons who, in regard to ancient history in general, entertain
fanciful opinions and underrate its value; but they will never
deny the importance of Roman history. For many sciences it
is indispensable as an introduction or a preparation. As long
as the Roman law retains the dignified position which it now
occupies, so long Roman history cannot lose its importance for
the student of the law in general. A knowledge of the history
of Rome, her laws and institutions, is absolutely necessary to a
theologian who wishes to make himself acquainted with eccle-
siastical history. There are indeed sciences which are in no
such direct relation to Roman history, and to which it cannot
therefore be of the same importance; but it is important in the
history of human life in general, and whoever wishes, for
instance, to acquire a knowledge of the history of diseases, must
be intimately acquainted with Roman history, for without it
many things will remain utterly obscure to him. Itsimmense
importance to a philologer requires no explanation. If
philologers are principally occupied with Roman literature,
the Roman classics in all their detail must be as familiar
to them as if they were their contemporaries ; and even
those whose attention is chiefly engaged by the literature
of the Greeks cannot dispense with Roman history, or else
they will remain one-sided, and confine themselves within
such narrow limits as to be unable to gain a free point of
view. Let Greek philology be ever so much a man’s real