which were again fold for an hundred times the original coſt; and in another place[1] he tells us, that India, Seres, and the peninſula of India, took from the Roman empire no leſs annually than double that ſum.
As a large proportion of the vaſt increaſe of price of theſe goods, when fold again in Europe, muſt have ariſen from the ncce{{ls} ſary expences attending their importation, this circumſtance muſt have brought back to the frontier countries a conſiderable proportion of the wealth, which Rome attracted, as ſovereign of the world.
But when the revolution, cauſed by the religion and by the conqueſts of Mahomet, put a ſtop to the Eaſt Indian trade down the Red ſea, and acroſs the Arabian gulph, his followers, being rather of a military than a commercial diſpoſition, and not inclined to ſhare with Chriſtians what they retained of this commerce, the Eaſt Indian trade reverted, in a good meaſure, into its ancient channel, and contributed to the ſupport and proſperity of Conſtantinople, which by this communication ſupplied Europe with Eaſt Indian commodities.
- ↑ Plin. lib. xii. c. 18.
