In 118 BC, a Ptolemaic patrol ship found the remains of a strange foreign vessel adrift in the Red Sea. They rescued a single emaciated survivor from the wreckage, a man who was an Indian sailor. He was taken to the court of Ptolemy VIII
Euergetes II, known as ‘Physcon’, to recover from his ordeal and while he was there he learnt to speak Greek. The mariner explained that he had been blown off course on a trade sailing from India and offered to pilot any Greek ship that would return him to his homeland. Physcon was enthusiastic about the prospect of direct contact with the rich kingdoms of ancient India and appointed a Greek navigator named Eudoxus of Cyzicus to command the expedition.
The Indian mariner revealed to Eudoxus how the seasonal monsoon winds could be used to make fast voyages across the Indian Ocean. Eudoxus reached the Indus kingdoms in a matter of weeks and exchanged royal gifts with the ruling rajas on behalf of the Ptolemaic regime. He also conducted trade deals in the Indian ports and acquired stocks of precious stones and valuable spices.26 His voyage demonstrated to Greek merchants how they too could profit from direct trade with India.
The Greek discovery of fast sailing routes across the Indian Ocean began an important new era in the development of the ancient economy. It took more than ten weeks for Greek ships to sail to India, but the voyage was costly and dangerous. There was also the further expense of customs taxes, set at one-quarter rate in Egypt and one-fifth in India.27 These conditions encouraged Greek and Indian merchants to meet at places midway between their home ports and exchange goods at sites where harbour dues were lower, or non-existent.
One of these early meeting places was Socotra Island near the Horn of Africa. When Agatharchides writes about these contacts, he reports ‘it is possible to see merchant vessels at these islands and many come fTom the place where Alexander established an anchorage on the Indus River’.28 Most of these intermediate operations were soon moved to the city-port of Eudaimon Arabia (Aden) on the Yemen coast. The Periplus of the Erythaean Sea describes this early era when ‘vessels from India did not go to Egypt and ships from Egypt came only this far. Our ships did not dare to sail to the places beyond Eudaimon Arabia and for this reason the city used to receive cargoes from both Egypt and India’.29
By the mid-first century BC most Greek ships ended their voyages at Eudaimon Arabia where they met with eastern merchants to take on board cargoes of Indian goods. In this era few ships would risk piracy and storm damage to complete the full voyage from Egypt to India. According to Strabo, ‘in these early times, not even 20 vessels would dare to sail beyond the gulf, or venture outside the straits. Under the Ptolemaic kings only a few vessels would sail to India to carry back Indian merchandise.’30 This was nonetheless an important achievement and for the first time a direct commercial link between India and the Mediterranean world was developing.
World History
