Opinions on this point, however, have varied considerably. Salmasius thought that Pliny and our author wrote at the same time, though their accounts of the same things are often contradictory. In support of this view he adduces the statement of the _Periplûs_ (§ 54), “+Muziris+, a place in India, is in the kingdom of Kêprobotres,” when compared with the statement of Pliny (VI. xxvi. 104), “+Cœlobothras+ was reigning there when I committed this to writing;” and argues that since +Kêprobotres+ and +Cœlobothras+ are but different forms of the same name, the two authors must have been contemporary. The inference is, however, unwarrantable, since the name in question, like that of +Pandiôn+, was a common appellation of the kings who ruled over that part of India.
Dodwell, again, was of opinion that the _Periplûs_ was written after the year A.D. 161, when Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus were joint emperors. He bases, in the first place, his defence of this view on the statement in § 26: “Not long before our own times the Emperor (Καῖσαρ) destroyed the place,” viz. +Eudaimón-Arabia+, now Aden. This emperor he supposes must have been Trajan, who, according to Eutropius (VIII. 3), reduced Arabia to the form of a province. Eutropius, however, meant by Arabia only that small part of it which adjoins Syria. This Dodwell not only denies, but also asserts that the conquest of Trajan embraced the whole of the Peninsula—a sweeping inference, which he bases on a single passage in the _Periplûs_ (§ 16) where the south part of Arabia is called ἡ πρώτη Αραβία, “the First Arabia.” From this expression he gathers that Trajan, after his conquest of the country, had divided it into several provinces, designated according to the order in which they were constituted. The language of the _Periplûs_, however, forbids us to suppose that there is here any reference to a Roman province. What the passage states is that +Azania+ (in Africa) was by ancient right subject to the kingdom τῆς πρώτης γινομένης (λεγομένης according to Dodwell) Ἀραβίας, and was ruled by the despot of +Mapharitis+.
Dodwell next defends the date he has fixed on by the passage in § 23, where it is said that +Kharibaël+ sought by frequent gifts and embassies to gain the friendship of the emperors (τῶν αὐτοκρατόρων). He thinks that the time is here indicated when M. Aurelius and L. Verus were reigning conjointly, A.D. 161-181. There is no need, however, to put this construction on the words, which may without any impropriety be taken to mean ‘_the emperors for the time being_,’ viz. Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian.