ged
to the business or conveniency of private citizens. Nor was the
communication of the Roman empire less free and open by sea than it was
by land. The provinces surrounded and enclosed the Mediterranean: and
Italy, in the shape of an immense promontory, advanced into the midst of
that great lake. The coasts of Italy are, in general, destitute of safe
harbors; but human industry had corrected the deficiencies of nature;
and the artificial port of Ostia, in particular, situate at the mouth of
the Tyber, and formed by the emperor Claudius, was a useful monument of
Roman greatness. From this port, which was only sixteen miles from the
capital, a favorable breeze frequently carried vessels in seven days to
the columns of Hercules, and in nine or ten, to Alexandria in Egypt.

[See Remains Of Claudian Aquaduct]

Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive
empire, the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences
to mankind; and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the
vices, diffused likewise the improvements, of social life. In the more
remote ages of antiquity, the world was unequally divided. The East was
in the immemorial possession of arts and luxury; whilst the West
was inhabited by rude and warlike barbarians, who either disdained
agriculture, or to whom it was totally unknown. Under the protection of
an established government, the productions of happier climates, and the
industry of more civilized nations, were gradually introduced into the
western countries of Europe; and the natives were encouraged, by an open
and profitable commerce, to multiply the former, as well as to improve
the latter. It would be almost impossible to enumerate all the articles,
either of the animal or the vegetable reign, which were successively
imported into Europe from Asia and Egypt: but it will not be unworthy
of the dignity, and much less of the utility, of an historical work,
slightly to touch on a few of the principal heads. 1. Almost all the
flowers, the herbs, and the fruits, that grow in our European gardens,
are of foreign extraction, which, in many cases, is betrayed even by
their names: the apple was a native of Italy, and when the Romans had
tasted the richer flavor of the apricot, the peach, the pomegranate, the
citron, and the orange, they contented themselves with applying to all
these new fruits the common denomination of apple, discriminating them
from each other by the a