We have already noticed the itineraries of the Roman empire:  of these there were two kinds, the annotota and the picta; the first containing merely the names of places; the other, besides the names, the extent of the different provinces, the number of their inhabitants, the names of the mountains, rivers, seas, &c.; of the first kind, the itinerary of Antoninus is the most celebrated:  to it we have already alluded:  to the second kind belong the Peutingarian tables, which are supposed to have been drawn up in the reign of Theodosius, about the beginning of the fifth century, though according to other conjectures, they were constructed at different periods.

The beginning of the tables is lost, comprising Portugal, Spain, and the west part of Africa; only the south-east coast of England is inserted.  Towards the east, the Seres, the mouth of the Ganges, and the island of Ceylon appear, and routes are traced through the heart of India.  Dr. Vincent remarks, that it is a very singular circumstance that these tables should have the same names in the coast of India as the Periplus, but reversed.  Mention is also made in them of a temple of Augustus or the Roman emperor:  these circumstances, Dr. Vincent justly observes, tend to prove the continuance of the commerce by sea with India, from the time of Claudius to Theodosius; a period of above 300 years.  In these tables very few of the countries are set down according to their real position, their respective limits, or their actual size.

The law of the emperor Theodosius, by which he prohibited his subjects, under pain of death, from teaching the art of ship-building to the barbarians, was ineffectual in the attainment of the object which he had in view; nor did any real service to the empire result from a fleet of 1100 large ships that he fitted out, to act in conjunction with the forces of the western empire for the protection of Rome against Genseric, king of the Vandals.  This fleet arrived in Sicily, but performed nothing; and Genseric, notwithstanding the law of Theodosius, obtained the means and the skill of fitting out a formidable fleet.  The Vandal empire in Africa was peculiarly adapted to maritime enterprise, as it stretched along the coast of the Mediterranean above ninety days’ journey from Tangier to Tripoli:  the woods of mount Atlas supplied an inexhaustible quantity of ship timber; the African nations whom he had subdued, especially the Carthaginians, were skilled in ship-building and in maritime affairs; and they eagerly obeyed the call of their new sovereign, when he held out to them the plunder of Rome.  Thus, as Gibbon observes, after an interval of six centuries, the fleets that issued from the port of Carthage again claimed the empire of the Mediterranean.  A feeble and ineffectual resistance was opposed to the Vandal sovereign, who succeeded in his grand enterprise, plundered Rome, and landed safely in Carthage with his rich spoils.  The emperor Leo, alarmed at this success, fitted out