Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 1851

Previous to their conquest of Egypt the Romans derived the benefits of Eastern commerce indirectly from the merchants of that country who under the reign of Alexander and the Ptolemies monopolized the entire trade of India and the adjacent couftries. [...] All the luxuries of the known world had hitherto been poured with a ceaseless flow into the opulent markets of Rome and the opening ofa new channel for the speedier importation of the rare commodities of the East then so little known was hailed with delight by the luxurious inhabitants of the Imperial city. [...] The attempt of Trajan who died 117 A. D. was never repeated by his successors nor does there appear to have been any fresh acquisition made to the knowledge hitherto obtained of the western part of India until the reign of Justinian when owing to the increase of the silk trade the rival power of the Persians sprang up ; the empire was even then in its decline and the traffic and consequentl [...] t Robertson affirms on the authority of the author of the Peripins of the Ertbrean sea ' that the inhabitants of the Coromandel coast traded in vessels of their own with those of the Malabar coast a fact which may account for the discovery of coins on the Eastern aide of the Continent."378 Remarks on some lately-discorered Roman Gold Coins. [...] The trade by Egypt and the Red sea was carried on with the nations of Europe until the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese for upwards of fifteen hundred years : —Egyptians Romans Greeks Persians and Arabians all successfully enjoyed and participated in the benefits of that route for the purposes of traffic.