[191] Herod. vii. ch. 24.
[192] There is no doubt that the ancients did adopt this plan of hauling vessels over land to a great extent; a portion of the Isthmus of Corinth was called Diolcus—as the spot where the ships were so drawn across. Hesych. ad voc. Cf. Thucyd. iii. 81; iv. 8. Horat. Od. i. 4, 2.
CHAPTER IV.
Route viâ the Cape to India, discovered by the Phœnicians, B.C. 610-594—Voyage of the first Eudoxus—Story of the second Eudoxus (of Cyzicus)—Opinion of Dr. Vincent on the circumnavigation of Africa—Remarks upon his opinion—Routes to India and to the East by land—Origin of the caravans—Resting places—Their management—The more important routes—Eastern—Southern—Northern—The character, size, and discipline of the caravans—The route from Sardes to Susa, described by Herodotus—Between Tyre and Gerrha—Length of journey—Importance of Petra—Intercourse between Syria and Babylon—Value of the trade of Babylon—Caravan routes from that city—to Candahar—Cashmir—Ecbatana, and Peucela—on the Indus—Earliest land and sea combined routes—Commercial efforts of Alexander in the East, and the impetus he gave to the development of the trade with India by the erection of Alexandria, B.C. 331—Time of the departure of the fleets—Residence of the merchants and course of trade from Alexandria to the East—Value of the trade with India—The ports through which it was conducted—Course of the voyage to India—Outwards—Homewards—The vessels engaged in the trade with India—The nature of their cargoes—Immense demand at Rome for the luxuries of the East, and the enormous prices paid for them—Imports and exports to and from Pattala—Barygaza or Baroach—Musiris—Cape Comorin—Ceylon—Time of departure of the fleets for Africa and the coasts of Arabia—Rhapta, or Quiloa—Sofala—Articles of commerce—Moosa—Yemen, or Arabia Felix—Its great wealth, and the importance attached to its trade—Kane—Sachal—Moskha—Maskat—Omana.
Route viâ the Cape to India, discovered by the Phœnicians, B.C. 610-594.
It has been often questioned whether the ancients had really any geographical knowledge south of the farthest point reached by Hanno, or, speaking generally, far south of the Cape Verde Islands; but some of the statements preserved in their writings are too definite to have been the mere creation of imagination. We shall, therefore, briefly examine these assertions. To take first the account in Herodotus,[193] of the famous voyage undertaken by the orders of Pharaoh Necho. His words are: “As for Libya, we know it to be washed on all sides by the sea, except where it is attached to Asia. This discovery was first made by Necho, the Egyptian king, who, on desisting from the canal he had begun between the Nile and the Arabian Gulf, sent to sea a number of ships manned by Phœnicians, with orders to make for the Pillars of Hercules, and return to Egypt through them, and by the Northern sea (the Mediterranean). The Phœnicians took their departure from Egypt by the way of the Erythræan sea, and so sailed into the Southern ocean. When autumn came they went ashore wherever they might happen to be, and, having sown a tract of land with corn, waited until the grain was fit to cut. Having reaped it, they set sail again; and thus it came to pass that two whole years went by, and it was not till the third year that they doubled the Pillars of Hercules, and made good their voyage home. On their return, they declared—I for my part do not believe them, but perhaps others may—that in sailing round Libya, they had the sun on their right hand.”
But what Herodotus disbelieved, from ignorance of the principles of spherical geography, affords the strongest confirmation of the report of the Phœnician mariners; for, in sailing westwards, south of the line, the sun would at noon appear on the right hand of the observer, and not on his left, as in sailing westwards in the Mediterranean. Herodotus relates a second story,[194] how one Sataspes was sent, during the reign of Xerxes, by way of punishment, on a voyage through the Pillars of Hercules, with orders to sail round Africa; and states that this man, after having occupied many months in traversing unknown seas and sailing along strange coasts, doubled a cape called Soloeis (Cape Spartel), and thence returned to Egypt. Sataspes gave a minute account of his journey, and of the strange, dwarfish men (probably Bosjesmans) he had met with; but Xerxes, either not crediting his tale, or angry because of his cowardice in turning back, ordered him to be impaled.[195]
Voyage of the first Eudoxus.
Story of the second Eudoxus (of Cyzicus.)
A third expedition is reported by Pliny,[196] who states, on the authority of Cornelius Nepos, that a certain Eudoxus, his contemporary, in an attempt to escape the pursuit of Ptolemy Lathyrus, passing down the Arabian Gulf, came at length to Gades; and further, on the same authority, that Cœlius Antipater had seen a man who had made a commercial voyage from Spain to Æthiopia. Lastly, we have the memorable narrative in Strabo,[197] of Eudoxus of Cyzicus. This Eudoxus, he tells us, was sent with sacrifices and oblations to the sacred games of Proserpine, and travelled through Egypt in the reign of Ptolemy VII. (Physcon). It befell that during his stay there, a certain Indian was brought to the king, by his officers employed along the Arabian Gulf, with the report that he had been found in a ship, alone and half dead, and that they knew not who he was or whence he came, as he spoke a language unintelligible to them.