Cosmas Indicopleustes (Sixth Century CE)
Cosmas was a Greek merchant famed for his travels to India; in fact, his surname means ‘the Indian navigator’. He was probably a native of Alexandria and received an education but was not a scholar.
Against the prevailing academic view, he believed the world was flat. He certainly travelled widely – through the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, west coast of India, and Sri Lanka. He described his adventures in his Christian Topography, which was written in the mid-sixth century. His devout Christian views permeate the text, which nonetheless contains an interesting geographic account in the early era of the Eastern Roman Empire. When he had finished with travelling, he returned to Alexandria and became a monk.40The Christian Topography is written in twelve books, and we are mainly interested in Books II and XI for his geographic descriptions, the remaining books comprising religious diatribes denouncing the sphericity of the world, describing the size of the sun, and other subjects of a more spiritual nature. In Book II, he describes the Red Sea, north-eastern Africa, the Arabian peninsula and the passage to India. He writes:
The region which produces frankincense is situated at the projecting parts of Ethopia, and lies inland, but is washed by the ocean on the other side. Hence the inhabitants of Barbaria, being near at hand, go up into the interior and, engaging in traffic with the natives, bring back from them many kinds of spices, frankincense, cassia, calamus, and many other articles of merchandise …
His description of Tabropane (Sri Lanka) in Book XI clearly shows that by the sixth century CE it had risen in status to that of a major entrepot: ‘The island being, as it is, in a central position, is much frequented by ships from all parts of India and from Persia and Ethiopia, and it likewise sends out many of its own.’
He mentions ‘the five marts of Male [the Malabar coast of India] which export pepper’, and moving eastwards: ‘and then farther away is the clove country, then Tzinista which produces the silk. Beyond this there is no other country, for the ocean surrounds it on the east.’ This is important – Indonesia had been identified and China’s eastern coast correctly described. Cosmas was one of the few writers on geography in that era who had actually made the journey himself (at least as far as Tabropane) rather than relying on second-hand information.