The Classical Accounts of India c23.30

c23.30

IV Palmyra is not likely to have encouraged any Indian embassy to the Roman Emperor. It was a free city. Its inhabitants had not forgotten the designs of Antony and the dangers they had but lately escaped, and it is not probable that they would now of their own free will call Roman attention to their wealth, and place the Indians from whom they derived it in direct communication with their own best customers. Through Palmyra this embassy could not have made its way to Augustus We turn now to the Greeks of Alexandria. Alexandria with a population made up of about every nation under the sun was essentially a Greek city. It carried on a large, profitable and increasing trade with the East. And though at the period of our embassy its merchants seldom ventured beyond the Arab Ports of Cane and Aden, where they traded for the products and manufactures of India, they nevertheless occasionally sailed for the Indian Seas, and made their way even to the Ganges.