After the reduction of Babylon by Cyrus, the Persians, who
paid no attention to commerce, suffered Babylon and Ninevah to sink into
ruin; but Palmyra still remained, and flourished as a commercial city.
Under the Seleucidae it seems to have reached its highest degree of
importance, splendour, and wealth; principally by supplying the Syrians
with Indian commodities. For upwards of two centuries after the conquest of
Syria by the Romans it remained free, and its friendship and alliance were
courted both by them and the Parthians. During this period we have the
express testimony of Appian, that it traded with both these nations, and
that Rome and the other parts of the empire received the commodities of
India from it. In the year A.D. 273, it was reduced and destroyed by
Aurelian, who found in it an immense treasure of gold, silver, silk, and
precious stones. From this period, it never revived, or became a place of
the least importance or trade.
On the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus, the commercial communication between
India and Europe returned to Arabia in the south, and to the Caspian and
the Euxine in the north: there seem to have been two routes by these seas,
both of great antiquity. In describing one of them, the ancient writers are
supposed to have confounded the river Ochus, which falls into the Caspian,
with the Oxus, which falls into the lake of Aral.
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