S6 Before Chrift, about 280. 



landed their goods at Berenice, whence they were carried over land 

 upon a road, which Philadelphus opened with his array, and provided 

 with water and hoiifes of refrefhment, to Coptos, and thence by inland 

 navigation to Alexandria. \_Strabo, L. xvii, p. 1169 — Feriplus Maris 

 Erythrm.'] 



With a view to engrofs the whole of this very lucrative trade to his 

 own fubjects, Ptolemy maintained a powerful fleet in the Red fea, and 

 another in the Mediterranean. No naval force had ever yet appeared 

 in the world equal to his navy, in which there were two veifels of thirty 

 tires of oars, and one hundred and ten from tweiaty to five tires, befides 

 quadriremes, triremes, and inferior i-ates, almoft innumerable. \^Athe- 

 nceus, L. v.] Thefe prodigious fleets of obfervation, or of jealoufy, be- 

 ing vaiT:ly beyond any force that might have been neceflary to overawe 

 the pirates of Arabia Petrcea and thofe of the Mediterranean, appear to 

 have been chiefly intended to crufh the competition of the ftill-furviv- 

 ing, but almoft-expiring, commerce of Tyre on both feas. 



The decided fuperiority which the merchants of Alexandria thus ob- 

 tained over the Tyrians, added to the difl:refl!es brought upon them by 

 Antigonus, when they were jufl: recovering from the deftruciion of their 

 city by Alexander, was more than fufficient to overwhelm a community 

 fo circumftanced. And in truth we after this hear but little of Tyre as 

 a capital commercial city, though it long retained fome little portion 

 of the Arabian commerce, and continued to have a confiderable trade 

 in the celebrated purple known by its name, fome manufadures of filk 

 and other fine goods, and a profitable fifliery. [Stral>o, L. xvi, p. 1098.] 



It was probably with a view to eftablifli a dired intercourfe with In- 

 dia that Ptolemy fent Dionyfius as his ambafllidor to that country ; but 

 we know nothing of any confequences produced by that embafly. 

 [P/i/i. L. vi, c. 17.] 



Ptolemy Philadelphus has been defervedly praifed as a patron of fai- 

 ence and literature ; and his library, which contained all that was valu- 

 able in Grecian literature, and alfo a tranflation of the books of Mofes, 

 or the whole of the Old teflament, (for authors differ as to the number 

 of the books), has been famous in all ages. 



A great proportion of the mofl: civilized parts of Europe, Afia, and 

 Africa, being now by conquefl; or colonization fubje^t to the Greeks, 

 there was a freer communication of knowkge and the arts than could 



The judicious D.inifli traveller Nicbuhr lias liibit any vcfill from India from proceeding beyond 



fleered clear of the error into which fome of our Jidda, an Arabian poit about halt way up tlie Red 



modern great authors have fallen. He informs us, fea, and that vcflfels go between the Arabian ports 



that, though the difeovcry of the route to India and Egypt with Indian mcrcliandize even now, as 



by the Cape of Good Hope has deprived the South they did in the remotert. ages. [Vuya^es de Nicbuhr, 



Arabiaiisofthat monopoly of tiiclndiantradewhieh V. i, p. 224; V. ii, p'ljjiii'.l Purclias \_B. iii, pp. 



their anccilors enjoyed, they Hill preferve the com- 230, 261] alfo defcribes Mocha, an Arabian porf, 



mand of it with tefpcdt to Egypt, fo far as to pio- as a principal entrepot between India and Egypt. 



