hy rest, as well as geography itself, is greatly indebted,
was Hipparchus. Scarcely any particulars are known respecting him: even the
exact period in which he flourished, is not accurately fixed; some placing
him 159 years, others 149, and others again bringing him down to 129 years
before Christ. He was a native of Nice in Bithynia, but spent the greater
part of his life at the court of one of the Ptolemies. It is supposed that
he quitted his native place in consequence of some ill treatment which he
had received from his fellow citizens: at least we are informed by Aurelius
Victor, that the emperor Marcus Aurelius obliged the inhabitants of Nice to
send yearly to Rome a certain quantity of corn, for having beaten one of
their citizens, by name Hipparchus, a man of great learning and
extraordinary accomplishments. They continued to pay this tribute to the
time of Constantine, by whom it was remitted. As history does not inform us
of any other person of note of this name, a native of Nice in Bithynia, it
is highly probable that this was the Hipparchus, the astronomer and
geographer. That it was not unusual for conquerors and sovereigns to reward
or punish the descendants of those who had behaved well or ill to
celebrated men who had flourished long previously, must be well known to
those conversant with ancient history. The respect paid to the memory of
Pindar, by the Spartans, and by Alexander the Great, when they conquered
Thebes, is a striking instance of the truth of this observation.

Hipparchus possessed the true spirit of philosophy: having resolved to
devote himself to the study of astronomy, his first general
[principal->principle] was to take nothing for granted; but setting aside
all that had been taught by former astronomers, to begin anew, and examine
and judge for himself: he determined not to admit any results but such as
were grounded either in observations and experiments entirely new, made by
himself or on a new examination of former observations, conducted with the
utmost care and caution. In short, he may justly be regarded as one of the
first philosophers of antiquity who had a slight glimpse of the grand
maxim, which afterwards immortalized Bacon, and which has introduced modern
philosophers to a knowledge of the most secret and most sublime operations
of nature.

One of his first endeavours was, to verify the obliquity of the ecliptic,
as settled by Eratosthenes: he next fixed, as accurately as po