732 EEPOET— 1888. 



estatlisliment of the Persian Empire in the sixth century B.C., and after the capture 

 of Tyre by Alexander its commerce gradually passed into the hands of the Greeks. 

 The Persian policy of closing the Persian Gulf to commerce forced the Indian traffic 

 along the land routes. Babylon, which had become the emporium of Eastern trade, 

 declined, whilst Susa and Ecbatana were enriched by the transit trade which passed 

 through them and crossed the whole extent of the empire to the Mediten-aneau 

 ports. The policy of Alexander was to secure the carrying and distribution trade 

 of the world to the Greeks ; and with this object he founded Alexandria, and 

 intended, had he lived, to restore Babylon to her former splendour. Ptolemy, his 

 successor in Egypt, used every means in his power to draw trade to Alexandria, 

 and the new city soon rose to opulence and splendour. The Greek merchants 

 obtained their Indian goods from the Arab traders whom they met in the ports of 

 southern Arabia ; they landed them at Myos Hormos and Berenice on the western 

 shore of the Red Sea, carried them by camel across the desert, and floated them 

 down the Nile and by canal to Alexandria, whence they were distributed to the 

 neighbouring parts of Africa and the coasts of the Mediterranean. This trade 

 route remained unaltered until Egypt became a Roman province. Another stream 

 of commerce passed by way of the Persian Gulf to Seleucia on the Tigris, and 

 thence, partly by water and partly by land, through Aleppo to Antioch and 

 Seleucia at the mouth of the Grontes ; and a third followed the ancient highway 

 from Central Asia to the ports of the Euxine and iEgean Seas. 



After the rise of Rome all trade routes were directed upon the imperial city, 

 which became a centre of distribution for the merchandise of the East. The Greeks 

 still monopolised the sea-borne trade ; and those of Egypt, recognising the 

 advantage of their geographical position, took the direct trade to India into their 

 hands, and extended their voyages to Kattigara, the port of the Sinae (Chinese), in 

 the gulf of Tongking. Alexandria became the commercial capital of the Roman 

 Empire, the distributing centre of the world for Indian and Asiatic goods, and a place 

 of such wealth that one of the merchants is said to have been able to maintain 

 an army. At the same time the old ports of Tyre, Beirut, Antioch, Ephesus, 

 Byzantium, and Trebizonde maintained their position as terinini of the land traffic. 

 The extent of the intercourse between the East and the West during the Roman 

 Empire is shown by the embassy of the Seres (Chinese) to Rome in the reign of 

 Augustus, and by the several embassies to China, which followed that sent by Marcus 

 Aurelius in 1G6 a.b., until the Arab Empire interposed ; as well as by the fact 

 that in the time of Pliny the Roman imports from Asia each year were valued at 

 100 million sesterces (about 800,000/.). Trade followed well-established routes, 

 which remained in use, with but slight modification, till the fifteenth century. 

 There were three principal lines of communication through Central Asia, all lead- 

 ing from China across the desert of Gobi. The northern ran to the north of the 

 Thien Shan by Lake Balkash to the Jaxartes {Syr Darya) ; the central passed along 

 the southern slopes of the Thien Shan and crossed the mountains by the Terek Pass 

 to Samarcand and the Oxus (Amu Darya) ; and the southern passed over the Pamir 

 and through Badakhshan to Balkh. The northern route apparently went on from 

 the Jaxartes, through Khiva, to the Caspian, which it crossed, and then ran on to 

 the Black Sea. Even at this early period trade filtered round the northern shores 

 of the Caspian, and later, during the Middle Ages, there was a well-established 

 trade route in this direction through Khiva to Novgorod and the Baltic, by which 

 the northern countries received Indian goods. From the Oxus region, reached by 

 the central and southern lines, there were two routes to the "West. One passed 

 through Merv, crossed the Caspian, ascended the Araxes to reach Artaxates and 

 Trebizonde, or to descend the Phasis (liion) to Poti, and then coasted the shores of 

 the Black Sea to Byzantium. The other also passed through Merv, and, running 

 along the northern frontier of Persia, reached the shores of the Black Sea through 

 Artaxates, or continued on through Mesopotamia, Syria, and Asia Minor to Byzan- 

 tium. The land trade from India passed through the Bamian Pass to Balkh, and 

 through Kandahar and Herat to Merv or Sarrakhs to join the great stream of 

 Central Asian traffic. The greater portion of the carrying trade on these long 

 lines was in the hands of the people dwelling between the Jaxartes and the Oxus, 



