CONCERNING ANCIENT INDIA. 43

added. Many of the ancients, by an error in SEC T.geography extremely unaccountable, and in which I.they persisted, notwithstanding repeated oppor-tunities of obtaining more accurate information ,believed the Caspian sea to be a branch of thegreat Northern Ocean, and the kings of Syriamight hope by that means to open a communi-cation with Europe, and to circulate through itthe valuable productions of the East, withoutintruding into those seas , the navigation of whichthe Egyptian monarchs seem to consider as theirexclusive right. This idea had been early formedby the Greeks, when they became masters ofAsia. Seleucus Nicator, the first and most saga-cious of the Syrian kings, at the time when he wasassassinated, entertained thoughts of forming a junc-tion between the Caspian and Euxine seas by acanal" 7 , and if this could have been effected, hissubjects , besides the extension of their trade inEurope, might have supplied all the countriesin the North of Asia, on the coast of the Euxinesea, as well as many of those which stretch east-ward from the Caspian, with the productions ofIndia. As those countries, though now thinlyinhabited by a miserable race of men, destitute ofindustry and of wealth, were in ancient timesextremely populous , and filled with great andopulent cities, this must have been considered asa branch of commerce of such magnitude and value,as to render the securing of it an object worthythe attention of the most powerful monarch.

* 7 Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vi. c. n.