It Is, However, Not Meant To Be Asserted That No Vessels Passed These Straits In The Time Of This Ptolemy.

On the contrary, we know that his admiral, Timosthenes, passed the straits as low as Cerne, which is generally

Supposed to be Madagascar; but commerce, which in our times, directed by much superior skill and knowledge, as well as stimulated by a stronger spirit of enterprize and rivalship, and a more absorbing love of gain, immediately follows in the track of discovery, was then comparatively slow, languid, and timid as well as ignorant; so that it is not surprizing that it did not follow the track of Timosthenes. Ptolemy Philadelphus also pushed his discoveries by land as far as Meroc: he opened the route between Coptus and Berenice, establishing ports and opening wells; and from these and other circumstances he seems to have been actuated by a stronger wish to extend commerce, and to have formed more plans for this purpose, than any of his successors.

Ptolemy Euergetes directed his thoughts more to conquest than to commerce, though he rendered the former, in some degree, useful and subservient to the latter. After having passed the Nile, and subdued the nations which lay on the confines of Egypt, he compelled them to open a road of communication between their country and Egypt. The frankincense country was the next object of his ambition: this he subdued; and having sent a fleet and army across the Red Sea into Arabia, he compelled the inhabitants of the district to maintain the roads free from robbers, and the sea from pirates - a proof that these people had made some advances in seafaring matters, and also of the attention paid by Euergetes to the navigation of the Red Sea, as well as to the protection of land commerce. Indeed the whole of his progress to Aduli, which we have more particularly mentioned in another place, was marked as much by attention to commerce as by the love of conquest; but though by this enterprize he rendered both the coasts of the Red Sea tributary, and thus better adapted to commerce, there is no proof that he passed the Straits of Babelmandeb. It is true, indeed, that he visited Mosullon, which lies beyond the straits, but not by sea, having marched by land to that place, through the interior of Abyssinia and Adel. From the whole of this enterprize of Euergetes we may justly infer, that though he facilitated the intercourse by land between Egypt and those parts of Africa which lay immediately beyond the straits, yet his ships did not pass the straits, and that in his reign the discoveries of Timosthenes had not been followed up or improved for the purpose of trading by sea with the coast of Africa. The navigation of the whole of the Red Sea, at least on the Arabian side, from Leuake Kome to Sabaea, was undoubtedly known and frequently used at this period; but this was its utmost limit.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 89 of 524
Words from 46228 to 46727 of 273188