In The Reign Of Ptolemy Philometor, When Agatharcides Lived, The Commercial
Enterprizes Of The Egyptians Had Begun Rather To Languish;
On the Arabian
side of the Red Sea, they did indeed extend to Sabaea, as in the time of
Euergetes;
But there is evidence that on the opposite coast they did not go
so low, as in the reign of the latter sovereign. Agatharcides makes no
mention of Berenice; according to his account, Myos Hormos had again become
the emporium, and the only trade from that part seems to have been for
elephants to Ptolemais Theron. It may, indeed, be urged that Berenice was
not, properly speaking, a harbour, but only an open bay, to which the ships
did not come from Myos Hormos, till their cargoes were completely ready.
But that Myos Hormos was the great point of communication with Coptus is
evident from the account which Agatharcides gives of the caravan road
between these two places. Even so late as the time of Strabo, this road was
much more frequented than the road between Coptus and Berenice: of the
latter he merely observes, that Philadelphus opened it with his army,
established ports, and sunk Wells; whereas he particularly describes the
former road, as being seven or eight days' journey, formerly performed on
camels in the night, by observation of the stars, and carrying water with
them. Latterly, he adds, deep wells had been sunk, and cisterns formed for
holding water. Every detail of the road to Berenice is Roman, and relates
to periods considerably posterior to the conquest of Egypt by the Romans - a
proof that the plan of Philadelphus, of substituting Berenice for Myos
Hormos, had not been regularly adopted by his successors, nor till the
Romans had firmly and permanently fixed themselves in Egypt.
In the extract we have already given from Agatharcides respecting Arabia,
he expressly mentions that the Gerrheans and Sabeans are the centre of all
the commerce that passes between Asia and Europe, and that these are the
nations which have enriched the Ptolemais: this statement, taken in
conjunction with the fact that his description of the coast of the Red Sea
reaches no farther than Sabaea on the one side, and Ptolemais Theron on the
other, seems decisive of the truth of the opinion, that in the time of
Philometor the Egyptians did not trade directly to India. It may be proper
to add, that in the extracts from Agatharcides, given by Photius, it is
expressly mentioned that ships from India were met with by the Egyptian
ships in the ports of Sabaea. The particulars of this trade between India
and Egypt, by means of the Arabians, will be afterwards detailed, and its
great antiquity traced and proved; at present we have alluded to it merely
to bear us out in our position, that Indian ships, laden with Indian
commodities, frequenting the ports of Sabaea, and those ports being
described by Agatharcides as the limits of his knowledge of this coast of
the Red Sea, we are fully justified in concluding, that, in the reign of
Philometor, there was not only no direct trade to India, but no inducement
to such trade; and that 146 years after the death of Alexander, the Greek
sovereigns of Egypt had done little to complete what that monarch had
projected, and in part accomplished by the navigation of Nearchus - the
communication by sea between Alexandria and India.
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