sentences:  Mogadishu was part of the Somali city-states that in engaged in a lucrative trade network connecting Somali merchants with Phoenicia, Ptolemic Egypt, Greece, Parthian Persia, Saba, Nabataea and the Roman Empire.Somali sailors used the ancient Somali maritime vessel known as the "beden" to transport their cargo.According to the "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea", maritime trade connected Somalis in the Mogadishu area (known to the Romans and Greeks as Sarapion) with other communities along the Indian Ocean coast as early as the 1st century CE.