The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea is one of those human documents, like the journals of Marco Polo and Columbus and Vespucci, which express not only individual enterprise, but the awakening of a whole race toward new fields of geographical discovery and commercial achievement. It is the first record of organized trading with the nations of the East, in vessels built and commanded by subjects of the Western World. It marks the turning of a tide of commerce which had set in one direction, without interruption, from the dawn of history. With the spread of culture in both directions, Egypt and the nations of Ancient India came into being, and a commercial system was developed for the interchange of products within those limits, having its center of exchanges near the head of the Persian Gulf. Periplus is an essential book to understand how the international trade came into being.