Page:Indian Shipping, a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times.djvu/172

 Before that time India carried on her trade chiefly with Egypt; whose king, Ptolemy Philadelphus (285–247 B.C.), with whom Asoka the Great had intercourse, founded the city of Alexandria, that afterwards became the principal emporium of trade between East and West. With Alexandria communication was established of two seaports founded on the Egyptian coast, viz. Berenica and Myos Hormos, from which ships sailed to India along the coasts of Arabia and Persia. Strabo mentions that in his day he saw about 120 ships sailing from Myos Hormos to India. There were of course other overland routes of commerce between India and the West, such as that across Central Asia along the Oxus to the Caspian and the Black Seas, or that through Persia to Asia Minor, or that by way of the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates through Damascus and Palmyra to the Levant. But this caravan traffic was by no means of any great importance, and was further reduced by the Parthian wars. "It was by the sea, and after Claudius by the open sea, that the bulk of merchandise from Indian south-coast ports was carried to the Arabian marts and Alexandria." The Egyptian Greeks were the principal carriers of this extensive trade in Indian