These routes, as well as those through Bactra (Balkh) and Maracanda (Samarcand), the two principal marts for Indian merchandise, were all in connection with the Caspian Sea, across which, Herodotus informs us, there existed an organised system of navigation.[149] On this point Heeren remarks:[150] “In the Macedonian period, the productions of India and Bactra were carried down the Oxus to the Caspian Sea; then over this sea to the mouths of the Araxes and Cyrus; after that by land to the Phasis, where they were once again conveyed by water to the different cities on the coast of the Euxine Sea.”[151] By means such as these, the chief trade between the western shores of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the East was carried on during the earliest periods of history. Babylon, Susa, and Nineveh, on the one hand, with David and Solomon on the other, having been the chief causes alike of its early success and of its vast extension. FOOTNOTES: [127] Gen. x. 29. [128] Taking all things into consideration, it looks very much as if the Saphara of Ptolemy (vi. 7, 41), described as a metropolis of Arabia, was the original Ophir. [129] 1 Sam. xviii.; xix. 8; xxvii. 8; 2 Chron. viii. 17, &c. [130] 1 Chron. xxii. 8. [131] 2 Chron. ix. 4. [132] Stanley Lectures, xxvi. p. 182. [133] 2 Chron. ix. 21. [134] Herod. iv. 42. Voyage of Pharaoh Necho. [135] Rich, “First Memoir,” p. 12. [136] Chesney, Euphrat Exped. ii. 602-3. [137] Cf. also Ammianus (“March of Julian,” xxiv. 3) and Zosimus (iii.) with Layard (“Nineveh” ii. 6), and Ker Porter (ii. p. 355), for the luxuriance of the date-bearing districts, and the general sylvan character of many of these plains. [138] It has been supposed that the Babylonian vessels passed along the Persian Gulf, from Bussorah to Crokala near Kurachi, and that they there met the vessels of Gerrha and Tylos, and proceeded onwards along the western coast of Hindustan to Ceylon; but there seems little probability that any ships strictly Babylonian found their way to India. Probably between Ceylon and Babylon there was more than one transhipment of Indian and other produce. [139] This Edict is a great curiosity. It was first copied by Sherard in 1709 at Eski-Hissar (Stratonicæa), and this copy is preserved in the Harleian MSS. at the British Museum, No. 7509. Leake, “Asia Minor,” pp. 229-239. It has been recently (1866) re-edited by Mr. W. H. Waddington with great care. [140] Herod. i. 194. Compare, also, description of boats at Rhapta (Arrian’s Peripl. c. 16); and the name derived from the way the boats were made by being sewn together. [141] See Journ. of Roy. Asiat. Soc. xix. 154. [142] Menander ap. Joseph. Ant. Jud. ix. 14. [143] Dion. lxxiv. Herod. i 80. Fellows’ “Asia Minor,” p. 281. [144] Herod. i. 91. [145] Heeren’s “Asiatic Nations,” vol. i. p. 70.