INFLUENCE OP THE PTOLEMAIC EPOCH. 539 



Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, across the open sea to Muzeris 

 (south of Mangolar), the great Malabar emporium of trade, to 

 which products from the eastern shores of the Indian penin- 

 sula, and even gold from the distant Chryse (Borneo?), were 

 brought by inland trade. The honour of having first applied 

 the new system of Indian navigation is ascribed to an other- 

 wise unknown seaman named Hippalus, but considerable 

 doubt is attached to the age in which he lived.* 



The history of the contemplation of the universe embraces 

 the enumeration of all the means which have brought nations 

 into closer contact with one another, rendered larger portions 

 of the earth more accessible, and thus extended the sphere of 

 human knowledge. One of the most important of these 

 means was the opening of a road of communication from the 

 Red Sea to the Mediterranean, by means of the Nile. At the 

 point where the scarcely connected continents present a line 

 of bay-like indentations, the excavation of a canal was begun, 

 if not by Sesostris (Rameses Miamoun), to whom Aristotle and 

 Strabo ascribe the undertaking, at any rate by Neku, although 

 the work was relinquished in consequence of the threatening 

 oracular denunciations directed against it by the priests. 

 Herodotus saw and described a canal completed by Darius Hys- 

 taspes, one of the Achtemenidae, which entered the Nile some- 

 what above Bubastus. This canal, after having fallen into decay, 

 was restored by Ptolemy Philadelphus in so perfect a manner 

 that, although (notwithstanding the skilful arrangement of 

 sluices), it was not navigable at all seasons of the year, it 

 nevertheless contributed to facilitate Ethiopian, Arabian, and 

 Indian commerce, at the time of the Roman dominion under 

 Marcus Aurelius, or even as late as Septimus Severus, and, 

 therefore, a century and a half after its construction. A 

 similar object of furthering international communication 

 through the Red Sea led to a zealous prosecution of the works 

 necessary for forming a harbour in Myos Hormos and Berenice, 



* Hippalus is not generally supposed to have lived earlier than the 

 time of Claudius; but this view is improbable, even though under the first 

 Lagides, a great portion of the Indian products were only procured in 

 Arabian markets. The south-west monsoon was, moreover, itself, called 

 Hippalus, and a portion of the Erythrean or Indian Ocean, was known 

 as the Sea of Hippalus. Letronne, in the Journal des Savans, 1818, 

 p. 405; Reinaud, Relation des Voyages dans Flnde, t. i. p. xxx. 



