1851.] Remarks on some lately -discovered Roman Gold Coins. 3/5 



From this time we may conclude that all direct intercourse of the 

 Romans with the East commenced. They followed up their victories 

 with that characteristic energy for an increased trade, which they ever 

 displayed after the subjection of a foreign people, and the glorious 

 prospect of an undivided command of the Eastern trade added an 

 unusual degree of vigor to their subsequent proceedings. All the 

 luxuries of the known world had hitherto been poured with a ceaseless 

 flow into the opulent markets of Rome, and the opening of a 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. 



Although the occupation of Egypt by the Romans offered them a 

 far greater facility of communicating with India, yet their progress in 

 this respect appears to have been slow and gradual, Augustus probably 

 being more desirous of firmly establishing his authority in that country 

 than of extending his views to the conquest of remoter lands. No 

 expedition to the countries bordering on the Red sea appears to have 

 been meditated till some seventy or eighty years after the Egyptian 

 conquest. During all this time the trade had been carried on by Greek 

 or Egyptian vessels. "Without venturing far to sea the commanders of 

 these ships, starting from the port of Berenice (which still retains its 

 ancient name) were in the habit of creeping slowly along the Arabian 

 coast up the Persian Gulf, and never perhaps reaching farther than the 

 mouths of the Indus, till at last, a certain commander more venturesome 

 than his predecessors, boldly pushed across the ocean, and favoured 

 by the Monsoon, safely reached the port of Musiris on the Malabar 

 coast.* This successful voyage was but the prelude to other more 

 fortunate enterprises, and so rapid became the increase of communica- 



* It is not exactly known where the present position of Musiris lies, or even of 

 Barace, another port which was not far from it. Robertson adopting the opinion 

 of Major Rennell is inclined to fix them both between the modern towns of Goa 

 and Tellicherry relying on a remark of Pliny that " they were not far distant from 

 Cottonara, a country where pepper is produced in great abundance." In this case 

 Barace might be the present Barcoor, as generally supposed, and Musiris in all pro- 

 bability Mangalore. The author of the Periplus remarks that " at all seasons a 

 number of country ships were to be found in the harbour of Musiris," an observa- 

 tion very applicable to that place. 



