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ON THE COMMERCE
and germs[1], dyeing materials[2], drugs[3], perfumes[4], spices[5], and ivory[6], were, I believe, the principal, although other. articles of leſs conſideration might perhaps be added.
The Indian trade in early ages mutt have been carried on to extreme diſadvantage, even in Pliny's time, when the knowledge of the navigation of the Arabian gulph had facilitated the intercourſe with India. Pliny ſays[7], that it never drained the Roman empire of leſs than 403,645 l. annually paid for Indian commodities,
- ↑ The Indian diamonds are mentioned by Pliny, as firſt in excellence. The emerald; of the ſame country were much eſteemed. Plin. lib. xxxvii. c. 45.
- ↑ India is mentioned by Strabo, as abounding in materials for dyeing. p.694,699. Pliny tells us, that Indico (Indigo) was brought from thence, and Dioſcorides ſpeaks of it as an Indian production. lib. xxxv. c. 6. The red reſin, commonly called Dragon's blood, was, and ſtill is, brought from India. Plin. lib. xxxiii. c. 7. lib. xxxv. c. 7. Draconum ſanies. Another dyeing mterial, of the cochineal kind, was imported from the ſame country. It is deſcribed by Cteſias, and after him by Elian; and as ſcarlet and purple colours were in ſuch eſteem at Rome, it is probable that this dye was made uſe of there.
- ↑ Strabo ſays, that many drugs were produced in India; and Dioſcoridea ſpeciſies a conſiderable number, which were in uſe in his time. Many of the ingredients in thoſe exuberant and voluminous compoſitions, the confectio Darnocratis, uſually called Mithridate, and the .Theriaca Andromache, better known by the name of Venice treacle, are of Indian production. The admiſſion of ſuch into the former of theſe compoſitions, forms a preſumption, that the countries bordering on the Euxine ſea had a connection with the Eaſt Indies.
- ↑ Perfumes appear to have been an article of trade with the Eaſt Indies, although more with Arabia. Mala bath rum, amomum, nardus, agallochum, and many others, were all the produce of India. Heliogabalus, as we are told by Lampridius, burnt Indian perfumes by themſelves, to impregnate the air of the vapour-rooms at the baths. As this is mentioned as an infiance of extreme extravagance, it may ſerve to prove the value ſet on Indian perfumes at Rome.
- ↑ Cinnamon, mace, long pepper, ginger, and oil of nutmegs, are all ingredients in the confectio Damocratia, and of courſe well known in the countries adjacent to the Euxine ſea.
- ↑ Ivory was, I believe, principally brought from Africa, but ſome from India, and the largeit teeth were brought from thence. Plin. lib. viii. c. xr.
India mittit eburVirgil
- ↑ Plin. lib. vi. c. 23.
which
