As given in the _Geographi Græci Minores_, edited by C. Muller: Paris, 1855.
The _Periplûs of the Erythræan Sea_ is the title prefixed to a work which contains the best account of the commerce carried on from the Red Sea and the coast of Africa to the East Indies during the time that Egypt was a province of the Roman empire. The +Erythræan Sea+ was an appellation given in those days to the whole expanse of ocean reaching from the coast of Africa to the utmost boundary of ancient knowledge on the East—an appellation in all appearance deduced from the entrance into it by the Straits of the Red Sea, styled +Erythra+ by the Greeks, and not excluding the Gulf of Persia.
The author was a Greek merchant, who in the first century of the Christian era had, it would appear, settled at +Berenîkê+, a great seaport situated in the southern extremity of Egypt, whence he made commercial voyages which carried him to the seaports of Eastern Africa as far as +Azania+, and to those of Arabia as far as +Kanê+, whence, by taking advantage of the south-west monsoon, he crossed over to the ports lying on the western shores of India. Having made careful observations and inquiries regarding the navigation and commerce of these countries, he committed to writing, for the benefit of other merchants, the knowledge which he had thus acquired. Much cannot be said in praise of the style in which he writes. It is marked by a rude simplicity, which shows that he was not a man of literary culture, but in fact a mere man of business, who in composing restricts himself to a narrow round of set phrases, and is indifferent alike to grace, freedom, or variety of expression. It shows further that he was a Greek settled in Egypt, and that he must have belonged to an isolated community of his countrymen, whose speech had become corrupt by much intercourse with foreigners. It presents a very striking contrast to the rhetorical diction which +Agatharkhidês+, a great master of all the tricks of speech, employs in his description of the Erythræan. For all shortcomings, however, in the style of the work, there is ample compensation in the fulness, variety, accuracy, and utility of the information which it conveys. Such indeed is its superiority on these points that it must be reckoned as a most precious treasure: for to it we are indebted far more than to any other work for most of our knowledge of the remote shores of Eastern Africa, and the marts of India, and the condition of ancient commerce in these parts of the world.