And justly was it held by the Ptolemies in high estimation, for from it they derived their immense wealth.  We are informed by Strabo, that the revenue of Alexandria, in the worst of times, was 12,500 talents, equivalent to nearly two millions and a half sterling; and if this was the revenue under the last and most indolent of the Ptolemies, what must it have been under Ptolemy Philadelphus, or Ptolemy Euergetes?  But the account given by Appian of the treasure of the Ptolemies is still more extraordinary:  the sum he mentions is 740,000 talents, or L191,166,666, according to Dr. Arbuthnot’s computation; we should be disposed to doubt the accuracy of this statement, did we not know that Appian was a native of Alexandria, and did he not moreover inform us, that he had extracted his account from the public records of that city.  When we consider that this immense sum was accumulated by only two of the Ptolemies, Ptolemy Soter and Ptolemy Philadelphus, and that the latter maintained two great fleets, one in the Mediterranean, and the other in the Red Sea, besides an army of 200,000 foot, and 40,000 horse; and that he had 300 elephants, 2000 armed chariots, and an armoury at Alexandria, stocked with 300,000 complete suits of armour, and all other necessary weapons and implements of war,—­we shall form some idea of the extent and fruitfulness of Egyptian commerce, from which the whole, or nearly the whole, of this immense wealth must have been derived.

Having thus brought our historical sketch of the progress of discovery and commercial enterprize among the Egyptians down to the period of the conquest of Egypt by the Romans, we shall, in the next place, revert to the Romans themselves, in whom, at the date of their conquest of this country, the geographical knowledge and the commerce of the whole world may justly be said to have centered.  As, however, we have hitherto only adverted to the Romans, in our account of the discoveries and commerce of the Carthaginians, it will be proper to notice them in a much more detailed and particular manner.  We shall, therefore, trace, their geographical knowledge, their discoveries and their commerce, from the foundation of Rome, to the period of their conquest of Egypt; and in the course of this investigation, we shall give a sketch of the commerce of those countries which successively fell under their dominion—­omitting such as we have already noticed:  by this plan, we shall be enabled to trace the commerce of all the known world at that time, down to the period when Rome absorbed the whole.

The account which Polybius gives, that before the first Carthaginian war the Romans were entirely ignorant of, and inattentive to sea affairs—­if by this statement he means to assert that they were unacquainted with maritime commerce, as well as maritime warfare, is expressly contradicted by the treaties between Rome and Carthage, which we have already given in our account of the commerce of Carthage.  The first