An historical survey of the astronomy of the ancients / by Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
- George Cornewall Lewis
- Date:
- 1862
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An historical survey of the astronomy of the ancients / by Sir George Cornewall Lewis. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
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![of the gladiatorial] shows for the Emperor Nero, in order to pur- chase it in large quantities. This agent visited the coast in question, having reached it by way of Carnuntum, the distance from Carnuntum to the amber district being nearly 600 miles; and he brought back so large a supply, that the nets in the amphitheatre for keeping off the wild beasts were ornamented with amber at the knots; and the arms, the bier, and all the apparatus for one day were decorated with the same material. He brought with him one lump thirteen pounds in weight. (75) Carnuntum was a town of Upper Pannonia, on the southern bank of the Danube, between the modern Vienna and Presburg; and after the reduction of Pannonia by the Romans, it would without difficulty have been reached from the head of the Adriatic. The distance from Carnuntum to the coast of the Baltic is not more than 400 miles. (76) Hiillmann has pointed out that in the Middle Ages there was a commercial route from the Upper Vistula to Southern Germany, which, passing through Thorn and Breslau, reached the river Waas, and thus descended to the Danube. (77) A Roman knight, with a sufficient escort of slaves, would doubtless have effected this journey without serious difficulty. The large piece of amber which Pliny reports him to have brought to Rome is exceeded in size by a mass of eighteen pounds, which is stated in M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary to have been found in Lithuania, and to be now pre- served in the Royal Cabinet at Berlin. It appears from Tacitus that Claudius Julianus had still the care of the gladiators under Vitellius, in 69 a.d.(78) He was murdered in the struggle which accompanied the downfall of that Emperor. Hiillmann (79) justly points out the improbability that the (75) xxxvii. 3. (76) See Cluvier, Germ. Ant. p. 692. A traditionary account lias been preserved in Prussia that in the Koman times amber was carried on horseback through Pannonia to ItaljT, Hiillmann, Stadtewesen des Mittel- alters, vol. i. p. 314. (77) Handelsgeschichte der Griechen, p. 77. (78) Hist. iii. 57, 76. (79) lb. p. 76.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21015855_0475.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
