Another Delay Was Contrived By Syllaeus On Their Leaving
Leuke Kome.
After this, they seem to have proceeded with more celerity, and
with very little opposition from the natives, till they came to a city of
some strength:
This they were obliged to besiege in regular form; but,
after lying before it for six days, Gallus was forced, for want of water,
to raise the siege, and to terminate the expedition. He was told that at
this time he was within two days' journey of the land of aromatics and
frankincense, the great object which Augustus had in view. On his retreat,
he no longer trusted to Syllaeus, but changed the route of the army,
directing it from the interior to the coast. At Nera, in Petraea, the army
embarked, and was eleven days in crossing the gulf to Myos Hormos: from
this place it traversed the country of the Troglodytes to Coptus, on the
Nile. Two years were spent in this unfortunate expedition. It is extremely
difficult to fix on the limit of this expedition, but it is probable that
the town which Gallus besieged, and beyond which he did not penetrate, was
the capital of the Mineans. From the time of this expedition, the Romans
always maintained a footing on the coast of the Red Sea; and either during
the residence of Gallus at Leuke Kome, or soon afterwards, they placed a
garrison in this place, where they collected the customs, gradually
extending their conquests and their geographical knowledge down the Gulf,
till they reached the ocean. This seems to have been the only beneficial
consequence resulting from the expedition of Gallus.
We must now attend to the expedition of Petronius against the Ethiopians.
This was completely successful, and Candake, their queen, was obliged, as a
token of her submission, to send ambassadors to Augustus, who was at that
time in the island of Samos. About this period the commerce of the
Egyptians, - which, in fact, was the commerce of the Romans, - was extended
to the Troglodytes, - with whom previously they had carried on little or no
trade.
The first account of the island of Ceylon, under the name of Taprobane, was
brought to Europe by the Macedonians, who had accompanied Alexander into
the east. It is mentioned, and a short description given of it, by
Onesicritus and Eratosthenes. Iambulus, however, who lived in the time of
Augustus, is the first author who enters into any details regarding it; and
though much of what he states is undoubtedly fabulous, yet there are
particulars surprizingly correct, and such as confirm his own account, that
he actually, visited the island. According to Diodorus Siculus, he was the
son of a merchant, and a merchant himself; and while trading in Arabia for
spices, he was taken prisoner and carried into Arabia, whence he was
carried off by the Ethiopians, and put into a ship, which was driven by the
monsoon to Ceylon. The details he mentions, that are most curious and most
conformable to truth, are the stature of the natives and the flexibility of
their joints; the length of their ears, bored and pendant; the perpetual
verdure of the trees; the attachment of the natives to astronomy; their
worship of the elements, and particularly of the sun and moon; their cotton
garments; the men having one wife in common; the days and nights being
equal in length; and the Calamus, or Maiz. It is extraordinary, howeve'r,
that Iambulus never mentions cinnamon, which, as he was a dealer in spices,
it might have been supposed would have attracted his particular attention.
One of the most celebrated geographers among the ancients, flourished
during the reign of Augustus; - we allude to Strabo: his fundamental
principles are, the globosity of the earth, and its centripetal force; he
also lays down rules for constructing globes, but he seems ignorant of the
mode of fixing the position of places by their latitude or longitude, or,
at least, he neglects it. In order to render his geographical knowledge
more accurate and complete, he travelled over most of the countries between
Armenia on the east and Etruria on the west, and from his native country,
on the borders of the Euxine sea, to the borders of Ethiopia. The portion
of the globe which he describes, is bounded on the north by the Baltic, on
the east by the Ganges, on the south by the mouth of the river Senegal, and
on the west by Spain. In describing the countries which he himself had
visited, he is generally very accurate, but his accounts of those he had
not visited, are frequently erroneous or very incomplete. His information
respecting Ceylon and the countries of the Ganges, seems to have been
derived entirely from the statements brought to Europe by the generals of
Alexander.
In the reign of Claudius, the knowledge of the Romans respecting the
interior of Africa, was slightly extended by the expedition of Suetonius
Paulinus; he was the first Roman who crossed Mount Atlas, and during the
winter penetrated through the deserts, which are described as formed of
black dust, till he reached a river called the Niger. Paulinus wrote an
account of this expedition, which, however, is not extant: Pliny quotes it.
In the reign of Claudius, also, the island of Ceylon became better known,
in consequence of an accident which happened to the freedman of a Roman,
who farmed the customs in the Red Sea. This man, in the execution of his
duty, was blown off the coast of Arabia, across the ocean to Taprobane, or
Ceylon; here he was hospitably received by the king, and after a residence
of six months was sent back, along with ambassadors, to Claudius. They
informed the emperor that their country was very extensive, populous, and
opulent, abounding in gold, silver, and pearls. It seems probable that the
circumstance of the freedman having been carried to Ceylon by a steady and
regular wind, and this man and the ambassadors having returned by a wind
directly opposite, but as steady and regular, had some influence in the
discovery of the monsoon.
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