Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/44

 10 THE CLOSING OF THE OLD TKADE PATHS on it for a moment, as it enables us to realize what the command of the Syrian caravan route meant to an ancient people. It was a prosperity dangerous to the possessor. The coveted Syrian seaboard formed an Asiatic Palatinate forever shaking under the tramp of armies. In the seventh and sixth centuries B. c., Babylon was the entre- pot of the eastern routes, " the greatest commercial mart in the world. " The Persian chastisements for her rebellions led to the transfer of her trade to Gerrha on the Arabian coast, and afterwards to Seleucia. In the time of Strabo, Babylon had dwindled to a village and an ancient name. By the conquest of Phoenicia and the Ionian colonies, Persia became a Mediterranean power, threatened the sea-commerce of Athens, and brought on the struggle between Greece and Asia fought out at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea. It was a Phoenician settlement, Carthage, that led to the great conflict between the rising maritime power of Italy and North Africa, represented by the Punic wars. The seizure of the countries along the Asiatic trade-routes by Pompey supplied the luxuries and splendours of Im- perial Rome. How complete was the Roman command of the re- gions through which that route passed is attested by ruins surviving to this day. Palmyra in the desert, respected by the earlier Roman emperors as an inde- pendent city, reached the height of prosperity under its prince Odenathus, who received from Gallienus the title of Augustus, and was acknowledged as a colleague