India. Every year, about the time of the
summer solstice, a fleet of a hundred and twenty vessels sailed
from Myos-hormos, a port of Egypt, on the Red Sea. By the periodical
assistance of the monsoons, they traversed the ocean in about forty
days. The coast of Malabar, or the island of Ceylon, [102] was the usual
term of their navigation, and it was in those markets that the merchants
from the more remote countries of Asia expected their arrival. The
return of the fleet of Egypt was fixed to the months of December or
January; and as soon as their rich cargo had been transported on the
backs of camels, from the Red Sea to the Nile, and had descended that
river as far as Alexandria, it was poured, without delay, into the
capital of the empire. [103] The objects of oriental traffic were
splendid and trifling; silk, a pound of which was esteemed not inferior
in value to a pound of gold; [104] precious stones, among which the
pearl claimed the first rank after the diamond; [105] and a variety
of aromatics, that were consumed in religious worship and the pomp of
funerals. The labor and risk of the voyage was rewarded with almost
incredible profit; but the profit was made upon Roman subjects, and
a few individuals were enriched at the expense of the public. As the
natives of Arabia and India were contented with the productions and
manufactures of their own country, silver, on the side of the Romans,
was the principal, if not the only [1051] instrument of commerce. It was a
complaint worthy of the gravity of the senate, that, in the purchase of
female ornaments, the wealth of the state was irrecoverably given away
to foreign and hostile nations. [106] The annual loss is computed, by
a writer of an inquisitive but censorious temper, at upwards of eight
hundred thousand pounds sterling. [107] Such was the style of discontent,
brooding over the dark prospect of approaching poverty. And yet, if we
compare the proportion between gold and silver, as it stood in the time
of Pliny, and as it was fixed in the reign of Constantine, we shall
discover within that period a very considerable increase. [108] There is
not the least reason to suppose that gold was become more scarce; it is
therefore evident that silver was grown more common; that whatever might
be the amount of the Indian and Arabian exports, they were far from
exhausting the wealth of the Roman world; and that the produce of the
mines abundantly supplied the demands of commerce.