[Footnote 7:  PLINY, lib. vi. ch. xxvi.; Periplus Mar.  Erythr.]

[Footnote 8:  ROBERTSON, Au Ind., sec. ii.  Periplus of the Erythrean Sea describes these Ceylon crafts as rigged vessels, [Greek:  histiopepoiemenois neusi].]

COSMAS was a merchant of Egypt in the reign of Justinian, who, from the extent of his travels, acquired the title of “Indico-pleustes.”  Retiring to the cloister, he devoted the remnant of his life to the preparation of a work in defence of the cosmography of the Pentateuch from the errors of the Ptolemaic astronomy.[1] He died in the year 550, before his task was completed, and one of the last portions on which he was employed was an account of Taprobane, taken down from the reports of Sopater, a Greek trader whom he had met at Adule in Ethiopia, when on his return from Ceylon.

[Footnote 1:  [Greek:  Christianike Topographia], sive Christianorum Opinio de Mundo.  This curious book has been printed entire by Montfaucon from a MS. in the Vatican Coll.  Patr., vol. ii. p. 333.  Paris, 1706 A.D.  There is only one other MS. known, which was in Florence; and from it THEVENOT had previously extracted and published the portion relating to India in his Relation des Dic.  Voy., vol. i.  Paris, 1576 A.D.]

Sopater, in the course of business as a merchant, sailed from Adule in the same ship with a Persian bound for Ceylon, and on his arrival he and his fellow-traveller were presented by the officers of the port to the king, who was probably Kumara Das, the friend and patron of the poet Kalidas.[1] The king received them with courtesy, and Cosmas recounts how in the course of the interview Sopater succeeded in convincing the Singhalese monarch of the greater power of Rome as compared with that of Persia, by exhibiting the large and highly finished gold coin of the Roman Emperor in contrast with the small and inelegant silver money of the Shah.  This story would, however, appear to be traditional, as Pliny relates a somewhat similar anecdote of the ambassadors from Ceylon in the reign of Claudius, and of the profound respect excited in their minds by the sight of the Roman denarii.

[Footnote 1:  Cosmas wrote between A.D. 545 and 550; and the voyage of Sopater to Ceylon had been made thirty years before.  Kumaara Das reigned from A.D. 515 to A.D. 524.  Vincent has noted the fact that in his interview with the Greek he addressed him by the epithet of Roomi, “[Greek:  su Romeu],” which is the term that has been applied from time immemorial in India to the powers who have been successively in possession of Constantinople, whether Roman, Christian, or Mahommedan.  Vol. ii. p. 511, &c.]