Alexandria, However, Was The Great Emporium For
This, As Well As All The Other Produce Of India And Arabia.
Pliny is
express and particular on this point, and takes notice of the precautions
employed by the merchants there, in order to guard against adulteration and
fraud.
Cinnamon, another of the exports of Arabia to Rome, though not a
production of that country, was also in high repute, and brought an
extravagant price. Vespasian was the first who dedicated crowns of
cinnamon, inclosed in gold filagree, in the Capitol and the Temple of
Peace; and Livia dedicated the root in the Palatine Temple of Augustus. The
plant itself was brought to the emperor Marcus Aurelius in a case seven
feet long, and was exhibited at Rome, as a very great rarity. This,
however, we are expressly informed came from Barbarike in India. It seems
to have been highly valued by other nations as well as by the Romans:
Antiochus Epiphanes carried a few boxes of it in a triumphal procession:
and Seleucus Callinicus presented two minae of it and two of cassia, as a
gift to the king of the Milesians. In the enumeration of the gifts made by
this monarch, we may, perhaps, trace the comparative rarity and value of
the different spices of aromatics among the ancients: of frankincense he
presented ten talents, of myrrh one talent, of cassia two pounds, of
cinnamon two pounds, and of costus one pound. Frankincense and myrrh were
the productions of Arabia; the other articles of India; of course the
former could be procured with much less difficulty and expence than the
latter. Spikenard, another Indian commodity, also reached Rome, through
Arabia, by means of the port of Alexandria. Pliny mentions, that both the
leaves and the spices were of great value, and that the odour was the most
esteemed in the composition of all unguents. The price at Rome was 100
denarii a pound. The markets at which the Arabian and other merchants
bought it were Patala on the Indus, Ozeni, and a mart on or near the
Ganges.
Sugar, also, but of a quality inferior to that of India, was imported from
Arabia, through Alexandria, into Rome. The Indian sugar, which is expressly
mentioned by Pliny, as better and higher priced, was brought to Rome, but
by what route is not exactly known, probably by means of the merchants who
traded to the east coast of Africa; where the Arabians either found it, or
imported it from India. In the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, and likewise
in the rescript of the Roman emperors, relative to the articles imported
into Egypt from the East, which was promulgated by Marcus Aurelius and his
son Commodus, about the year A.D. 176, it is denominated cane-honey,
otherwise called sugar (sacchar). So early, therefore, as the Periplus
(about the year A.D. 73,) the name of sacchar was known to the Romans, and
applied by them to sugar. This word does not occur in any earlier author,
unless Dioscorides lived before that period, which is uncertain.
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