intermediately situated, was the most direct and facile of the three, but, as it lay through the Persian dominions, the activity of commerce by this route depended on the maintenance of peace between the two empires.[1] The Byzantine government, jealous of the intercourse of its subjects with their hereditary enemies, fixed Artaxata, Nisibis, and Callinicus[2] as marts beyond which it was illegal for Roman merchants to advance for the purposes of trade on this frontier.[3]
In the sixth century the Ethiopian kingdom of Axume,[4] nearly corresponding with Abyssinia, became the southern centre of international trade; and its great port of Adule was frequented by ships and traders from all parts of the East.[5] Ethiopian, Persian, and Indian merchants scoured the Gangetic Gulf, and, having loaded their vessels with aloes, cloves, and sandalwood, obtained at Tranquebar and other ports, returned to Siedeliba or Ceylon[6] to dispose of their goods. There transhipments were effected, and sapphires, pearls, and tortoise-shell, the chief exports of that island, were added to the cargoes of ships westward bound. In the
- ↑ Cosmas, op. cit., ii; cf. Procopius, De Bel. Pers., i, 20.
- ↑ So called from a sophist who was murdered there; Libanius, Epist., 20. Previously Nicephorium.
- ↑ Cod. Theod., VII, xvi, 2, 3, and Godfrey ad loc.; Cod., IV, lxiii, 4.
- ↑ The inhabitants were a mixed race, containing Semitic and Hellenic elements, etc. Greek inscriptions were common there; Cosmas, op. cit., ii; cf. Philostorgius, iii, 6, etc.
- ↑ For the transport of an army to the opposite coast the king was able to collect 120 Roman, Persian, and native vessels; Act. Sanct. (Boll.), lviii, p. 747 (not 1,300 as Finlay, i, p. 264, which comes from adding a cipher to the figures in Surius).
- ↑ Called Taprobane by the Greek and Roman writers. It was distinguished by the possession of an immense lustrous jewel (ruby perhaps) which scintillated from the top of a temple; Cosmas, op. cit., xi.
