Periplus of the Erythraean Sea : Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century

The Periplus furnishes a most interesting part of early commercial history. Its study enables us to have a glimpse of the first record of organized trading with the nations of the East, in vessels built and commanded by subjects of the Western World. The book was originally written in the form of notes, which has been maintained in the present translations and are of great interest giving as they do in exhaustive survey of the international trade between the great empires of Rome, Parthia, India and China together with a collection of facts touching the early trade of a number of other countries of much interest. The international trade of the modern world is everyday coming more and more under exact laws of demand and supply and in this perspective study of Periplus is of added importance.