In the reign of Ptolemy Philometor, when Agatharcides lived, the commercial enterprizes of the Egyptians had begun rather to languish; on the Arabian side of the Red Sea, they did indeed extend to Sabaea, as in the time of Euergetes; but there is evidence that on the opposite coast they did not go so low, as in the reign of the latter sovereign. Agatharcides makes no mention of Berenice; according to his account, Myos Hormos had again become the emporium, and the only trade from that part seems to have been for elephants to Ptolemais Theron. It may, indeed, be urged that Berenice was not, properly speaking, a harbour, but only an open bay, to which the ships did not come from Myos Hormos, till their cargoes were completely ready. But that Myos Hormos was the great point of communication with Coptus is evident from the account which Agatharcides gives of the caravan road between these two places. Even so late as the time of Strabo, this road was much more frequented than the road between Coptus and Berenice: of the latter he merely observes, that Philadelphus opened it with his army, established ports, and sunk Wells; whereas he particularly describes the former road, as being seven or eight days' journey, formerly performed on camels in the night, by observation of the stars, and carrying water with them. Latterly, he adds, deep wells had been sunk, and cisterns formed for holding water. Every detail of the road to Berenice is Roman, and relates to periods considerably posterior to the conquest of Egypt by the Romans--a proof that the plan of Philadelphus, of substituting Berenice for Myos Hormos, had not been regularly adopted by his successors, nor till the Romans had firmly and permanently fixed themselves in Egypt.
In the extract we have already given from Agatharcides respecting Arabia, he expressly mentions that the Gerrheans and Sabeans are the centre of all the commerce that passes between Asia and Europe, and that these are the nations which have enriched the Ptolemais: this statement, taken in conjunction with the fact that his description of the coast of the Red Sea reaches no farther than Sabaea on the one side, and Ptolemais Theron on the other, seems decisive of the truth of the opinion, that in the time of Philometor the Egyptians did not trade directly to India. It may be proper to add, that in the extracts from Agatharcides, given by Photius, it is expressly mentioned that ships from India were met with by the Egyptian ships in the ports of Sabaea. The particulars of this trade between India and Egypt, by means of the Arabians, will be afterwards detailed, and its great antiquity traced and proved; at present we have alluded to it merely to bear us out in our position, that Indian ships, laden with Indian commodities, frequenting the ports of Sabaea, and those ports being described by Agatharcides as the limits of his knowledge of this coast of the Red Sea, we are fully justified in concluding, that, in the reign of Philometor, there was not only no direct trade to India, but no inducement to such trade; and that 146 years after the death of Alexander, the Greek sovereigns of Egypt had done little to complete what that monarch had projected, and in part accomplished by the navigation of Nearchus--the communication by sea between Alexandria and India.
Under the successors of Philometor, the trade in the Red Sea languished rather than increased, and the full benefits of it were not reaped till some time after the Roman conquest. Even in the time of Strabo, the bulk of the trade still passed by Coptus to Myos Hormos. We are aware of a passage in this author, which, at first, sight seems to contradict the position we have laid down, and to prove, that at least in his time, there was a direct and not unfrequent navigation between the Red Sea and India. He expressly states, that in the course of six or seven years, 120 ships had sailed from Myos Hormos to India: but on this it may be observed, in the first place, that he begins his description of India, with requesting his readers to peruse what he relates concerning it with indulgence, as it was a country very remote, and few persons had visited it; and even with regard to Arabia Felix, he says, that the knowledge of the Romans commenced with the expedition of his friend Ælius Gallus into that country;--facts not very consistent with his statement that 120 ships had sailed in six or seven years to India: secondly, he expressly mentions, that formerly scarcely twenty ships dared to navigate the Red Sea, so far as to shew themselves beyond the straits; but we can hardly suppose that skill, enterprize, and knowledge, had increased so rapidly as to extend within a very few years navigation, not merely beyond the straits, but even to India; we say a few years, for certainly, at the time when the Romans conquered Egypt, the straits were not usually passed: lastly, the name India was used so vaguely by the ancients, even by Strabo occasionally, that it is not improbable he meant by it, merely the coast of Arabia, beyond the straits. It is well asked by Dr. Vincent, in reference to this account of Strabo, might not that geographer, from knowing the ships brought home Indian commodities, have supposed that they sailed to India, when in reality they went no farther than Hadramant, in Arabia, or Mosullon, on the coast of Africa, where they found the produce of India?
It is not, however, meant to be denied that a few vessels, in the time of Ptolemies, reached some part of India from the Red Sea, by coasting all the way. The author of the Periplus of the Red Sea, informs us that, before the discovery of the monsoon, by Hippalus, small vessels had made a coasting voyage from Cana, in Arabia, to the Indies. But these irregular and trifling voyages are deserving of little consideration, and do not militate against the position we have laid down and endeavoured to prove, that in the time of the Ptolemies the commerce of Egypt was confined within the limits of the Red Sea, partly from the want of skill and enterprize, and from the dangers that were supposed to exist beyond the straits, but principally because the commodities of India could be procured in the ports of Sabæa.
Many instances have already been given of the patronage which the Ptolemies bestowed on commerce, of the facilities and advantages they afforded, and of the benefits which the science of geography derived from the library and observatory of Alexandria: every instrument which could facilitate the study of astronomy was purchased by the Ptolemies and placed in that observatory, for they were fully aware of the dependency of a full and accurate knowledge of geography, as a science, on a full and accurate knowledge of astronomy. With respect to commerce, the advancement of which, may fairly be supposed to have had some weight in their patronage of these sciences, they encouraged it as much as possible to centre in Alexandria, and with citizens of Egypt, by making it a standing law of the country, that no goods should pass through the capital, either to India or Europe, without the intervention of an Alexandrian factor, and that even when foreign merchants resided there, they should employ the same agency. The roads and canals they formed, and the care they took to keep the Red Sea free from pirates, are further proofs of their regard for commerce.
And justly was it held by the Ptolemies in high estimation, for from it they derived their immense wealth. We are informed by Strabo, that the revenue of Alexandria, in the worst of times, was 12,500 talents, equivalent to nearly two millions and a half sterling; and if this was the revenue under the last and most indolent of the Ptolemies, what must it have been under Ptolemy Philadelphus, or Ptolemy Euergetes? But the account given by Appian of the treasure of the Ptolemies is still more extraordinary: the sum he mentions is 740,000 talents, or £191,166,666, according to Dr. Arbuthnot's computation; we should be disposed to doubt the accuracy of this statement, did we not know that Appian was a native of Alexandria, and did he not moreover inform us, that he had extracted his account from the public records of that city. When we consider that this immense sum was accumulated by only two of the Ptolemies, Ptolemy Soter and Ptolemy Philadelphus, and that the latter maintained two great fleets, one in the Mediterranean, and the other in the Red Sea, besides an army of 200,000 foot, and 40,000 horse; and that he had 300 elephants, 2000 armed chariots, and an armoury at Alexandria, stocked with 300,000 complete suits of armour, and all other necessary weapons and implements of war,--we shall form some idea of the extent and fruitfulness of Egyptian commerce, from which the whole, or nearly the whole, of this immense wealth must have been derived.
Having thus brought our historical sketch of the progress of discovery and commercial enterprize among the Egyptians down to the period of the conquest of Egypt by the Romans, we shall, in the next place, revert to the Romans themselves, in whom, at the date of their conquest of this country, the geographical knowledge and the commerce of the whole world may justly be said to have centered. As, however, we have hitherto only adverted to the Romans, in our account of the discoveries and commerce of the Carthaginians, it will be proper to notice them in a much more detailed and particular manner. We shall, therefore, trace, their geographical knowledge, their discoveries and their commerce, from the foundation of Rome, to the period of their conquest of Egypt; and in the course of this investigation, we shall give a sketch of the commerce of those countries which successively fell under their dominion--omitting such as we have already noticed: by this plan, we shall be enabled to trace the commerce of all the known world at that time, down to the period when Rome absorbed the whole.
The account which Polybius gives, that before the first Carthaginian war the Romans were entirely ignorant of, and inattentive to sea affairs--if by this statement he means to assert that they were unacquainted with maritime commerce, as well as maritime warfare, is expressly contradicted by the treaties between Rome and Carthage, which we have already given in our account of the commerce of Carthage. The first of those treaties was made 250 years before the first Punic war; and the second, about fifty years before it. Besides, it is not probable that the Romans should have been entirely ignorant of, and inattentive to maritime commerce for so long a period; since several nations of Italy, with which they were at first connected, and which they afterwards conquered, were very conversant in this commerce, and derived great consideration, power, and wealth from it.
The Romans had conquered Etruria, and made themselves masters of the Tuscan powers both by sea and land, before the commencement of the first Punic war; and though at this period, the Tuscans were not so celebrated for their commerce as they had been, yet the shipping and commerce they did possess, must have fallen into the power of the Romans; and we can scarcely suppose that these, together with the facilities which the Tuscans enjoyed for commerce, by means of their ports, and their skill and commercial habits and connections, would be entirely neglected by their conquerors. Besides, there are several old Roman coins, by some supposed to have been as old as the time of the kings, and certainly prior to the first Punic war, on the reverses of which different parts of ships are visible. Now, as the Roman historians are diffuse in the accounts they give of the wars of the Romans, but take no notice of their commercial transactions, we may safely conclude, from their not mentioning any maritime wars, or expeditions of a date so early as these coins, that the ships at that period preserved by the Romans, and deemed of such consequence as to be struck on their coins, were employed for the purposes of commerce.
The Tuscans and the Grecian colonies in the south of Italy, certainly had made great progress in commerce at an early period; and as,--if their example did not stimulate the Romans to enterprises of the same kind,--the Romans, at least when they conquered them, became possessed of the commerce which they then enjoyed, it will be proper to take a brief view of it.