INTRODUCTION 
beer: a gradual development of the means of transport ; but the rate of 
development has been very unequal in different regions and at different 
times, and in our own age it has attained the highest pitch yet reached. 
As this development has proceeded, the variety of products entering 
into commerce and obtainable at particular places has constantly in- 
creased. In the earliest periods the articles in which commerce was 
carried on on a great scale, involving the longest and costliest journeys, 
were necessarily such as were of great value in proportion to their bulk. 
Such commerce supplied chiefly the luxuries of the rich, and commo- 
dities on which a high value was conferred by religion. Records of 
early Egyptian, Assyrian, and Phenician trade speak of gold, silver, 
and precious stones, ebony and fine woods, ivory and inlaid work, in- 
cense and perfumes, balsams and gums, apes, peacocks, panther-skins, 
and slaves as the principal gifts of commerce. Indian dyes (indigo) 
appear to have reached Egypt in the time of the eighteenth dynasty 
(1700-1475 B.C.) ; Baltic amber was probably brought to Assyria in the 
time of Tiglath-pileser II. (eighth century B.c.) ; and Chinese silks are 
known to have reached the Indus through Afghanistan in the fourth 
century B.C., though probably without anything being known in the 
country where the goods were bought of the country in which they 
originated. The silks were no doubt gradually transferred from tribe 
bo tribe on the route, and in this manner they are likely to have occa- 
sionally reached the West at a much earlier date. 
5. The trade in bulky articles such as grain brought from a distance 
was necessarily confined to regions easily brought into communication 
with one another by good water carriage. From an early period in 
Greek history the necessity for this trade gave peculiar importance to 
the grain-growing regions on the northern shores of the Black Sea.l 
Rome at the height of its prosperity first made Sicily a granary for 
central Italy during the later period of the Republic, and under the 
Empire grain was likewise obtained from Egypt and Cilicia, Mauretania 
and Spain. Sea carriage within the Mediterranean rendered all 
these sources of supply easy of access ; but where distant land carriage 
was added, especially for the materials of an artistic product, the prices 
demanded were such as only the wealthiest could pay. Varro in the 
first century B.C. mentions citron-wood along with gold as among the 
costliest luxuries at Rome, and about the same date as much as 1,400,000 
sesterces (10,5001.) was paid for Alexandrian tables made of thya-wood 
(the wood of Callitris quadrivalvis) with ivory feet. 
6. Coming down to the most flourishing period of the trade of Italy 
with the East, that is, towards the close of the fifteenth century, just 
before the discovery of the sea-way thither (157), we find that the prin- 
cipal articles of commerce were raw silk, silk-stuffs and other costly 
1 Since the publication of the last edition of this work this has been brought 
home to all geographers by G. B. Grundy’s Thucydides and the History of His Age 
‘Murray, 1911). 
2