As the Euxine Sea was the grand point to which all these routes tended, the towns on it became the resort of an immense number of merchants, even at very early ages; and the kingdoms of Prusias, Attalus, and Mithridates were enriched by their commerce. Herodotus mentions, that the trade of the Euxine was conducted by interpreters of seven different languages. In the time of Mithridates, 300 different nations, or tribes, met for commercial purposes at Dioscurias in Colchis; and soon after the Romans conquered the countries lying on the Euxine, there were 130 interpreters of languages employed in this and the other trading towns. The Romans, however, as soon as they became jealous, or afraid, of the power of the Parthians, would not suffer them, or any other of the northern nations, to traffic by the Euxine; but endeavoured, as far as they could, to confine the commerce of the East to Alexandria: the consequence was, that even so early as the age of Pliny, Dioscurias was deserted. The only article of import into Rome that remains to be considered is silk: the history of the knowledge and importation of this article among the ancients, and the route by which it was obtained, will comprise all that it will be necessary to say on this subject. The knowledge of silk was first brought into Europe through the conquests of Alexander the Great. Strabo quotes a passage from Nearchus, in which it is mentioned, but apparently confounded, with cotton. It is well known that Aristotle obtained a full and accurate account of all the discoveries in natural history which were made during the conquests of Alexander, and he gives a particular description of the silk worm; so particular, indeed, that it is surprising how the ancients could, for nearly 600 years after his death, be ignorant of the nature and origin of silk. He describes the silk worm as a horned worm, which he calls bombyx, which passes through several transformations, and produces bombytria. It does not appear, however, that he was acquainted either with the native country of this [work->worm], or with such a people as the Seres; and this is the only reason for believing that he may allude entirely to a kind of silk made at Cos, especially as he adds, that some women in this island decomposed the bombytria, and re-wove and re-spun it. Pliny also mentions the bombyx, and describes it as a natiye of Assyria; he adds, that the Assyrians made bombytria from it, and that the inhabitants of Cos learnt the manufacture from them. The most propable supposition is, that silk was spun and wove in Assyria and Cos, but the raw material imported into these countries from the Seres; for the silk worm was deemed by the Greeks and Romans so exclusively and pre-eminently the attribute of the Sinae, that from this very circumstance, they were denominated seres, or silk worms, by the ancients.