EPOCH OF THE PTOLEMIES, 167 



tical unity, as well as that of geographical position; the 

 influx of the Eed Sea through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeh 

 to Suez and Akaba, (occupying one of the SSE.-KNW. 

 fissures, of which I have elsewhere spoken), ( 255 ), bringing 

 the traffic and intercourse of the Indian Ocean witliin a 

 few miles of the coasts of the Mediterranean. 



The kingdom of the Seleucidse did not enjoy the advan* 

 lages of sea traffic, which the distribution of land and water, 

 and the configuration of the coast line, offered to that of the 

 Lagidse ; and its stability was endangered by the divisions 

 produced by the diversity of the nations of which the different 

 Satrapies were composed. The intercourse and traffic enjoyed 

 by the kingdom of the Seleucidse was mostly an inland one, 

 confined either to the course of rivers, or to caravan tracks, 

 which braved every natural obstacle, snowy mountain 

 chains, lofty plateaus, and deserts. The great caravan 

 conveying merchandise, of which silk was the most valuable 

 article, travelled from the interior of Asia, from the high 

 plain of the Seres north of Uttara-kuru, by the " stone 

 tower" ( 256 ) (probably a fortified Caravanserai) south of 

 the sources of the Jaxartes, to the valley of the Oxus, and 

 to the Caspian and Black Seas. In the kingdom of the 

 Lagidse, on the other hand, animated as was the river navi- 

 gation of the Nile, and the communication between its banks 

 and the artificial roads along the shores of the Eed Sea, ths 

 principal traffic was, nevertheless, in the strictest sense of the 

 word, a sea traffic. In the grand views formed by Alexander, 

 the newly founded Egyptian Alexandria in the West, and 

 the very ancient City of Babylon in the East, were designed 

 to be the two metropolitan cities of the Macedonian universal 

 empire; Babylon, however, never in later times fulfilled 



