The Somnium Scipionis of Marcus Tullius Cicero / translated into English, with a preface and notes, by Richard Maddock Hawley.

Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Somnium Scipionis of Marcus Tullius Cicero / translated into English, with a preface and notes, by Richard Maddock Hawley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    27/32 (page 13)
    to which you are wont to give the appellations, At- lantic, or Great ; or which still more emphati- cally you style the Ocean. This* globe of yours is flattened at its polar regions, and bulges, or pro- trudes itself, at the equatorial parts. You see how small that ocean is in reality, though designated by a name so pompous. Is it probable that either your name, or that of any one of us, will ever spread itself from the few regions which are known, in- habited, and cultivated, to that mount Caucasus you behold, or to the countries beyond the Gan- ges ? and as to the other parts of the globe, whe- ther you turn your eyes to the eastern or western, ' the northern or southern extremities, what inhabi- tant of these distant lands will ever hear of your name ? You see then how narrow is the boundary which circumscribes all human glory. Even they who now speak of you, how long will they con- tinue to do it ? Again, supposing that some of our distant posterity, who may have heard from their • It is worthy of remark, that Cicero here states that geogra- phical truth as a known fact, which Su- Isaac Newton is usual- ly considered to have first pointed out, and which was afterwards clearly proven by the actual measurement of two degrees j one near to the north pole, the other near to the equator. Cicero states this truth in the words, verticibus angustior, lateribus latior.