Adrumetum Hadrumetum Hydra Hydrea
Ægean Ægæan Iasus Iassus
Akanthus Acanthus Kabala Cabalia
Akarnania Acarnania Nile Nilus
Akesines Acesines Olympieion Olympieum
Aktê Acte Oneium neum
Chæroneia Chæronea Paliké Palica
Dekeleia Decelea Pattala Patala
Dyrrachium Dyrrhachium Peiræum Piræum
Eetioneia Eetionea Phyle Phylæ
Egypt Ægyptus Pisa Pisæ
Eresus Eressus Pylus Pylos
Erytheia Erythia Thessaly Thessalia
Helus Helos Thrace Thracia
By comparing in the same way the place-names in Gibbon's and other
histories, the reader will need no glossarist in using the Atlas to
lighten their geographical allusions. It is not only when he comes to
actual wars, campaigns and sieges that he will find a working chart
of advantage. When he reads in Grote of the Ionic colonization of Asia
Minor, and wishes to relate the later view of its complex process to the
much simpler account given by Herodotus, he gains equally by having a
map of the region before him.
We realize how Grote himself worked over his topographical notes, eking
out his own observations with map, scale and compass, when we read
his preliminary survey of Greece, in the second volume of his history.
"Greece proper lies between the 36th and 40th parallels of north
latitude and between the 21st and 26th degrees of east longitude. Its
greatest length, from Mount Olympus to Cape Tænarus, may be stated
at 250 English miles; its greatest breadth, from the western coast of
Akarnania to Marathon in Attica, at 180 miles; and the distance eastward
from Ambrakia across Pindus to the Magnesian mountain Homolê and the
mouth of the Peneius is about 120 miles. Altogether its area is somewhat
less than that of Portugal." But as to the exact limits of Greece
proper, he points out that these limits seem not to have been very
precisely defined even among the Greeks themselves.
The chain called Olympus and the Cambunian mountains, ranging east and
west and commencing with the Ægean Sea or the Gulf of Therma near the
fortieth degree of north latitude, Grote continues, "is prolonged
under the name of Mount Lingon until it touches the Adriatic at the
Akrokeraunian promontory. The country south of this chain comprehended
all that in ancient times was regarded as Greece or Hellas proper,
but it also comprehended something more. Hellas proper (or continuous
Hellas, to use the language of Skylax and Dikæarchus) was understood to
begin with the town and Gulf of Ambrakia : from thence northward to
the Akrokeraunian promontory lay the land called by the Greeks Epirus--
occupied by the Chaonians, Molossians, and Thesprotians, who were termed
Epirots and were not esteemed to belong to the Hellenic aggregate."
Beside this survey of Hellas proper or continuous Hellas, as Grote
presented it, he set the word-map of Italy that Gibbon draws--Italy
changing its face under the Roman civilization: "Before the Roman
conquest, the country which is now called Lombardy was not considered
as a part of Italy. It had been occupied by a powerful colony of Gauls,
who, settling themselves along the banks of the Po, from Piedmont to
Romagna, carried their arms and diffused their name from the Alps to the
Apennine. The Ligurians dwelt on the rocky coast, which now forms the
republic of Genoa. Venice was yet unborn; but the territories of
that state, which lie to the east of the Adige, were habited by the
Venetians. The middle part of the peninsula, that now composes the duchy
of Tuscany and the ecclesiastical state, was the ancient seat of the
Etruscans and Umbrians; to the former of whom Italy was indebted for the
first rudiments of a civilized life. The Tiber rolled at the foot of the
seven hills of Rome, and the country of the Sabines, the Latins, and the
Volsci, from that river to the frontiers of Naples, was the theatre
of her infant victories. On that celebrated ground the first consuls
deserved triumphs, their successors adorned villas, and their posterity
have erected convents. Capua and Campania possessed the immediate
territory of Naples; the rest of the kingdom was inhabited by many
warlike nations, the Marsi, the Samnites, the Apulians, and the
Lucanians; and the sea-coasts had been covered by the flourishing
colonies of the Greeks. We may remark, that when Augustus divided Italy
into eleven regions, the little province of Istria was annexed to that
seat of Roman sovereignty."
As we see by this topical extract, Gibbon's practice in the use of Latin
place-names is very much freer than Grote's in the use of the Greek. A
few comparative instances from the Atlas will suffice: