We now come to the consideration of the articles with which Asia supplied Rome; these, as may be easily imagined, were principally articles of luxury. The murrhine cups, of the nature of which there has been much unsatisfactory discussion, according to Pliny, came from Karmania in Parthia; from Parthia they came to Egypt, and thence to Rome. It is probable, however, that they came, in the first instance, from India, as they are expressly mentioned by the author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, as brought down from the capital of Guzerat, to the port of Baragyza. These cups were first seen at Rome, in the triumphal procession of Pompey, when he returned from the shores of the Caspian Sea. They sold at enormous prices; and were employed at the tables only of the great and wealthy, as cups for drinking; they were in general of a small size. One, which held three pints, sold for nearly 14,000 l.; and Nero gave nearly 59,000 l. for another. So highly were they prized, that, in the conquest of Egypt, Augustus was content to select, for his own share, out of all the spoils of Alexandria, a single murrhine cup.[5] Precious stones and pearls were imported from Persia and Babylonia; the latter country also furnished the wealthy Romans with triclinaria, which was furniture of some description, but whether quilts, carpets, or curtains is not ascertained. Persia supplied also incense of a very superior quality. The various and valuable commodities with which Arabia supplied the profusion and luxury of Rome, reached that capital from the port of Alexandria in Egypt. We cannot enumerate the whole of them, but must confine ourselves to a selection of the most important and valuable. Great demand, and a high rate of profits necessarily draw to any particular trade a great number of merchants; it is not surprising, therefore, that the trade in the luxuries of the east was so eagerly followed at Rome. Pliny informs us, that the Roman world was exhausted by a drain of 400,000 l. a year, for the purchase of luxuries, equally expensive and superfluous; and in another place, he estimates the rate of profit made at Rome, by the importation and sale of oriental luxuries at 100 per cent.
[5] The most probable opinion is, that they were made of fluat of lime, or Derbyshire spar.
Arabia furnished diamonds, but these were chiefly of a small size, and other gems and pearls. At Rome the diamond possessed the highest value; the pearl, the second; and the emerald, the third. Nero used an emerald as an eye-glass for short sight. But though large and very splendid diamonds brought a higher price at Rome than pearls, yet the latter, in general, were in much greater repute; they were worn in almost every part of the dress, by persons of almost every rank. The famous pearl ear-rings of Cleopatra were valued at 161,458 l., and Julius Caesar presented the mother of Brutus with a pearl, for which he paid 48,457 l. Frankincense, myrrh, and other precious drugs, were also brought to Rome from Arabia, through the port of Alexandria. There was a great demand at Rome for spices and aromatics, from the custom of the Romans to burn their dead, and also from the consumption of frankincense, &c. in their temples. At the funeral of Sylla 210 bundles of spices were used. Nero burnt, at the funeral of Poppaea, more cinnamon and cassia than the countries from which they were imported produced in one year. In the reign of Augustus, according to Horace, one whole street was occupied by those who dealt in frankincense, pepper, and other aromatics. Frankincense was also imported into Rome from Gaza, on the coast of Palestine; according to Pliny, it was brought to this place by a caravan, that was sixty-two days on its journey: the length of the journey, frauds, impositions, duties; &c. brought every camel's load to upward of 22 l.; and a pound of the best sort sold at Rome for ten shillings. Alexandria, however, was the great emporium for this, as well as all the other produce of India and Arabia. Pliny is express and particular on this point, and takes notice of the precautions employed by the merchants there, in order to guard against adulteration and fraud. Cinnamon, another of the exports of Arabia to Rome, though not a production of that country, was also in high repute, and brought an extravagant price. Vespasian was the first who dedicated crowns of cinnamon, inclosed in gold filagree, in the Capitol and the Temple of Peace; and Livia dedicated the root in the Palatine Temple of Augustus. The plant itself was brought to the emperor Marcus Aurelius in a case seven feet long, and was exhibited at Rome, as a very great rarity. This, however, we are expressly informed came from Barbarike in India. It seems to have been highly valued by other nations as well as by the Romans: Antiochus Epiphanes carried a few boxes of it in a triumphal procession: and Seleucus Callinicus presented two minae of it and two of cassia, as a gift to the king of the Milesians. In the enumeration of the gifts made by this monarch, we may, perhaps, trace the comparative rarity and value of the different spices of aromatics among the ancients: of frankincense he presented ten talents, of myrrh one talent, of cassia two pounds, of cinnamon two pounds, and of costus one pound. Frankincense and myrrh were the productions of Arabia; the other articles of India; of course the former could be procured with much less difficulty and expence than the latter. Spikenard, another Indian commodity, also reached Rome, through Arabia, by means of the port of Alexandria. Pliny mentions, that both the leaves and the spices were of great value, and that the odour was the most esteemed in the composition of all unguents. The price at Rome was 100 denarii a pound. The markets at which the Arabian and other merchants bought it were Patala on the Indus, Ozeni, and a mart on or near the Ganges.
Sugar, also, but of a quality inferior to that of India, was imported from Arabia, through Alexandria, into Rome. The Indian sugar, which is expressly mentioned by Pliny, as better and higher priced, was brought to Rome, but by what route is not exactly known, probably by means of the merchants who traded to the east coast of Africa; where the Arabians either found it, or imported it from India. In the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, and likewise in the rescript of the Roman emperors, relative to the articles imported into Egypt from the East, which was promulgated by Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus, about the year A.D. 176, it is denominated cane-honey, otherwise called sugar (sacchar). So early, therefore, as the Periplus (about the year A.D. 73,) the name of sacchar was known to the Romans, and applied by them to sugar. This word does not occur in any earlier author, unless Dioscorides lived before that period, which is uncertain. It may be remarked, that the nature, as well as the proper appellation of sugar, must have been but imperfectly, and not generally known, even at the time of the rescript, otherwise the explanatory phrase, honey made from cane, would not have been employed.
The first information respecting sugar was brought to Europe by Nearchus, the admiral of Alexander. In a passage quoted from his journal by Strabo, it is described as honey made from reeds, there being no bees in that part of India. In a fragment of Theophrastus, preserved by Photius, he mentions, among other kinds of honey, one that is found in reeds. The first mention of any preparation, by which the juice of the reed was thickened, occurs in Eratosthenes, as quoted by Strabo, where he describes roots of large reeds found in India, which were sweet to the taste, both when raw and boiled. Dioscorides and Pliny describe it as used chiefly, if not entirely, for medical purposes. In the time of Galen, A.D. 131, it would appear to have become more common and cheaper at Rome; for he classes it with medicines that may be easily procured. It seems probable, that though the Arabians undoubtedly cultivated the sugar-cane, and supplied Rome with sugar from it, yet they derived their knowledge of it from India; for the Arabic name, shuker, which was adopted by the Greeks and Romans, is formed from the two middle syllables of the Sanskrit word, ich-shu-casa.
But to return from this digression to the view of the imports into Rome: Ethiopia supplied the capital with cinnamon of an inferior quality; marble, gems, ivory; the horns of the rhinoceros and tortoiseshell. The last article was in great demand, and brought a high price: it was used for ornament, for furniture; as beds, tables, doors, &c.; not only in Italy, but in Greece and Egypt: the finest sort was sold for its weight of silver. It was imported not only from Ethiopia but also from the east coast of Africa, and reached Rome even from Malabar and Malacca. The opsian stone mentioned in the Periplus, and the opsidian stone described by Pliny, are stated in both these authors to have come from Ethiopia; but whether they were the same, and their exact nature, are not known. The opsian is described as capable of receiving a high polish, and on that account as having been used by the Emperor Domitian to face a portico. Pliny describes it as employed to line rooms in the same manner as mirrors; he distinguishes it from a spurious kind, which was red, but not transparent. The dye extracted from the purple shell fish was imported into Rome from Getulia, a country on the south side of Mauritania.
Rome was supplied with the commodities of India chiefly from Egypt; but there were other routes by which also they reached the capital: of these it will be proper to take some notice.
The most ancient communication between India and the countries on the Mediterranean was by the Persian Gulf, through Mesopotamia, to the coasts of Syria and Palestine. To facilitate the commerce which was carried on by this route, Solomon is supposed to have built Tadmor in the wilderness, or Palmyra: the situation of this place, which, though in the midst of barren sands, is plentifully supplied with water, and has immediately round it a fertile soil, was peculiarly favorable; as it was only 85 miles from the Euphrates, and about 117 from the nearest part of the Mediterranean. By this route the most valuable commodities of India, most of which were of such small bulk as to beat the expence of a long land carriage, were conveyed. From the age of Nebuchadnezzar to the Macedonian conquest, Tiredon on the Euphrates was the city at which this commercial route began, and which the Babylonians made use of, as the channel of their oriental trade. After the destruction of Tyre by that monarch, a great part of the traffic which had passed by Arabia, or the Red Sea, through Idumea and Egypt, and that city, was diverted to the Persian Gulf, and through his territories in Mesopotamia it passed by Palmyra and Damascus, through Syria to the west. After the reduction of Babylon by Cyrus, the Persians, who paid no attention to commerce, suffered Babylon and Ninevah to sink into ruin; but Palmyra still remained, and flourished as a commercial city. Under the Seleucidæ it seems to have reached its highest degree of importance, splendour, and wealth; principally by supplying the Syrians with Indian commodities. For upwards of two centuries after the conquest of Syria by the Romans it remained free, and its friendship and alliance were courted both by them and the Parthians. During this period we have the express testimony of Appian, that it traded with both these nations, and that Rome and the other parts of the empire received the commodities of India from it. In the year A.D. 273, it was reduced and destroyed by Aurelian, who found in it an immense treasure of gold, silver, silk, and precious stones. From this period, it never revived, or became a place of the least importance or trade.
On the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus, the commercial communication between India and Europe returned to Arabia in the south, and to the Caspian and the Euxine in the north: there seem to have been two routes by these seas, both of great antiquity. In describing one of them, the ancient writers are supposed to have confounded the river Ochus, which falls into the Caspian, with the Oxus, which falls into the lake of Aral. On this supposition, the route may be traced in the following manner: the produce and manufactuers of India were collected at Patala, a town near the mouth of the Indus; they were carried in vessels up this river as far as it was navigable, where they were landed, and conveyed by caravans to the Oxus: being again shipped, they descended this river to the point where it approached nearest to the Ochus, to which they were conveyed by caravans. By the Ochus they were conveyed to the Caspian, and across it to the mouth of the river Cyrus, which was ascended to where it approached nearest the Phasis: caravans were employed again, till the merchandize were embarked at Serapana on the Phasis, and thus brought to the Black Sea. According to Pliny, Pompey took great pains to inform himself of this route; and he ascertained, that by going up the Cyrus the goods would be brought within five day's journey of the Phasis. There seems to have been some plan formed at different times, and thought of by the Emperor Claudius, to join Asia to Europe and the Caspian Sea, by a canal from the Cimmerian Bosphorus to the Caspian Sea.
The route which we have thus particularly described was sometimes deviated from by the merchants: they carried their goods up the Oxus till it fell into lake Aral; crossing this, they transported them in caravans to the Caspian, and ascending the Wolga to its nearest approach to the Tanais, they crossed to the latter by land, and descended it to the sea of Azoph.