The Voyage of Nearchus from the Indus to the Euphrates, Collected from the Original Journal Preserved by Arrian, and Illustrated by Authorities Ancient and Modern; Containing an Account of the First Navigation Attempted by Europeans in the Indian Ocean ... to which are Added Three Dissertations: Two, on the Acronychal Rising of the Pleiades, by ... Samuel Horsley ... and by Mr. William Wales ... and one by Mr. De La Rochette, on the First Meridian of Ptolemy.

1797. London: T. Cadell jun. and W. Davies (successors to Mr. Cadell). 1797. 4to. Contemporary calf, rebacked with new paste-downs and spine; pp. xv, 530, [2, errata and directions to the bookbinder]; engraved frontispiece by C. Turner, 6 engraved maps after J.B.B. d'Anville, Vincent, Alexander Dalrymple, A. Blair, et al., 4 folding, wood-engraved illustrations and letterpress tables in the text; the old endpapers with offsetting to frontispiece, a little marginal staining to double-page 170/171, torn away corner, far away from printed surface or page numbers of pp. 445/6, old ink annotations to upper margins of two pages, otherwise merely here and there a little spotting or offsetting from engravings, a good copy. First edition. Nearchus (d. c. 312 BC) was one of Alexander the Great's foremost admirals, and is remembered for his celebrated voyage from the Indus to the Euphrates, which was recorded in his now-lost journal, of which the text was preserved by Arrian of Nicomedia in his Indica; Nearchus' expedition was one of the major geographical undertakings of antiquity, and this edition of it, and commentary and analysis upon it, was prepared by the classical scholar and clergyman William Vincent (1739-1815), who was both Headmaster of Westminster School and Dean of Westminster. As the ODNB notes, 'Vincent's chief study, however, was ancient geography and commerce, and his scholarly reputation rests on two major works. The Voyage of Nearchus from the Indus to the Euphrates (1797) is a commentary on an expedition recorded by Arrian of Nicomedia in his Indica [...] The voyage was conceived by Alexander the Great, about whom Vincent wrote with an admiration unusual for the time. His commentary drew on a wide range of sources and he was assisted by Samuel Horsley, dean of Westminster, who loaned two astronomical treatises, and by Alexander Dalrymple, hydrographer to the Admiralty, who prepared charts for him. More unusually for the period he made use of oral evidence from those who had recently visited the regions concerned'. Vincent makes the case for the importance of the expedition thus: 'The voyage of Nearchus from the Indus to the Euphrates is the first event of general importance to mankind, in the history of navigation; and if we discover the comprehensive genius of Alexander in the conception of the design, the abilities of Nearchus in the execution of it are equally conspicuous. Historical facts demand our attention in proportion to the interest we feel, or the consequences we derive from them; and the consequences of this voyage were such, that as, in the first instance, it opened a communication between Europe and the most distant countries of Asia, so, at a later period, was it the source and origin of the Portuguese discoveries, the foundation of the greatest commercial system ever introduced into the world; and consequently the primary cause, however remote, of the British establishments in India' (pp.1-2). An important contribution to the historical geography of Northwest India, the Gulf and Iraq. Vincent furthermore managed to link the ancient Greek topographical names to their 'modern' equivalent in Farsi and Arabic. Brunet V, cols 1252-1253; ESTC T137592; Lowndes p. 2773; Wilson p. 237.