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 revenue 250 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xl natives of China in the education of the insects and the manu- factures of silk, 77 in which both China and Constantinople have been surpassed by the industry of modern Europe. I am not insensible of the benefits of elegant luxury ; yet I reflect with some pain that, if the importers of silk had introduced the art of printing, already practised by the Chinese, the comedies of Menander and the entire decads of Livy would have been per- petuated in the editions of the sixth century. A larger view of the globe might at least have promoted the improvement of speculative science, but the Christian geography was forcibly extracted from texts of scripture, and the study of nature was the surest symptom of an unbelieving mind. The orthodox faith confined the habitable world to one temperate zone, and represented the earth as an oblong surface, four hundred days' journey in length, two hundred in breadth, encompassed by the ocean, and covered by the solid crystal of the firmament. 78 stateofthe IV. The subjects of Justinian were dissatisfied with the times, and with the government. Europe was over-run by the Barbarians, and Asia by the monks ; the poverty of the West discouraged the trade and manufactures of the East ; the pro- duce of labour was consumed by the unprofitable servants of the church, the state, and the army ; and a rapid decrease was felt in the fixed and circulating capitals which constitute the national wealth. The public distress had been alleviated by the economy of Anastasius, and that prudent emperor ac- cumulated an immense treasure while he delivered his people from the most odious or oppressive taxes. Their gratitude 77 Procopius, 1. viii. (Gothic, iv.) c. 17. Theophanes Byzant. apud Phot. Cod. lxxxiv. p. 38. Zonaras, torn. ii. 1. xiv. p. 69. Pagi (torn. ii. p. 602) assigns to the year 552 this memorable importation. Menander (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107 [fr. 18, F. H. G. iv.]) mentions the admiration of the Sogdoites ; and Theophylact Simooatta (1. vii. o. 9) darkly represents the two rival kingdoms in [China) the country of silk. 78 Cosmas, surnamed Indicopleustes, or the Indian navigator, performed his voyage about the year 522, and composed at Alexandria, between 535 and 547, Christian Topography (Montfaucon, Preefat. o. 1), in which he refutes the impious opinion that the earth is a globe; and Photius had read this work (Cod. xxxvi. p. 9, 10), which displays the prejudices of a monk, with the knowledge of a merchant ; the most valuable part has been given in French and in Greek by Melchisedec Thevenot (Relations Curieuses, part i.), and the whole is since published in a splendid edition by the Pere Montfaucon (Nova Colleotio Patrum, Paris, 1707, 2 vols, in fol, torn. ii. p. 113-346). But the editor, a theologian, might blush at not discovering the Nestorian heresy of Cosmas, whioh has been detected by la Croze (Christianisme des Indes, torn. i. p. 40-56). [On Cosmas, see H. Gelzer, in Jahrb. fur protestan- tische Theologie, ix. p. 105 sqq. (1883). Tho Topography has been translated into English by J. W. McCrindle (Hakluyt Society), 1897.]