India: The Ancient Past: A History of the Indian Subcontinent From C. 7000 BCE to CE 1200 by Avari Burjor

Author:Avari, Burjor
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-317-23672-6
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

India and Rome

With the founding of the Roman Empire in 31 BCE, India and Rome began a highly successful trading relationship that lasted for more than two centuries. The main reason was the increasing prosperity of the Roman populace and their insatiable demand for certain Indian products and those of China and South East Asia, which could be easily procured for them by Indian merchants. The annexation of Egypt by Rome in 31 BCE was also a factor of great logistical importance, because Rome became the mistress of both the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. The ports of the Red Sea, both on the Arabian and the Egyptian–Ethiopian shores, had had trading relations with India for many centuries, during the post-Alexandrine Hellenistic period and even earlier (Tomber 2000: 624–31). Relatively small Egyptian, Arab, Greek and Indian ships used to ply between those ports and the western Indian ones of Barbaricum, Barygaza and Muziris (Sidebotham 1991: 12–13). Until the first century CE, foreign mariners, with perhaps the exception of the Arabs of Yemen and Hadhramaut, did not fully understand the behaviour of the Indian Ocean winds, which meant that destinations were reached after prolonged detours by ships closely hugging the Arabian and Indian coastlines. This changed after CE 45, when Hippalus, an Alexandrian, worked out the pattern of seasonal winds (the monsoon), thereby helping his fellow seamen to sail through the Arabian Sea during the right season and shortening their journey time. The trade links with south India were to be particularly strengthened by this development.

After 31 BCE, the type of large vessels that used to carry Egyptian grain from Alexandria to Rome began to be built along the Red Sea ports, in order to be fitted out for trade voyages to India. They could be 180 feet in length and weigh 1,000 tons (Casson 1991: 8–11). A large Roman ship, carrying from India compact and costly merchandise of silks, fine cottons, pepper, costus, nard and spikenard, and bringing to India products such as two-handled amphorae, fine ceramics, bronze vases and delicate glassware, represented a ‘monumental investment’ (Casson 1991: 10) by many traders. As the captains of such ships did not normally sail to the east-coast ports of India, both import and export goods were loaded onto much smaller Indian ships that continually plied between the two coasts. At Arikamedu, for example, the foreign goods brought by these ships would be unloaded, and valuable spice cargoes from both India and Indonesia, along with other Indian goods, would be loaded onto the same ships bound for Muziris. This was the legendary entrepôt trade of south India (Miller 1969: 177–8; Casson 1991: 10–11). Generally speaking, the overall balance of trade between India and Rome was in the favour of India, and the Romans had to pay for the deficits in the form of bullion (Miller 1969: 217–41; Saletore 1973: 272–9). A large hoard of Roman coins found at Arikamedu and other places in south India, along with the archaeological remains of a Roman colony, testify to the vigour of the Indo-Roman trade.

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