81 
increased trade which took place with India by the ReA 
Sea, subsequent to the foundation of Alexandria. " The 
numerous copper coins of Egyptian fabrication, found in 
India, confirms what is known from history of that country 
having been the principal channel of commerce between 
India and the Roman empire." (J. A. S.) To these causes 
must be chiefly ascribed the information we find in Dios- 
corides, who was a native of Anazarbus, in Cilicia, and 
probably studied at Tarsus, the capital of that province, as 
well as visited Alexandria and the North of Africa, and also 
Spain, France, and Italy. He must have lived in the 
early part of the first century, as in his preface he men- 
tions Licinius Bassus, who was consul in A.D. 63. He 
was probably contemporary with, as he is so frequently 
quoted, though never named by Pliny; but appears to 
be alluded to in the passage, where, after transcribing 
the account of Schistus by the former, Pliny adds, " hanc 
esse sententiam eorum qui nuperrime scripserint. 11 
Dioscorides is, besides, the most ancient author who has 
written expressly, at the same time that he has done so most 
fully, on Materia Medica, a subject to which he was so much 
attached, as to have travelled in many countries, and to 
have followed the Roman armies for its investigation. His 
work, therefore, is the best calculated to shew how much 
the ancients were indebted to India and the East for their 
medicines ; especially as he assists us in identifying them 
by introducing some degree of arrangement, as well as by 
describing their physical properties with their medical uses. 
He is particular also in giving many synonymes, as well as 
in specifying the countries where they were severally pro- 
duced. Taking, therefore, those which are stated to be 
of Indian origin, we are struck by finding some of them 
also mentioned as being the produce of Syria and Media ; 
but this is easily explained by our knowing that the pro- 
ducts of the East reached the West both by the Red 
M 
