As early as the year 1343 the aggressive enterprise of the Venetians had obtained from the sultan of Egypt the exclusive privilege of sending ships to trade in the ports of that country and of Syria. The merchants of Venice thereupon established commercial agencies at Alexandria and Damascus. Their factors penetrated Central and Southern Asia, and became active participants in the remunerative traffic of those regions. The prized productions of the islands in the Indian Ocean, such as pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and other spices, were transported by them to Venice and distributed through Europe. Although the ocean along the western and southern coast of Africa to the East was believed to be navigable, no attempt was made in the fourteenth century to sail by it to the Moluccas or Spice Islands. Concerning the early navigation of the sea-path along the coast of Africa, from the Pillars of Hercules to the Arabian Sea, Herodotus says that when Necho, king of Egypt, “had ceased digging the canal leading from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf, he sent certain Phœnicians in ships, with orders to sail between the Pillars of Hercules into the Northern Sea [the Mediterranean], and so to return to Egypt. These Phœnicians, taking their course from the Red Sea, entered the Southern Ocean. On the approach of autumn they landed in Libya [Africa], and planted some corn in the place where they happened to find themselves. When this was ripe, and they had cut it down, they again departed. Having thus consumed two years, they in the third doubled the Pillars of Hercules, and returned to Egypt. Their account may obtain attention from others, but to me it seems incredible, for they affirmed, that having sailed around Libya, they had the sun on their right hand. Thus was Libya for the first time known.”[81] Pliny, the celebrated encyclopedist of ancient times, says that “while the power of Carthage was at its height, Hanno published an account of a voyage which he made from Gades [Cadiz, Spain], to the extremity of Arabia.[82] ... Besides, we learn from Cornelius Nepos, that one Eudoxus, a contemporary of his, when he was fleeing from King Lathyrus, set out from the Arabian Gulf, and was carried as far as Gades.[83] And long before him, Cælius Antipater informs us that he had seen a person who had sailed from Spain to Æthiopia for the purpose of trade. The same Cornelius Nepos, when speaking of the northern circumnavigation, tells us that Q. Metellus Celer, the colleague of L. Afranius in the consulship, but then a proconsul in Gaul,[84] had a present made to him by the king of the Suevi,[85] of certain Indians, who, sailing from India for the purpose of commerce, had been driven by tempests to Germany.”[86]