3/8 Remarks on some lately-discovered Roman Gold Coins. [No. 5. 



was in those days used by the Romans as an entrepot for the merchan- 

 dize passing from India to Egypt. " That seaport was apparently the 

 same place which Ptolemy named 'Arabiae Emporium'* and the 

 author of the Periplus tells us that a little before his time it was 

 destroyed by the Romans. But it is to be presumed that the Romans 

 followed up their victory by occupation, for the position assigned in 

 the Periplus to Arabia Felix together with the principle that it is 

 nature which chiefly determines the site of a great maritime Emporium 

 proves that the place in question was no other than Aden, which in 

 the fifth century was the Roman Emporium of the Indian trade." 

 Pepper was entirely supplied from the Malabar coast, and large quan- 

 tities were shipped every season for the markets at Rome, where it was 

 esteemed one of the greatest luxuries of the day. When Alaric was 

 besieging Rome in the fifth century and condescended to accept a ran- 

 som for the city, he expressly stipulated for the deliverance " of 3000 

 lbs. weight of pepper," so much value was attached to that commodity. 

 All sorts of precious stones were eagerly sought after by the wealthier 

 inhabitants, though it is singular that the Romans set a higher value 

 on pearls than they did on diamonds. The former were procured as at 

 the present day near Ceylon and Cape Comorin, and the mines at 

 Sumbhalapura, in Bengal, are probably the same which yielded their trea- 

 sures for the Roman merchants some twenty centuries ago. Lastly, 

 ivory, ebony, f and a few commodities of minor importance completed 

 the list of useful or luxurious articles which were transmitted from this 

 country. 



* Cooley on the Regio Cinnaraonifera of the Ancients. 



f Virgil says, India mittit ebur. But Africa must also have furnished ivory and 

 perhaps in greater abundance, and again 



Sola India nigrum 

 Fert Ebenum, 

 but it is a mistake of Virgil's to suppose that India alone produces ebony, for ^Ethio- 

 pia is famous for it according to both Pliny and Herodotus. Lucan says, it is an 

 Egyptian plant : 



Ebenus Mareotica vastos 

 Non operit postes, sed stat pro robore vili 

 Auxilium 

 Virgil followed Theophrastus who fell into the same error, "itiiov 8e ku\ fj 'E/SeV?? 

 t?}9 'li/Sinrjs x^pas. 



