_Literature of
Antient Greece_, vol. iv. p. 68. Thence the notion of the
Arimaspians seems to have passed to Herodotus (iii. 116; iv.
27) and to AEschylus:--

[Greek: oxystomous gar Zenos akrageis kynas
grypas phylaxai, ton te mounopa straton
Arimaspon hippobamon', hoi chrysorrhyton
oikousin amphi nama Ploutonos porou;
toutois sy me pelaze.]
_Prometheus_, 802.

Thence it passed on to Pausanias, i. 24; Pomponius Mela, ii. 1;
Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, vii. 2; Lucan, _Pharsalia_, iii. 280; and
so on to Milton:--

"As when a gryphon through the wilderness,
With winged course o'er hill or moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloined
The guarded gold."
_Paradise Lost_, ii. 944.]

[Illustration: Two sheets of the Catalan Map, 1375.]

[Sidenote: Other visits to China.]

[Sidenote: Overthrow of the Mongol dynasty, and shutting up of China.]

Nevertheless, in the Catalan map, made in 1375, and now to be seen in
the National Library at Paris, there is a thorough-going and not
unsuccessful attempt to embody the results of Polo's travels. In the
interval of three quarters of a century since the publication of Marco's
narrative, several adventurous travellers had found their way to Cathay.
There was Friar Odoric, of Pordenone, who, during the years 1316-30
visited Hindustan, Sumatra, Java, Cochin China, the Chinese Empire, and
Thibet.[335] It was from this worthy monk that the arrant old impostor,
"Sir John Mandeville," stole his descriptions of India and Cathay,
seasoning them with yarns from Pliny and Ktesias, and grotesque conceits
of his own.[336] Several other missionary friars visited China between
1302 and 1330, and about ten years after the latter date the Florentine
merchant, Francesco Pegolotti, wrote a very useful handbook for
commercial travellers on the overland route to that country.[337]
Between 1338 and 1353 Giovanni Marignolli spent some years at Peking, as
papal legate from Benedict XI. to the Great Khan, and also travelled in
Ceylon and Hindustan.[338] That seems to have been the last of these
journeys to the Far East. In 1368, the people of China rose against the
Mongol dynasty and overthrew it. The first emperor of the native Ming
dyn