THEOPHYLACT, named SIMOCAITA, a Greek historian, a native of Greece, but of Egyptian origin. His history of the reign of the emperor Maurice is comprehended in eight books, and terminates with the massacre of this prince and his children by Phocas. Casaubon reckons Simocatta one of the best of the later Greek historians.

BEULANIUS, a British historian, who was also a divine. He was born about 580. He was famous as a teacher of youth, and had the celebrated Nennius for his scholar. His morals were of the purest kind. He was extremely industrious in examining into the antiquities of nations, and tracing out the families of the English Saxons after they had entered Britain; and from these collections he is said to have written a work, "De Genealogiis Gentium." He had a son, who will be found in the next period.

NENNIUS, an historian, was abbot of Bangor. It is said he took refuge at Chester, at the time of the massacre of the monks of that monastery. He was author of several works, but the only one remaining is his "Historia Britonum," or "Eulogium Britanniæ," which has been printed in Gale's Hist. Brit. Scrip. Oxon. 1691. Great part of his work is supposed to have been compiled, or perhaps transcribed, from the history of one Elborus, or Elvodugus.

MATHEMATICS AND GEOGRAPHY.

EUTOCIUS, a considerable mathematician, who lived at the time of the decline of the sciences in Greece, was a native of Ascalon, in Palestine, and a disciple of Isiodorus, one of the celebrated architects employed by the emperor Justinian. He probably flourished about the commencement of this century, though we have no particulars respecting his life, but his works reflect much honour on his memory. He wrote elaborate and perspicuous "Commentaries on the books of Archimedes concerning the Sphere and Cylinder;" and also on the first four books of the Conics of Apollonius Pergæus. These commentaries have not only elucidated many difficult passages in those profound writers, but have tended to throw light on the history of the mathematics. There have been many editions of them, but the most magnificent was that in the edition of the works of Archimedes, printed at Oxford in folio, in the year 1792, which was prepared for the press by Torelli of Verona; and that in Dr. Halley's edition of the eight books of Apollonius, published at Oxford in 1710.

COSMAS, an Egyptian merchant, who, under the emperor Justinian, in the course of his traffic, made some voyages in India about the year 522, whence he acquired the sirname of VOL. II.

2 G

Indicoplenstes," or the Indian navigator; but afterwards, by a transition not uncommon in that superstitious age, renounced all the concerns of this life, and assumed the monastic character, as it is said, among the Nestorians. In the solitude and leisure of a cell, he composed several works, between the years 535 and 547; one of which, dignified by him with the name of "Christian Topography," has reached us. This book was published at Alexandria, A.D. 547. The main design of this work is to combat the opinion of those philosophers who assert that the earth is of a spherical figure, and to prove that it is an oblong plane, twelve thousand miles in length from east to west, and six thousand miles in breadth from north to south, surrounded by high walls, covered by the firmament as with a canopy or vault; that the vicissitude of day and night was occasioned by a mountain of prodigious height, situated in the extremities of the north, round which the sun moved; that when he appeared on one side of this mountain, the earth was illuminated; when concealed on the other side, the earth was left involved in darkness. However, amidst these wild reveries, more suited to the credulity of his new profession, than to the sound sense characteristic of that in which he was formerly engaged, Cosmas seems to relate what he himself had observed in his travels, or what he had learned from others with great simplicity and regard for truth. He appears to have been well acquainted with the western coast of the Indian peninsula, and names several places situated upon it; he describes it as the chief seat of the pepper trade, and mentions Mala, probably the origin of Malabar, as one of the most frequented ports on that account. From him also we learn, that the island of Taprobane, which he supposes to be at an equal distance from the Persian gulf on the west, and the country of the Sine on the east, had become, on account of this commodious situation, a great staple of trade; that into it was imported the silk of the Sina, and the precious spices of the eastern countries, which were conveyed thence to all parts of India, to Persia, and to the Arabian Gulf. To this island he gives the name of Sielediba, nearly the same with that of Selendib, or Serendeb, by which it is still known over the East. To Cosmas we are also indebted for the first information of a new rival to the Romans in trade having appeared in the Indian seas. All the considerable ports of India were frequented by traders from Persia, who, in return for some productions of their own country in request among the Indians, received the precious commodities, which they conveyed up the Persian Gulf, and by means of the great rivers, Euphrates and Tigris, distributed them through every province of their empire. As the voyage from Persia to India was much shorter than that from Egypt, and attended with less expense and danger, the intercourse

between the two countries increased rapidly. Cosmas mentions a circumstance which is a striking proof of this fact. In most of the cities of any note in India, he found Christian churches established, in which the functions of religion were performed by priests ordained by the archbishop of Seleucia, the capital of the Persian empire, and who continued subject to his jurisdiction. Accordingly, we learn from this traveller, that Christianity was successfully preached to the Bactrians, the Huns, the Persians, the Indians, the Persarmenians, the Medes, and the Elamites. The coast of Malabar, and the isles of the ocean, Sosorara and Ceylon, were peopled with an increasing multitude of Christians. It is remarkable, however, that, according to the account of Cosmas, none of these strangers were accustomed to visit the eastern regions of Asia, but rested satisfied with receiving their silk, their spices, and other valuable productions, as they were imported into Ceylon, and conveyed thence to the various marts of India.

ARCHITECTURE.

ANTHEMIUS, a celebrated architect. His principal work. is the famous church of St. Sophia at Constantinople, which he was employed to build by the emperor Justinian, for whom he also erected several other structures. He was a good mathematician, and well-skilled in experimental philosophy, from a knowledge of which, he succeeded so well in imitating an earthquake, that he alarmed many people in its vicinity, and particularly, frightened a man of the name of Zeno out of his house, He also made experiments in optics, and constructed a lens.

ÆTHERIUS, an architect, who built the wall which runs from the sea to Selimbria, to preserve Constantinople from the Bulgarians and Scythians.

MEDICINE.

ALEXANDER TRALLIAN, a Greek writer on physic, a native of Tralles in Lydia, who lived about the middle of this century. He was the first who opened the jugular vein, and used cantharides as a blister for the gout.

PERIOD XXII.

FROM CONSTANTINE III. TO CONSTANTINE V.

[CENT. VII.]

REMARKABLE EVENTS, FACTS, AND DISCOVERIES.

A.D.

606 The Concessions of Phocas, Emperor of the East, give rise to the Papal power.

622 Mahomet, the false prophet, flies from Mecca to Medina, in Arabia, and lays the foundation of the Saracen empire. His followers compute from this Era, called Hegira, i. e. the Flight.

628 An academy founded at Canterbury.

637 Jerusalem taken by the Saracens.

641 Alexandria in Egypt taken by them, and the grand Library burnt by Omar their Caliph.

643 The Temple of Jerusalem converted into a Mahometan Mosque. 653 The Saracens extend their Conquests on every side, and retaliate the barbarities of the Goths and Vandals upon their posterity. They take Rhodes, and destroy the famous Colossus. The Danes invade England.

663 Glass invented by a Bishop, and brought into England by a Bene dictine Monk.

669 Sicily invaded, and Syracuse destroyed by the Saracens. 685 The Britons, after a brave struggle of near 150 years, are totally expelled by the Saxons, and driven into Wales and Cornwall. 698 The Saracens take Carthage, and expel the Romans from Africa.

A NEW period in history commences with the flight of Mahomet, in the year 622, from whence his followers date their era, called the Hegira. Agreeable to our plan of placing the characters in the century in which they were born, the life of Mahomet has been given in the last period. We see every thing prepared for the great revolution which now takes place. The Roman empire in the west annihilated; the Persian empire, and that of Constantinople, weakened by their mutual wars and intestine divisions; the Indians, and other eastern nations, unaccustomed to war, ready to fall a prey to the first invader; the southern parts of Europe in a distracted and barbarous state; while the inhabitants of Arabia, from their earliest origin, accustomed to war and plunder, and now united by the most violent superstition and enthusiastic desire of conquest, were like a flood pent up, and ready to overwhelm the rest of the world.

The northern nations of Europe and Asia, however formidable in after times, were at this period unknown, and peaceable, at least with

respect to their southern neighbours; so that there was in no quarter of the globe any power capable of opposing the conquests of the Arabs. With amazing celerity, therefore, they overran all Syria, Palestine, Persia, Bukharia, and India, extending their conquests farther to the eastward than ever Alexander had done. On the west side, their empire extended over Egypt, Barbary, Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, Majorca, Minorca, &c. and many of the isles in the Archipelago; nor were the coasts of Italy itself free from their incursions; nay, they have even been said to have reached the distant and barren country of Iceland. At last this great empire, like others, began to decline. Its ruin was very sudden, and owing to its internal divisions. Mahomet had not taken care to establish the apostleship in his family, or to give any particular directions about a successor. The consequence was, that the caliphat, or succession to the apostleship, was seized by many usurpers in different parts of the empire; while the true caliphs, who resided at Bagdad, gradually lost all power, and were regarded only as a kind of high priests. Of these divisions the Turks took advantage to establish their authority in many provinces of the Mahometan empire, but as they embraced the same religion with the Arabs, and were filled with the same enthusiastic desire of conquest, it is of little consequence to distinguish between them, as indeed it signified little to the world in general, whether the Turks or Saracens were the conquerors, since both were equally cruel, barbarous, ignorant, and superstitious.

While the barbarians of the East were thus grasping at the empire of the whole world, great disturbances happened among the no less barbarous nations of the West. Superstition seems to have been the ruling motive with both. The Saracens and Turks conquered for the glory of God, and his apostle Mahomet and his successors; the western nations professed an equal regard for the divine glory, but which was only to be perceived in the respect they paid to the pope and the clergy. Ever since the establishment of Christianity by Constantine, the bishops of Rome had been gradually extending their power, and attempting not only to render themselves independent, but even to assume an authority over the emperors themselves. The destruction of the empire was so far from weakening their power, that it afforded them opportunities of greatly extending it, and becoming judges of the sovereigns of Italy themselves, whose barbarity and ignorance prompted them to submit to their decisions.

GOVERNMENT.

ROME.

CONSTANTINE III., emperor of the East, son of the emperor Heraclius, and his wife Eudoxia, succeeded his father in 641. His half-brother Heracleonas had been associated with him as his colleague in the empire by his father's testa