During This Period We Have The
Express Testimony Of Appian, That It Traded With Both These Nations, And
That Rome And The Other Parts Of The Empire Received The Commodities Of
India From It.
In the year A.D. 273, it was reduced and destroyed by
Aurelian, who found in it an immense treasure of gold, silver, silk, and
precious stones.
From this period, it never revived, or became a place of
the least importance or trade.
On the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus, the commercial communication between
India and Europe returned to Arabia in the south, and to the Caspian and
the Euxine in the north: there seem to have been two routes by these seas,
both of great antiquity. In describing one of them, the ancient writers are
supposed to have confounded the river Ochus, which falls into the Caspian,
with the Oxus, which falls into the lake of Aral. On this supposition, the
route may be traced in the following manner: the produce and manufactuers
of India were collected at Patala, a town near the mouth of the Indus; they
were carried in vessels up this river as far as it was navigable, where
they were landed, and conveyed by caravans to the Oxus: being again
shipped, they descended this river to the point where it approached nearest
to the Ochus, to which they were conveyed by caravans. By the Ochus they
were conveyed to the Caspian, and across it to the mouth of the river
Cyrus, which was ascended to where it approached nearest the Phasis:
caravans were employed again, till the merchandize were embarked at
Serapana on the Phasis, and thus brought to the Black Sea.
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