About the year 150
A.D., Ptolemy, the geographer, published his map of central Africa and
the sources of the Nile, and this map was more accurate than any which
we had as late as 1850 A.D. More was known of physical science, and
more of the truth about the physical world was guessed at, in the days
of Pliny, than was known or guessed until the modern movement began.
The case was the same as regards military science. At the close of the
Middle Ages the weapons were what they had always been--sword, shield,
bow, spear; and any improvement in them was more than offset by the
loss in knowledge of military organization, in the science of war, and
in military leadership since the days of Hannibal and Caesar. A hundred
years ago, when this University was founded, the methods of
transportation did not differ in the essentials from what they had
been among the highly civilized nations of antiquity. Travellers and
merchandise went by land in wheeled vehicles or on beasts of burden,
and by sea in boats propelled by sails or by oars; and news was
conveyed as it always had been conveyed. What improvements there had
been had been in degree only and not in kind; and in some respects
there had been retrogression rather than advance. There were many
parts of Europe where the roads were certainly worse than the old
Roman post-roads; and the Mediterranean Sea, for instance, was by no
means as well policed as in the days of Trajan.
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