y bodies were so situated; and, as
the horoscope was buried in the tomb with the mummy, we must suppose
that it was thought that the prognostication would hold good even in the
next world.

But astrology was not the only end to which mathematics were then
turned. Claudius Ptolemy, the astronomer and geographer, was at that
time the ornament of the mathematical school of Alexandria. In his
writings he treats of the earth as the centre of the heavens, and the
sun, moon, and planets as moving in circles and epicycles round it. This
had been the opinion of some of the early astronomers; but since this
theory of the heavens received the stamp of his authority, it is now
always called the Ptolemaic system.

In this reign was made a new survey of all the military roads in the
Roman empire, called the _Itinerary of Antoninus_. It included the
great roads of Egypt, which were only six in number. One was from
Contra-Pselcis in Nubia along the east bank of the Nile, to Babylon
opposite Memphis, and there turning eastward through Heliopolis and the
district of the Jews to Clysmon, where Trajan's canal entered the Red
Sea. A second, from Memphis to Pelusium, made use of this for
about thirty miles, joining it at Babylon, and leaving it at Scense
Veteranorum. By these two roads a traveller could go from Pelusium to
the head of the Red Sea; but there was a shorter road through the desert
which joined the first at Serapion, about fifty miles from Clysmon,
instead of at Sceno Veteranorum, which was therefore about a hundred
miles shorter. A fourth was along the west bank of the Nile from Hiera
Sycaminon in Nubia to Alexandria, leaving the river at Andropolis,
about sixty miles from the latter city. A fifth was from Palestine to
Alexandria, running along the coast of the Mediterranean from Raphia to
Pelusium, and thence, leaving the coast to avoid the flat country, which
was under water during the inundation; it joined the last at Andropolis.
The sixth road was from Koptos on the Nile to Berenice on the Red Sea.
These six were probably the only roads under the care of the prefect.
Though Syene was the boundary of the province of Egypt, the Roman power
was felt for about one hundred miles into Nubia, and we find the names
of the emperors on several temples between Syene and Hiera Sycaminon.
But beyond this, though we find inscriptions left by Roman travellers,
the emperors seem never to have aimed at making military roads, or
holding an