The time, which for us forms the boundary between antiquity and the middle ages, cannot be determined with absolute precision; ancient and middle-age history cannot, in their whole extent, be separated by a straight line; the line undulates without any definite law. With some nations it falls at an earlier, and with others at a later time, according as their countries were taken possession of by barbarous tribes at an earlier or later period. For most European nations, the migration of nations forms the line of demarcation, and the immigration of the Franks, Suevi, Vandals, Burgundians and others forms the close of antiquity, while in the eastern empire it lasted till the Arab conquest. It is but seldom that in this respect we shall be apparently inconsistent, when, for example, we describe the condition of Rome and Ravenna during the period of the exarchate; for in point of fact, these two cities down to the restoration of the western empire, belong to ancient, and not to mediaeval history. Such lines of demarcation cannot be slavishly adhered to without pedantry. We may further raise the question, as to whether the geographical knowledge of the ancients, that is, an examination of their notions about the earth, its parts and its inhabitants should come within our sphere. In so far as their notions were erroneous, such discussions would be tedious and disagreeable; and they form no part of our objective consideration of ethnography and chorography. This science, however, the creation of Voss, is a very essential part of the propaedeutics to a right understanding of the ancient authors: it belongs, in a subjective point of view, to the history of geography, and the gradual extension of geographical knowledge. We shall take into our consideration only those parts of that science which have a direct bearing upon our object, by shewing us the condition of the countries at the time, and the connections and relations among peoples distant from one another. Whoever treats of geography as a science, that is, whoever intends to give a history of geography, must dwell upon these points; but then he cannot confine himself to the Greeks and Romans, he must at the same time discuss the geographical knowledge of the Arabs, Scandinavians, and other nations.