Near This Place Was
The Station Of Those Merchants Who Traded Directly With The Seres.
The
defile of Conghez was next passed, and the region of Cosia or Cashgar
through the country of the Itaguri, to the capital of China.
Seven months
were employed on this journey, and the distance in a right line amounted to
2800 miles. That the whole of this journey was sometimes performed by
individuals for the purchase of silk and other Chinese commodities, we have
the express testimony of Ptolemy; for he informs us, that Maes, a
Macedonian merchant, sent his agent through the entire route which we have
just described. It is not surprising, therefore, that silk should have
borne such an exorbitant price at Rome; but it is astonishing that any
commodity, however precious, could bear the expence of such a land
carriage.
The only other routes by land, by which silk was brought from China into
Europe, seem to have corresponded, in the latter part of their direction,
with the land routes from India, already described. Indeed, it may
naturally be supposed, that the Indian merchants, as soon as they learned
the high prices of silk at Rome, would purchase it, and send it along with
the produce and manufactures of their own country, by the caravans to
Palmyra, and by river navigation to the Euxine: and we have seen, that on
the capture of Palmyra, by Aurelian, silk was one of the articles of
plunder.
We are now to take notice of the laws which were passed by the Romans for
the improvement of navigation and commerce; and in this part of our subject
we shall follow the same plan and arrangement which we have adopted in
treating of the commerce itself; that is, we shall give a connected view of
these laws, or at least the most important of them, from the period when
the Romans began to interest themselves in commerce, till the decline of
the empire.
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