22 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Chundragupta. Magasthenes was followed by Daimachus to continue the friendly relations. The Greeks maintained their intercourse with India through the Graceo-Bactrian kingdom for a long time though we have very scanty means to judge its magnitude and charter. The Chinese historians tell us “that about one hundred and twenty-six years before the Christain Era, a powerful horde of Tartars, pushed from their native seats on the confines of China, and obliged to move towards the west by the pressure of a more numerous body that rolled on behind them, passed the Taxartes, and pouring in upon Bactria, like an irresistible torrent, overwhelmed that kingdom, and put an end to the dominion of the Greeks there, after it had been established near one hundred and thirty years”. [1] Though the land communication was thus interrupted, Alexandria continued to be the emporium of sea trade between Greece and India. Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, during his governorship greatly encouraged the Indian Commerce. His son Ptolemy Philadelphus, in order to carry the articles of India directly to Alexandria started constructing a canal joining the Red Sea and the Nile : the project however was too big and was abandoned. He however built a city on the west coast on the Red Sea and called it Berenice and it continued to be the staple town for Indian trade :
“But while the monarchs of Egypt and Syria laboured with emulation and ardour to secure to their subjects all the advantages of the Indian trade, a power arose in the west which proved fatal to both. The Romans, by the vigour of their military institutions, and the wisdom of their political conduct, having rendered themselves masters of all Italy and Sicily, soon overturned the rival republic of Carthage ; A. C. 55, subjected Macedonia and Greece, extended their dominion over Syria, and at last turned their victorious arms against Egypt, the only kingdom remaining of those established by the successor of Alexander the Great.”
With the subjugation of Egypt the lucrative commerce from India flowed into Rome; but this was not the only way. There was another trade route for the Indian commodities into the west. It was a land route and was intended by Solomon to concentrate the Indian trade in judea. It passed the town of Tadmore or Dalmyra situated midway between the Euphratis and the
1 W. Robertson “ Disquisition ” p. 37.