The Hellenistic Age was characterized by a general
increase in wealth. The old Greeks and Macedonians, as a rule, had been content
to live plainly. Now kings, nobles, and rich men began to build splendid
palaces and to fill them with the products of ancient art—marbles from Asia
Minor, vases from Athens, Italian bronzes, and Babylonian tapestries. They kept
up great households with endless lords in waiting, ladies of honor, pages,
guards, and servants. Soft couches and clothes of delicate fabric replaced the
simple coverlets and coarse cloaks of an earlier time. They possessed rich
carpets and hangings, splendid armor and jewelry, and gold and silver vessels
for the table. The Greeks thus began to imitate the luxurious lives of Persian
nobles.
THE SEA ROUTE TO INDIA
These new luxuries flowed in from all parts of the ancient
world. Many came from the Far East in consequence of the rediscovery of the sea
route to India, by Alexander's admiral, Nearchus. The voyage of Nearchus
was one of the most important results of Alexander's eastern conquests. It
established the fact, which had long been forgotten, that one could reach India
by a water route much shorter and safer than the caravan roads through central
Asia. Somewhat later a Greek sailor, named Harpalus, found that by using
the monsoons, the periodic winds which blow over the Indian Ocean, he could
sail direct from Arabia to India without laboriously following the coast. The
Greeks, in consequence, gave his name to the monsoons.
