he whole of it was administered on Greek methods. A Greek-speaking
person could pass from one end to the other without difficulty, and
we can understand how a knowledge of the whole tract of country
between the Adriatic and the Indus could be obtained by Greek scholars.
Alexander founded a large number of cities, all bearing his name, at
various points of his itinerary; but of these the most important
was that at the mouth of the Nile, known to this day as Alexandria.
Here was the intellectual centre of the whole Hellenic world, and
accordingly it was here, as we have seen, that Eratosthenes first
wrote down in a systematic manner all the knowledge about the habitable
earth which had been gained mainly by Alexander's conquests.

Important as was the triumphant march of Alexander through Western
Asia, both in history and in geography, it cannot be said to have
added so very much to geographical knowledge, for Herodotus was
roughly acquainted with most of the country thus traversed, except
towards the east of Persia and the north-west of India. But the
itineraries of Alexander and his generals must have contributed
more exact knowledge of the distances between the various important
centres of population, and enabled Eratosthenes and his successors
to give them a definite position on their maps of the world. What
they chiefly learned from Alexander and his immediate successors
was a more accurate knowledge of North-West India. Even as late
as Strabo, the sole knowledge possessed at Alexandria of Indian
places was that given by Megasthenes, the ambassador to India in
the third century B.C.

Meanwhile, in the western portion of the civilised world a similar
process had gone on. In the Italian peninsula the usual struggle
had gone on between the various tribes inhabiting it. The fertile
plain of Lombardy was not in those days regarded as belonging to
Italy, but was known as Cisalpine Gaul. The south of Italy, as we
have seen, was mainly inhabited by Greek colonists, and was called
Great Greece. Between these tracts of country the Italian territory
was inhabited by three sets of federate tribes--the Etrurians,
the Samnites, and the Latins. During the 230 years between 510
B.C. and 280 B.C. Rome was occupied in obtaining the supremacy
among these three sets of tribes, and by the latter date may be
regarded as having consolidated Central Italy into an Italian
federation, centralised at Rome. At the latter date, the Greek
king