Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/153

 the eastern end of the great commercial road from Coptos on the Nile.

Ptolemy, son of Lagos and father of Philadelphia, as soon as he had taken possession of Egypt, established the seat of his government in Alexandria, entering readily into the schemes which had led Alexander, a few years before, to lay the foundations of that city. With a rapidity truly astonishing, merchants from all parts flocked to the new city, so that in a space of time incredibly short the commerce of the East came to be carried on in the channel which the sagacity of Alexander had anticipated for it.

By a prudent exercise of authority, by many acts of liberality, and, above all, by the fame of a mild and judicious administration, Ptolemy drew so many inhabitants to this place that it soon became one of the most populous and wealthy cities in Egypt. Ptolemy had possessed, as he well deserved, the confidence of the great conqueror more perfectly than any of his other officers; hence he knew better than any of them that Alexander's chief object in founding Alexandria was to secure the advantages arising from the trade with India. His long and prosperous reign enabled him to carry out this purpose with great success; while his general attention to the requirements of a wide maritime commerce is exemplified by his construction of the celebrated Pharos, at the mouth of the harbour of Alexandria, of which mention has already been made.

From Alexandria the course of trade with the East seems to have at first passed to Arsinoe, the present Suez, but the difficulties and dangers of the navigation of the northern extremity of the Red Sea, led to the