Periplus of the Erythraean Sea

While the author is unknown, it is a first-hand description by someone familiar with the area and is nearly unique in providing accurate insights into what the ancient Hellenic world knew about the lands around the Indian Ocean.

[citation needed] Schoff additionally provides a historical analysis as to the text's original authorship,[2] and arrives at the conclusion that the author was a "Greek in Egypt, a Roman subject".

Schoff continues by noting that the author could not have been "a highly educated man" as "is evident from his frequent confusion of Greek and Latin words and his clumsy and sometimes ungrammatical constructions".

For instance, the short section 9 reads in its entirety: From Malao (Berbera) it is two courses to the mart of Moundou, where ships anchor more safely by an island lying very close to the land.

For instance, "Rhapta" is mentioned as the farthest market down the African coast of "Azania", but there are at least five locations matching the description, ranging from Tanga to south of the Rufiji River delta.

The description of the Indian coast mentions the Ganges River clearly, yet after that it is ambiguous, describing China as a "great inland city Thina" that is a source of raw silk.

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea describes the trading empire of Himyar and Saba, regrouped under a single ruler, "Charibael" (probably Karab'il Watar Yuhan'em II), who is said to have been on friendly terms with Rome: 23.

Opōnē is in the thirteenth entry of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, which in part states: And then, after sailing four hundred stadia along a promontory, toward which place the current also draws you, there is another market-town called Opone, into which the same things are imported as those already mentioned, and in it the greatest quantity of cinnamon is produced, (the arebo and moto), and slaves of the better sort, which are brought to Egypt in increasing numbers; and a great quantity of tortoiseshell, better than that found elsewhere.In ancient times, Opōnē operated as a port of call for merchants from Phoenicia, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, Persia, Yemen, Nabataea, Azania, the Roman Empire, and elsewhere, as it possessed a strategic location along the coastal route from Azania to the Red Sea.

There are imported into this place the things already mentioned, and many tunics, cloaks from Arsinoe, dressed and dyed; drinking-cups, sheets of soft copper in small quantity, iron, and gold and silver coin, not much.

He is also said to have been familiar with Greek literature: These places, from the Calf-Eaters to the other Berber country, are governed by Zoscales; who is miserly in his ways and always striving for more, but otherwise upright, and acquainted with Greek literature.Research by the Tanzanian archaeologist Felix A. Chami has uncovered remains of Roman trade items near the mouth of the Rufiji River and the nearby Mafia island, and makes a case that the ancient port of Rhapta was situated on the banks of the Rufiji River just south of Dar es Salaam.

The southern part of the bay is protected from the deep sea by numerous deltaic small islets separated from Mafia Island by shallow and narrow channels.

[14]Felix Chami has found archaeological evidence for extensive Roman trade on Mafia Island and, not far away, on the mainland, near the mouth of the Rufiji River, which he dated to the first few centuries.

The Periplus informs us that Rhapta, was under the firm control of a governor appointed by Arabian king of Musa, taxes were collected, and it was serviced by "merchant craft that they staff mostly with Arab skippers and agents who, through continual intercourse and intermarriage, are familiar with the area and its language".

It is a fertile country, yielding wheat and rice and sesame oil and clarified butter, cotton and the Indian cloths made therefrom, of the coarser sorts.

There are imported into this market-town (Barigaza), wine, Italian preferred, also Laodicean and Arabian; copper, tin, and lead; coral and topaz; thin clothing and inferior sorts of all kinds; bright-colored girdles a cubit wide; storax, sweet clover, flint glass, realgar, antimony, gold and silver coin, on which there is a profit when exchanged for the money of the country; and ointment, but not very costly and not much.

And for the King there are brought into those places very costly vessels of silver, singing boys, beautiful maidens for the harem, fine wines, thin clothing of the finest weaves, and the choicest ointments.

Inland from this place and to the east, is the city called Ozene, formerly a royal capital; from this place are brought down all things needed for the welfare of the country about Barygaza, and many things for our trade: agate and carnelian, Indian muslins and mallow cloth, and much ordinary cloth.The lost port city of Muziris (near present day Kodungallur) in the Chera kingdom, as well as the Early Pandyan Kingdom are mentioned in the Periplus as major centres of trade, pepper and other spices, metal work and semiprecious stones, between Damirica and the Roman Empire.

They make the voyage to this place in a favorable season who set out from Egypt about the month of July, that is Epiphi.The Periplus also describes the annual fair in present-day Northeast India, on the border with China.

Thus three grades of malabathron are produced, and then they are transported into India by the people who make them.The Periplus claims that Greek buildings and wells exist in Barigaza, falsely attributing them to Alexander the Great, who never went this far south.

This account of a kingdom tracing its beginnings to Alexander's campaigns and the Hellenistic Seleucid empire that followed: The metropolis of this country is Minnagara, from which much cotton cloth is brought down to Barygaza.

In these places there remain even to the present time signs of the expedition of Alexander, such as ancient shrines, walls of forts and great wells.The Periplus further claims to the circulation of Indo-Greek coinage in the region: To the present day ancient drachmae are current in Barygaza, coming from this country, bearing inscriptions in Greek letters, and the devices of those who reigned after Alexander, Apollodorus [sic] and Menander.The Greek city of Alexandria Bucephalous on the Jhelum River is mentioned in the Periplus, as well as in the Roman Peutinger Table: The country inland of Barigaza is inhabited by numerous tribes, such as the Arattii, the Arachosii, the Gandaraei and the people of Poclais, in which is Bucephalus AlexandriaThe Periplus was originally known only through a single manuscript dating from the 14th or 15th century, now held by the British Library.