Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c10.4

Language: English

c10.4.1

The ancient port of Naukratis had been comparatively neglected in favour of Tyre by the Oriental traders, owing to the long and perilous desert-journey between the Nile and the Red Sea. For the greater part of the year it was so intensely hot that the caravans had to move at night, guiding themselves across the trackless sands by means of stars, and carrying their own water-supply, like mariners, says Strabo¹. Early attempts to remedy this by means of a canal between the two waterways had been made from time to time. The first attempt of this kind was due to a Sesostris of the twentieth century B.C. Pharaoh Necho and Darius the Great², and finally Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-246 B.C.), revived the idea. The latter built a large port at Arsinoe, the modern Suez, for the purpose. Owing, however, to the dangerous nature of the navigation of the Heroopolite Gulf, with its shoals and treacherous winds and currents, the scheme had finally to be abandoned¹, and it was left to the genius of De Lesseps in our own times to carry it into effect. Merchants preferred to take their goods to Aelana², the ancient Ezion Geber, whence they were transported to the great emporium of Petra, and thence to the Levantine ports. Ptolemy now reverted to the old idea of a port on the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea, connected with the Nile by a desert-road furnished with convenient oases.

c10.4.2

The spot chosen had a fine natural harbour, and was two hundred and fifty-eight miles from the trading station of Koptos (Koft), on the bend of the river³. Merchandise was to be conveyed overland to Koft, and floated down-stream to Alexandria. The port which was built at the chosen site was named Berenike⁴, after the king's mother. A desert-road, furnished with eight *Hydreumata* or watering-places, connected Koft and Berenike. The first, says Pliny⁵, was twenty-two miles from Koptos; the next, a day's journey (about twenty miles) ; the third, ninety-five miles from the base; the fourth, on a hill, at an uncertain distance; the fifth (the Apollo Hydreuma) one hundred and eighty-four miles; the sixth, on a mountain; the seventh, the New Hydreuma, was two hundred and thirty miles from the base; the last, seven miles further on, had a caravanserai, for two thousand persons and a guard. A single day’s journey from here brought the merchant to the sea. The journey took eleven or twelve days, even under the most favourable conditions. In 274 B.C., a further improvement was made. Philadelphus built another port at Myos Hormos¹, (Mussel Harbour) one hundred and eighty miles north of Berenike, and five days nearer Koptos. Myos Hormos, situated in the bay of Ras abn Somer, near the Jifātin Islands, is a much safer harbour than Berenike, which had awkward shoals and was exposed to the wind².

c10.4.3

Myos Hormos was thus almost an ideal port and became the great trading centre for the East Indian trade, quickly eclipsing all its rivals³. Further down the coast were Adulis (the modern Massowa) and Ptolemais Epitherōn (Ptolemais of the Hunts), a great rendezvous of the elephant-hunters from Nubia. Besides the value of their ivory, elephants had been in great requisition for military purposes, ever since the five hundred presented by Chandragupta to Seleukus Nikator had taken a prominent part in the battle of Ipsus¹. They had been employed by Porus against Alexander and were later used by Pyrrhus and Hannibal against the Romans. The tactical value of these unwieldy beasts against well-disciplined troops is not great, and they quickly fell into disrepute in European warfare. They continued, however, to form one of the four traditional “arms” of the Indian army and were freely used as late as the days of the Moghal Empire. Ptolemais of the Hunts was probably not far from Port Sudan, and may then, as now, have been linked with the Nile by a road running to Berbera. The port of Adulis was chiefly famous for the inscription, preserved for us by Kosmas Indikopleustes², which recites the conquests of Ptolemy Euergetes (247–233 B.C.). It was the natural port for Abyssinia and the Sudan.