Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/51

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 31 clouded horizon. In the plains of Sinaar, and a second time in [sinjar] those of Cufa, his mathematicians accurately measured a degree of the great circle of the earth, and determined at twenty-four thousand miles the entire circumference of our globe. "^ From the reign of the Abbassides to that of the grandchildren of Tamerlane, the stars, without the aid of glasses, were diligently observed ; and the astronomical tables of Bagdad, Spain, and Samarcand,^" correct some minute errors, without daring to re- nounce the hypothesis of Ptolemy, without advancing a step towards the discovery of the solar system. In the eastern courts, the truths of science could be recommended only by ignorance and folly, and the astronomer would have been disregarded, had he not debased his wisdom or honesty by the vain predictions of astrology."^ But in the science, of medicine, the Arabians have been deservedly applauded."^ The names of Mesua and Geber, of Razis and Avicenna, are ranked with the Grecian masters ; in the city of Bagdad, eight hundred and sixty physi- cians were licensed to exercise their lucrative profession ; '^° in Spain, the life of the Catholic princes was entrusted to the skill of the Saracens,'*^ and the school of Salerno, their legitimate offspring, revived in Italy and Europe the precepts of the heal- ing art."*^ The success of each professor mu.st have been in- fluenced by personal and accidental causes ; but we may form a ■"^ Abulfeda (.Annal. Moslem, p. 210, 211. vers. Reiske) describes this operation according to Ibn Challecan and the best historians. This degree most accurately contains 200,000 royal or Hashemite cubits, which Arabia had derived from the sacred and legal practice both of Palestine and Egypt. This ancient cubit is re- peated 400 times in each basis of the great pyramid, and seems to indicate the primitive and universal measures of the East. See the M^trologie of the laborious M. Paucton, p. 101-195. U^^^ Al-MasQdi, Prairies d'or, i. 182-3; and cp. Sedillot, Hist. Gc^'n^rale des Arabes, ii. Appendice 256-7. There seems to be no mention of the degree in Tabari. There is a mistake in Gibbon's reference to Abulfeda, which the editor is unable to correct.] See the Astronomical Tables of Ulegh Begh, with the preface of Dr. Hyde, in the first volume of his Syntagma Dissertationum, Oxon., 1767. "^The truth of astrology was allowed by Albumazar, and the best of the Arabian astronomers, who drew their most certain predictions, not from Venus and Mer- cury, but from Jupiter and the sun (Abulpharag. Dynast, p. 161-163). For the state and science of the Persian astronomers, see Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. iii. p. 162-203). ■'•' [Wiistenfeld, Geschichte der arabischen Aerzte,] ^• Bibliot. .^rabico-Hispana, tom. i. p. 438. The original relates a pleasant tale, of an ignorant but harmless practitioner. ^''In the year 956, Sancho the fat, king of Leon, was cured by the physicians of Cordova (Mariana, 1. viii. c. 7, tom. i. p. 318). "i^ The school of Salerno, and the introduction of the Arabian sciences into Italy, are discussed with learning and judgment by Muratori (.' tiquitat. Italiae Medii ^vi, tom. iii. p. 932-940) and Giannone (Istoria Civile de Napoli, tom. ii. p. 119-127). [The school of Salerno was not under the influence of Arabic medicine. See below, p. 189.]