LS8 



V. A. Sin if li — Grceco-&>nian infiuenoe 



[No. 3, 



Active communication between the Roman empire and the far east 

 was maintained during the third century, not only by the peaceful 

 methods of commerce, but by the frequent oriental expeditions of the 

 emperors. The disastrous war of Valerian with the king of Persia, 

 A. D. 254 — 260, brought the armies of Rome into almost direct contact 

 •with India. 



The period of Palmyra's commercial greatness, A. D. 105 — 273, coin- 

 cided with the period of Roman military activity in the east, and in part 

 with the prosperity of Alexandria, the emporium of the Indian sea-borne 

 trade. This period, accordingly, is that during which Roman intercourse 

 ■with India attained its maximum. " It was during- the reigns of Severus 

 [A. D. 194—211], his son Caracalla [A. D. 211—217], and the Pseudo- 

 Antonines that Alexandria and Palmyra were most prosperous, and 

 that Roman intercourse with India attained its height. The Roman 

 literature gave more of its attention to Indian matters, and did not, as 

 of old, confine itself to quotations from the historians of Alexander, or 

 the narratives of the Seleucidau ambassadors, but drew its information 

 from other and independent sources." 



The existence of such independent sources of information is ap- 

 parent from the works of Clemens Alexandrinus, (who mentions Buddha 

 and stwpas), Philostratus, ./Elian, and other writers.* 



It so happened that at the date, A D. 273, of the cruel destruction 

 of Palmyra, Alexandria too had fallen into comparative decay. " It 

 would," of course, as Priaulx observes, " be absurd to suppose that 

 the destruction of Palmyra, however much it affected, put an end to 

 the Indian trade through the Persian Gulf." The trade continued, and 

 part of it passed for a time to Batne near the Euphrates, a day's 

 journey from Edessa.f But the Indo-Romau trade, though not stopped, 

 was necessarily very much diminished in volume by the destruction of 

 its overland, and the decay of its maritime emporium, and the intercourse 

 between Rome and the far east became much more difficult aud inter- 

 mittent than it had been for about two centuries previously. 



The Alexandrian trade about this time seems to have been aban- 

 doned by Roman ships, and to have depended on Arab vessels, as in the 

 days of Augustus. In the reign of Oonstantine (A. D. 306 — 337) com- 

 merce with the east revived, but the Roman ships seem to have rarely, 

 if ever, ventured, beyond the Arabian Gulf of the Red Sea. 



* Priaulx, Apollonins of Tyano. and Indian Embassies to Rome, pp. 132, seqq. 

 My remarks on the course of Roman trade with India are chiefly drawn from this 

 valuable little book and Prof. Robertson Smith's article on Palymra, in the ninth 

 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 



t Priaulx, Apoilonius of Tyana, etc., pp. 178, 233. 



