274 GEOGRAPHY FROM AUGUSTUS TO TRAJAN. [CHAR
not allowed to vary, and litigation did not exist. The king was
elected, and careful provision was made that the office should not
become hereditary; his power also was limited by the appointment
of a council of advisers, and the imposition of capital punishment
was still further restricted. The land was well cultivated and very
productive, but the vine was not grown there. The natives were
famed for their longevity, often exceeding a hundred years. But
notwithstanding the sobriety of their manner of living, they were
reported to have a thoroughly oriental appreciation of gold and
gems, especially pearls, which were found there in great abundance;
and the ambassadors remarked with some shrewdness that, while
the wealth of their countrymen was greater than that of the
Romans, the latter knew how to employ it more profitably1.
We may now turn to a remarkable document, which was
composed about ten years after Pliny's death, the
Matrix Ery- Periplus Maris Erythroei. This is a manual of the
******' coasts of Africa, Arabia, and India which border on
the Erythraean sea; and as it introduces, not only the natural
features of those coasts, together with the harbours and trading-
stations, but also in great detail their exports and imports, it would
seem to have been drawn up by a merchant for the use of
merchants. Its great value for geography consists in the striking
power of observation which its writer shews, and the accuracy of
his statements, which have been amply verified by modern ex-
plorers. His name is not given, nor do we know anything about
him beyond what may be gathered from internal evidence in the
work itself; but from this it appears that he was a Greek residing
African *n Egypt. His starting-point is the port of Myos
Coast. Honnos on the Red Sea, and he first follows the
African coast of that piece of water as far as the straits of Bab-el-
Mandeb, mentioning on the way the places which had been
established by the Ptolemies for purposes of commerce and
elephant-hunting, and Adulis, the port of Auxuma (Axum), the
Aromata capital of Aethiopia, which was situated in the
Prom. (Cape interior of the country. Between the Straits
Guardafui). ,
and the promontory of Aromata (Cape Guardafui),
also, the stations are carefully noted, with the products of the
» Pliny, #JV.,6. 84 foil