United States or Guyana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Milan, 1511. fol. This work is supposed to have been written originally in Italian. In the Spanish translation, published in Lisbon, 1576, the author's name is given, Barthema. This a very curious and rare work. It has been translated into German and Dutch. Baumgarten, Peregrinatio in Egyptum, Arabiam, Palestinam, et Syriam. Nuremberg, 1621. 4to. Voyages au Levant, 1749-52. Par Fréd. Hasselquist.
"At Hercule olim ex Itaila legionibus longinquas in provincias commeatus portabantur, nec nunc infecunditate laboratur; sed Africam potius et Egyptum exercemus, navibusque et casibus vita populi Romani permissa est." TACITUS, Annal. xii. 43. Antiquity does not contain a more pregnant and important passage, or one more directly bearing on the present policy of the Britsh emprire, than this.
It demonstrates: 1, That in former times Italy had been an exporting country: "olim ex Italia commeatus in longinquas provincias portabantur." 2, That at the time when Tacitus wrote, in the days of the Emperor Trajan, it had ceased to be so, and had come to import largely from Africa and Lybia, "sed nunc Africam potius et Egyptum exercemus." 3, That this was not the result of any supervening sterility or unfruitfulness, "nec nunc infecunditate laboratur," but was from causes which made it more profitable to purchase grain in the Egyptian or Lybian markets, "sed Africam POTIUS et Egyptum exercemus."
Word Of The Day