LUXURY OF ANCIENT ROME.
The most remote countries of the ancient world were ransacked to supply the pomp and delicacy of Rome. The forests of Scythiaafforded some valuable furs. Amber was brought overland from the shores of the Baltic to the Danube; and the Barbarians were astonished at the price which they received in exchange for so useless a commodity. Pliny has observed with some humour that even fashion had not found out the use of amber. Nero sent a Roman knight to purchase great quantities on the spot where it was produced. There was a considerable demand for Babylonian carpets and other manufactures of the East; but the most important and unpopular branch of foreign trade was carried on with Arabia and India. Every year about the time of the summer solstice, a fleet of a hundred and twenty vessels sailed from Myoshormos, a port of Egypt on the Red Sea. By the periodical assistance of the monsoons, they traversed the ocean in about forty days. The coast of Malabar, or the island of Ceylon, was the usual limit of their navigation, and it was in those markets that the merchants from the more remote countries of Asia expected their arrival. The return of the fleet of Egypt was fixed to the months of December or January; and as soon as their rich cargo had been transported on the backs of camels, from the Red Sea to the Nile, and had descended that river as far as Alexandria, it was poured without delay, into the capital of the empire. The objects of oriental traffic were splendid and trifling; silk, a pound of which was esteemed not inferior in value to apound of gold; precious stones, among which the pearl claimed the first rank after the diamond: and a variety of aromatics, that were consumed in religious worship and the pomp of funerals. The labour and risk of the voyage was rewarded with almost incredible profit; but the profit was made upon Roman subjects, and a few individuals were enriched at the expense of the public. As the natives of Arabia and India were contented with the productions and manufactures of their own country, silver, on the side of the Romans, was the principal, if not the only instrument of commerce. It was a complaint worthy of the gravity of the senate, that in the pursuit of female ornaments, the wealth of the state was irrecoverably given away to foreign and hostile nations. The annual loss is computed by a writer of an inquisitive, but censorious temper, at upwards of eight hundred thousand pounds sterling.[7]