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But to return from this digression, the other imports were robes, manufactured at Arsinoe; cloths dyed, so as to imitate the Tyrian purple; linens, fringed mantles, glass or crystal, murrhine cups, orichalchum, or mixed metal for trinkets and coin; brass vessels for cooking, the pieces of which, when they happened to be broken, were worn by the women as ornaments; iron, for weapons and other purposes; knives, daggers, hatchets, &c.; brass bowls, wine, oil, gold and silver plate, camp cloaks, and cover-lids: these formed the principal articles of import from Myos Hormos, and as they are very numerous, compared with the exports, it seems surprising that coin should also have been imported, but that this was the case, we are expressly told by the author of the Periplus, who particularizes Roman currency, under the name of Denarii.
He expressly states, that in the course of six or seven years, 120 ships had sailed from Myos Hormos to India: but on this it may be observed, in the first place, that he begins his description of India, with requesting his readers to peruse what he relates concerning it with indulgence, as it was a country very remote, and few persons had visited it; and even with regard to Arabia Felix, he says, that the knowledge of the Romans commenced with the expedition of his friend Ælius Gallus into that country; facts not very consistent with his statement that 120 ships had sailed in six or seven years to India: secondly, he expressly mentions, that formerly scarcely twenty ships dared to navigate the Red Sea, so far as to shew themselves beyond the straits; but we can hardly suppose that skill, enterprize, and knowledge, had increased so rapidly as to extend within a very few years navigation, not merely beyond the straits, but even to India; we say a few years, for certainly, at the time when the Romans conquered Egypt, the straits were not usually passed: lastly, the name India was used so vaguely by the ancients, even by Strabo occasionally, that it is not improbable he meant by it, merely the coast of Arabia, beyond the straits.
As, however, we have not the original, and perhaps not the entire work of Agatharcides, we cannot infer any thing, either respecting his ignorance or inattention, from this omission. Agatharcides, having thus described this coast, returns from Ptolemais to Myos Hormos, and passing the Bay of Arsinoe, crosses to Phoenicum, in the Elanitic Gulf, and describes the coast of Arabia as far as Sabea.
However this may be, there is a monument to him in the marketplace of Asiatic Magnesia. He was governor of the district, the King having given him Magnesia, which brought in fifty talents a year, for bread, Lampsacus, which was considered to be the richest wine country, for wine, and Myos for other provisions.
In later days Strabo and Pliny tell us how flotillas of 120 ships proceeded from Myos Hormos to Okelis in thirty days on their way to India, going together for fear of the pirates who marauded this coast, and in those days the settlements on the Red Sea must have presented a far livelier aspect than they do now.
Myos Hormos, or Berenice, was the port on the Red Sea from which they sailed; in forty days they arrived at Musiris, on the west coast of India. The homeward passage was begun in December or January, when the north east monsoon commenced; this carried them to the entrance of the Red Sea, up which to their port they were generally favored by southerly winds.
Agatharcides makes no mention of Berenice; according to his account, Myos Hormos had again become the emporium, and the only trade from that part seems to have been for elephants to Ptolemais Theron. It may, indeed, be urged that Berenice was not, properly speaking, a harbour, but only an open bay, to which the ships did not come from Myos Hormos, till their cargoes were completely ready.
At the period when the Periplus was written, the coast was unknown beyond Rhapta; at this place, therefore, the journal of this voyage terminates; but this place, there is every reason to believe that the author visited in person. The commencement of the second voyage is from Berenice: from this port he conducts us to Myos Hormos, and there across the Red Sea to Leuke Kome in Arabia.
At Nera, in Petræa, the army embarked, and was eleven days in crossing the gulf to Myos Hormos: from this place it traversed the country of the Troglodytes to Coptus, on the Nile. Two years were spent in this unfortunate expedition.
Every detail of the road to Berenice is Roman, and relates to periods considerably posterior to the conquest of Egypt by the Romans a proof that the plan of Philadelphus, of substituting Berenice for Myos Hormos, had not been regularly adopted by his successors, nor till the Romans had firmly and permanently fixed themselves in Egypt.
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