Time is the great discoverer, and truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
Take the three inventions which were unknown to the ancients-printing, gunpowder, and the compass.

These "have changed the appearance and state of the whole world; first in literature, then in warfare, and lastly in navigation; and innumerable changes have been thence derived, so that no empire, sect, or star appears to have exercised a greater power or influence on human affairs than these mechanical discoveries." [Footnote: Nov.Org.129.We have seen that these three inventions had already been classed together as outstanding by Cardan and Le Roy.

They also appear in Campanella.

Bodin, as we saw, included them in a longer list.] It was perhaps the results of navigation and the exploration of unknown lands that impressed Bacon more than all, as they had impressed Bodin.

Let me quote one passage.
"It may truly be affirmed to the honour of these times, and in a virtuous emulation with antiquity, that this great building of the world had never through-lights made in it till the age of us and our fathers.
For although they [the ancients] had knowledge of the antipodes...