CONCERNING ANCIENT INDIA. 49

Rome in their most prosperous state. Allured by SEC T,their description of them, about sixty years there- n.after, a party of more enlightened travellers, havingreviewed the ruins of Palmyra with greater atten-tion and more scientific skill, declared that whatthey beheld there exceeded the most exalted ideaswhich they had formed concerning it f .

From both these accounts, as well as from recol-lecting the extraordinary degree of power to whichPalmyra had attained , when Egypt, Syria, Meso-potamia, and a considerable part of Asia Minorwere conquered by its arms; when Odenatus, itschief magistrate, was decorated with the Imperialpurple, and Zenobia contended for the dominionof the East with Rome under one of its mostwarlike Emperors; it is evident, that a state whichcould derive little importance from its originalterritory must have owed its aggrandisement tothe opulence acquired by extensive commerce. Okthis the Indian trade was undoubtedly the mostconsiderable, and most lucrative branch. But it isa cruel mortification , in searching for what isinstructive in the history of past times, to find thatthe exploits of conquerors who have desolated theearth, and the freaks of tyrants who have renderednations unhappy, are recorded with minute andoften disgusting accuracy, while the discovery ofuseful arts, and the progress of the most beneficialbranches of commerce, are passed over in silence,and suffered to sink into oblivion.

After the conquest of Palmyra byAurelian, trad©

5 Wood’s Ruins of Palmyra, p. 37.

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