- During the period between 250 BC and 250 AD, a maritime sea
route existed between Alexandra in Northern Africa and China.
As trade took place along this route, a number of kingdoms rose
to power, flush with finances from trade. These kingdoms all
came into being around the same time, and all waned around the
same time.
Trade on the Red Sea was in the hands
of merchants based out of Alexandria. Nabataeans moved trade
from Southern Arabia to their port of Leuce Come by boat, and
then overland to Alexandria. "Arab" merchants also
brought Indian and Asian goods to the ports on the Egyptian side
of the Red Sea. For a time it may have been Indian ships that
brought the good to Southern Arabia, as Diodorus tells us of
the 'prosperous islands near Eudaemon Arabia which were visited
by sailors from every port of the world, and especially from
Potana, the city which Alexander the Great founded on the Indus
river.' (Diodorus. 3.47.9.)
| Another description of
this situation is found in a text known as 'The Periplus of
the Erythraean Sea' by an unknown author. Many have assumed
he was a Greek living in Alexandria, but he may have just as
well have been an Arab merchant with a Greek name living in Alexandria.
In it we read that 'Eudaemon Arabia (Aden) was once a fully-fledged
city, when vessels from India did not go to Egypt and those of
Egypt did not dare sail to places further on, but came only this
far.' (L. Casson, ed. The Periplus Maris Erythraei (Princeton
1989) 26., lines 26-32) Any attempts by Alexandrian ships
to sail beyond Aden were strongly discouraged; if they did sail,
it was by laboriously hugging the coasts and in the words of
Periplus, 'sailing round the bays'. |
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This was the situation until Roman financiers
entered the Alexandrian money market towards the middle of the
2nd century BC. The ensuing rise of demand for oriental and southern
goods in the Mediterranean markets whetted the appetite of Arab
merchants based in Alexandria to increase their share in the
north-south trade. They realized that they needed to sail directly
across the Indian Ocean to the rich Indian market and bring good
back to Egypt, without the involvement of Indian merchants. Ptolemy
VIII, friend of Rome, as was his wife after him, demonstrated
personal interest and involvement in the project which indicated
the great hopes all parties in Alexandria attached to the success
of the venture. While it is not known who made the first direct
voyage to India, very soon a new important office was created
for the first time in the Egyptian administration. It was know
as the 'commander of the Red and Indian Seas,' and came
into being under Ptolemy XII, nicknamed Auletes (80-51 BC). (Sammelbuch,
8036, Coptos (variously dated 110/109 BC or 74/3 BC; and no.
2264 (78 BC); Inscriptions Philae, 52 (62 BC) The creation
of such an office implies that the perhaps at this time there
was a marked increase in the regular commercial transactions
with India.
It is also perhaps not entirely irrelevant
that in 55 BC, the Senate decided to send Gabinius at the head
of a Roman army to restore Auletes (Ptolemy XII) to his throne
and to remain in Alexandria for the protection of the king against
possible future revolts. (Caesar, BC. 3. 110). We can easily
detect behind this drastic step, considerable Roman assets at
risk in the case of sudden undesirable internal changes in Alexandria.
This should warn us against accepting
at face value Strabo's often quoted remark that it was only under
'the diligent Roman administration that Egypt's commerce with
India and Troglodyte was increased to so great an extent. In
earlier times, not so many as twenty vessels would have dared
to traverse the Red Sea far enough to get a peep outside the
straits (Bab-el-Mandab), but at the present time, even large
fleets are dispatched as far as India and the extremities of
Aethiopia, from which the most valuable cargoes are brought to
Egypt and thence sent forth again to other regions.' (Strabo,
17.1.13.) This is clearly an overstatement, intended as a compliment
to the new Roman administration, considering that Aelius Gallus,
the prefect of Egypt, was Strabo's personal friend at whose house
he stayed as a guest for five years (25-20 BC). Strabo's statement
stands in sharp contrast to the earlier data of the above mentioned
inscriptions and to the more matter-of-fact statement of the
later author of the Periplus (c. 40 AD), who rightly perceived
that the great change in the modes of navigation and the vast
expansion of trade were the direct result of the discovery of
the Monsoon winds, at least half a century before Augustus conquered
Egypt. Strabo himself witnessed the flourishing state of Alexandria
only five years after the Roman conquest, and very shrewdly observed
the active trade that went through its several harbors. He says,
'Among the happy advantages of the city, the greatest is the
fact that this is the only place in all Egypt which is by nature
well situated with reference to both things, both to commerce
by sea, on account of the good harbors, and to commerce by land,
because the river easily conveys and brings together everything
into a place so situated, the greatest emporium in the inhabited
world.'
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Soon after the annexation of Egypt,
Emperor Augustus (Rome 63 BC - Nole 14 AD) in 26 BC commissioned
his prefect in Egypt, Aelius Gallus, to invade southern Arabia
by land. (Strabo, 16.4.23-4.) This land onslaught caused considerable
damage to the Sabaeans as far as Marib, and allowed the Himyarites,
close friends of the Nabataeans to soon take control of most
of Southern Arabia. Some writers have thought that around AD
1 Augustus launched another devastating attack - this time by
sea - which resulted, in the words of Periplus,'in sacking Eudaemon
Arabia' which declined into, 'a mere village after having been
a fully fledged city (polis)'. (Periplus, 26; Pliny, H.N.
6.32, 160 & 12.30,55; Also cf. H. MacAdam, 'Strabo, Pliny
and Ptolemy of Alexandria', in: Arabie Pre-Islamique (Strasbourg
1989) 289-320.) Now that Eudaemon Arabia (Aden) was out of
action, merchants from Alexandria experienced unrivalled dominance
of the sea route to India.
Left: The old lighthouse in Al Mokha
port (Yemen)
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