The southern tip of India, a land of vibrant culture and rich resources, was once home to three powerful kingdoms: the Chera, the Pandya, and the Chola. These Tamil kingdoms, often rivals, played a pivotal role in the ancient world’s trade network, particularly with the Roman Empire. Roman ships, laden with gold and silver, regularly sailed to these shores, drawn by the allure of exotic goods like spices, gems, and pearls. This lucrative trade profoundly impacted both the Roman world and the Tamil kingdoms, leaving an enduring legacy that can still be traced today.
The Lure of the Tamil Kingdoms
Roman ships, after traversing the vast Indian Ocean and often visiting northern India, made their way south to the Tamil kingdoms. This wasn’t a mere detour; it was the culmination of their voyages. The reason was simple: the Tamil lands offered irresistible trade opportunities. The Roman traders brought with them a commodity highly valued in India: precious metals. As the author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a firsthand account from a merchant, noted, the Tamil market was characterized by “a great amount of our money.” This observation is corroborated by the numerous Roman coin hoards discovered in southern India, some containing thousands of gold aurei and silver denarii.
Each of the Tamil kingdoms possessed unique resources that attracted Roman interest. The Chera controlled valuable inland gem mines in the Coimbatore district and cultivated black pepper in the highlands. The Pandya, their rivals, boasted even larger pepper harvests and managed lucrative pearl fisheries at the southern tip of India. The Chola, situated on the eastern seaboard, controlled trade routes extending to the Ganges, Burma, and Malaysia.
The journey to the Tamil kingdoms was not without peril. Roman ships often had to navigate hundreds of miles of coastline, avoiding pirate bases that infested stretches of the western coast. The Periplus warns of pirates in the region, a fact confirmed by the Peutinger Table, an ancient Roman map that prominently labels the area with “PIRATE” in bold red letters. There were also political risks. Indian kings sometimes declared war on foreign vessels, leading to clashes. Tamil sources record an incident where a Cheran king, Netunceral, attacked and seized Roman ships, capturing traders and their valuable cargo.
The Cheran Kingdom: Land of Pepper and Gems
Many Roman captains, seeking to avoid the dangers of the northern coast, sailed directly to the Tamil lands from Africa or Arabia. By the time of the Periplus, the primary destination was Muziris, the main port of the Cheran kingdom. Pliny the Elder notes that sailing from Ocelis to Muziris was a forty-day voyage with the favorable Hippalus wind. Roman lookouts knew they were nearing the Malabar Coast (Limyrike) when they spotted distinctive black eels, described in the Periplus as having “dragon-shaped heads and blood-red eyes.”
The Periplus refers to Cheran territory as the “Kingdom of Ceprobotos,” with an unnamed inland capital. Muziris, situated on the Periyar River, was a bustling hub of international commerce. Due to treacherous shallows, deep-hulled Roman vessels couldn’t sail directly upriver. Instead, they anchored in the lagoon, and smaller boats transported cargo to and from the city. Ancient Tamil literature, such as the Akananuru, vividly describes these interactions, depicting Roman ships arriving with gold and departing laden with pepper.
Muziris thrived on trade with both the Roman Empire and other Indian regions. The Purananuru describes the bustling port activity, with small boats unloading gold from large ships and warehouses overflowing with sacks of pepper. Archaeological excavations near modern Pattanam have unearthed remnants of ancient Muziris, including warehouse structures, wharves, wooden bollards, and even a large boat carved from a single timber. Thousands of ceramic shards from Roman amphorae, fragments of fine Mediterranean tableware (terra sigillata), and other artifacts provide tangible evidence of the extensive Roman presence.
The Cheran kings maintained amicable relations with the Romans, allowing merchants to reside in Muziris. The Peutinger Map even indicates the presence of a “Templum Augusti” (Augustan Temple) in the city. This temple, similar to those established by Roman merchants in Parthian cities, likely served as a focal point for the Alexandrian merchants who made the voyage to India.
Further evidence of a Roman community in Muziris comes from the Periplus, which notes that incoming ships supplied the Roman residents with grain, as the local Tamil diet was primarily rice-based. This suggests a substantial Roman population, including mercenaries, artisans, and craftsmen, residing in the Tamil ports during the peak trading season.
Interestingly, there is evidence suggesting that Roman subjects introduced Christianity to Tamil India. The second-century Christian theologian Pantaenus reportedly found Christian communities already worshipping in India, using a Hebrew version of the Gospel of Matthew. These converts claimed that the apostle Bartholomew had brought Christianity to their kingdom. The existence of a Hebrew gospel, predating the surviving Greek gospels in the Roman Empire, suggests early contact with a Judeo-Christian tradition, possibly through Jewish merchants involved in eastern commerce.
Tamil literature refers to the Cheran inland capital as Karuvur (modern Karur). To reach Karuvur, merchants traveled inland through the Palghat Gap, a mountain pass in the Western Ghats. This region, near gem mines in the Coimbatore district, is where most Roman coin hoards in southern India have been found.
The Periplus notes that Tamil merchants at Muziris exported “all kinds of transparent gems; diamonds (from the Ganges) and sapphires (from Sri Lanka).” Beryls were particularly prized, as they were also valued in Indian society. Ancient Hindu texts, such as the Garuda Puranam, list beryls among the most outstanding jewels, believed to bestow fortune and good health. The Romans used gold and silver bullion to acquire these precious stones.
The beryl mines were likely under state control, ensuring significant profits for the Cheran regime. Beryls were highly fashionable in the Roman Empire, adorning jewelry. Pliny describes their varied colors, including aquamarine, golden-yellow, and vivid blue. These unique gems became status symbols for many Romans.
However, by the mid-first century AD, pirates had expanded their operations, attacking Roman ships near Muziris. This led many Roman captains to favor the Pandian Kingdom, which offered better loading facilities and a wider range of trade goods. Pliny notes that Muziris was “not rich in merchandise” and undesirable due to pirates, recommending the Pandian port of Nelcynda instead.
Despite this shift, Muziris remained an important trade center in the second century, as evidenced by Claudius Ptolemy and the Muziris Papyrus, which lists trade goods brought back from the Tamil port, including pepper, Gangetic nard, malabathrum, ivory, and turtle-shell.
The Pandian Kingdom: Pearls and Pepper Power
The main Pandian port, Nelcynda, lay about sixty miles south of Muziris. It was a major export center for black pepper and, crucially, for pearls farmed in the Mannar Gulf. Pearls held a prominent position in the list of goods exported from the Tamil lands, as documented in the Periplus. Roman writers even attributed the founding of the Pandian Kingdom to an “Indian Hercules” who adorned his daughter, Pandaea, with jewels from the sea.
The pearl fisheries were worked by a slave force of convicts, as the Periplus explains. Royal agents sold the pearls to Roman merchants, enriching the Pandian treasury. Pliny notes that “pearls have the highest price of all valuable objects” and were primarily sourced from the Indian Ocean.
The Pandian fisheries produced vast quantities of pearls, generating enormous revenues for the kingdom. Ancient Indian texts like the Garuda Puranam and the Arthasastra highlight the value and importance of pearls in both society and treasury management.
Early Pandian kings actively fostered relations with the Roman Empire, seeking friendship with the Emperors. Augustus received a Pandian embassy in 20 BC, showcasing Tamil wealth and promoting trade. The ambassadors presented the Emperor with pearls, precious stones, and a giant Indian elephant. Suetonius records that Augustus subsequently offered a vast sum of pearls and gemstones to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus in Rome, possibly the very gift from the Pandian embassy. The Romans were astonished that the ambassadors had completed their journey entirely by land, taking four years to cross India and Iran.
Pearls in Roman Fashions
The Roman fascination with pearls fueled the demand and trade with the Pandian kingdom. Pliny describes how Roman society valued pearls for their radiance, size, roundness, smoothness, and weight. The finest pearls, often elongated into tear-shapes, became prized heirlooms. Teachings in the New Testament even use pearls as a metaphor for a valuable investment, comparing the Kingdom of Heaven to a merchant seeking fine pearls.
By the mid-first century AD, even moderately wealthy Roman women could afford to display pearls. The Romans distinguished between Red Sea pearls, known for their bright luster, and Tamil pearls, which were larger and had a mica-like sparkle. Pearls became a popular gift for suitors, as Propertius reveals, praising the persuasive power of his poetry over gold and Indian pearls.
Wealthy Roman women wore pearl necklaces, earrings, and even “little bags of pearls” around their necks. Martial describes a woman named Gellia who cherished her pearls more than her children, fearing thieves and claiming she couldn’t live without them. Valuable pearls were used to mark special days on calendars, as Martial suggests, celebrating anniversaries with “precious pearls from the Indian shore.”
A distinctive fashion emerged for pearl earrings, often paired with emeralds to complement their colors. Portraits on Egyptian coffin lids depict Roman women wearing pearls on trident-shaped earrings or multiple necklaces. This fashion spread across the Empire, with wealthy Syrian women also adorning themselves with pearls and gemstones.
Lucian describes affluent Roman women with “eastern sea-pearls worth many talents dangling heavily from their ears.” This extravagance led to innovations like the “castanet pendant,” where pearls hung on gold fittings, clattering together to announce a lady’s presence. Pliny notes this trend, highlighting the status symbol that even worn-out pearls represented.
However, this ostentatious display of wealth also drew criticism. Seneca denounced the fashion, lamenting women who hung “two or three fortunes” from each ear. Juvenal describes wealthy women with elongated earlobes from the weight of pearl pendants. Ovid observes that jewelry and dress had become more important than traditional female virtues.
Wealthy fathers were expected to buy jewelry for their daughters as wedding gifts. Roman husbands provided their wives with expensive jewelry to showcase the family’s wealth. However, some individuals indulged their mistresses’ costly tastes at the expense of others. Seneca praised his mother for resisting the allure of jewels and pearls, unlike many of her contemporaries. Petronius, through a character in his satire, questions the value of Indian pearls when they adorn wives engaging in adultery. Horace similarly compares a respectable matron with a prostitute, questioning whether pearls and emeralds enhance physical attributes.
The wealthiest elite took the display of pearls to even greater extremes, sewing them into clothing, including sandal laces. This ultimate statement of wealth meant that the precious stones were scuffed and dirtied, but it also signified that the wearer likely traveled in a private sedan chair, shielded from the crowds. Nero famously wore pearl-studded slippers and adorned his scepters and couches with pearls. Pliny criticized this practice, noting that people were no longer content with wearing pearls but had to fix them to their shoes.
These extravagant fashions resonated with early Christians, who recalled Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, warning against casting pearls before swine. The competitive displays of wealth often caused discord in early church communities. Paul advised Timothy to encourage women to dress modestly, avoiding braided hair, gold jewelry, costly clothing, and pearls. Clement of Alexandria echoed these sentiments, criticizing the extravagant use of pearls in female surroundings.
Nelcynda: A More Serviceable Port
The Pandian city-port of Nelcynda lay inland on the Pambiyar River. It offered significant advantages over Muziris. Tamil literature, such as the Maturaikkanci, describes Nelcynda as a large urban center with resplendent buildings, surrounded by a wide defensive moat. It was here that large ships, carrying “splendid prosperity and excellent gold,” docked in sheltered waters.
Roman sources confirm that the Pambiyar River was deep enough for large freighters to sail upriver. However, sandbanks posed a danger. Therefore, ships offloaded their cargo at Nelcynda and then sailed downriver to Bacare, where they anchored and took on their spice cargoes. This arrangement suggests that the Romans primarily sourced their heavy spices from the Pandian Kingdom, as their ships were still relatively buoyant after visiting Muziris. It also indicates a weight imbalance in the trade exchange, with lightweight bullion likely paying for large volumes of heavier spice.
Pliny, writing about Roman trade, explains that the loading difficulties at Muziris made Nelcynda “a more serviceable port.” He also mentions that “pepper is brought to Becare by boats made of single logs called Cottonara,” likely similar to the large vessel found at Pattanam. Tamil producers brought their pepper crops downriver in these vessels, possibly dealing directly with Roman ships, exchanging pepper for gold coins.
Pliny was aware of ancient Madurai, the inland royal center of the Pandian Kingdom, and mentions a king named Pandion, likely the ruler who sent the embassy to Augustus.
When the Pandian Kings warred with their Cheran rivals, Muziris was a prime target. Tamil literature describes a Pandian siege of Muziris, aiming to destroy its trade dominance. The Akananuru depicts the Pandian king on his war-elephant, seizing sacred images from Cheran temples after breaching the city. It’s possible that the Roman Temple dedicated to Augustus was also captured, with its artifacts relocated to Nelcynda.
Roman Troops in Tamil Service
Claudius Ptolemy confirms that the Pandian ruled from Madurai, an inland city on the Vaigai River. Tamil literature describes Madurai as a large urban center with palaces, temples, and literary academies, surrounded by towers, ramparts, and a deep moat. While most Roman merchants focused on the ports, some, particularly mercenaries and artisans, ventured inland to find employment with Tamil rulers.
Roman carpenters were highly sought after in the Tamil cities, employed to carve wooden statues and craft decorations for royal buildings. The Manimekalai refers to a Yavana-built pavilion, and the Perungadai describes a lamp held by a “beautiful crafted statue made by the Yavanas.” These statues may have depicted Tamil kings or Indian deities in Greek and Roman styles. Early Buddha statues in northern India display influences from Greek and Roman sculpture, with Greek-style halos and himations resembling togas.
Roman mercenaries served as high-profile guards in the Pandian kingdom, stationed at the city gates of Madurai. These men, likely military veterans, were known for their intimidating posture and careful scrutiny of passers-by. Tamil literature describes them as “excellent guards with murderous swords” with a “stern” gaze. The Silappatikaram notes that people entering Madurai would take care not to “alarm the suspicions of the Yavanas.”
Tamil accounts also describe Roman troops guarding the Pandian king’s command tent during campaigns. The Mullaippattu mentions a tent with double canvas walls, protected by “powerful Yavana guards” wearing loose-fitting clothing belted at the waist, similar to imperial military tunics. The Tamil word for the whips carried by the Yavanas, “mattikai,” seems to be borrowed directly from ancient Greek.
The Roman army utilized a long-range torsion-powered bolt-thrower called the “Scorpion.” Some Roman merchant ships may have had these weapons fitted on their decks. It appears that Roman mercenaries employed this technology in the service of Indian kings. Tamil literature mentions “war-engines” constructed using Yavana engineering, built into fortified gateways to destroy attackers with blades and missiles.
The Sivakasindamani lists “machines invented by the Yavanas,” including the “hundred-killer” and the “mechanical bow.” Other weapons may have been versions of the Archimedes Claw, used to grapple and overturn ships, and possibly petroleum-based incendiary weapons.
Black Pepper
Black pepper topped the list of exports from the Tamil kingdoms, as the Periplus notes. The Roman demand for this spice was so intense that Indian merchants called it Yavanapriya (Yavanas’ Passion). Pliny expresses amazement at the popularity of pepper in the Roman Empire, questioning why a substance desirable only for its pungency was imported all the way from India. Most Roman ships left the Tamil ports filled with black pepper and malabathrum, an eastern cinnamon.
The black pepper plant, a climbing vine, is indigenous to the hillsides of southern India, thriving in the hot, moist climate. The early pepper crop was picked in autumn, dried in the sun, and packed into sacks for transport to the trade ports. Roman ships timed their arrival to coincide with the incoming pepper harvests.
Numerous black peppercorns have been found scattered across the ruins of ancient Berenice, a Red Sea port in Egypt where eastern cargoes were unloaded. Archaeologists found more peppercorns than lentils, a staple food in Egypt, indicating the significance of pepper in Roman society. Large amounts of charred peppercorns were found near the Temple of Serapis, likely the remains of burnt offerings.
Martial attests to the popularity of pepper, mentioning its use by cooks to enhance the flavor of even humble foods like beet. A pound of pepper cost 4 denarii, about four days’ pay for a laborer, but used sparingly, it could improve dozens of meals. Pepper was also used in medical concoctions, believed to cure various ailments.
Pepper was added to many Roman meals to enhance flavor and preserve food. Many urban poor relied on food outlets that spiced their dishes to improve taste and increase sales. Richer households had kitchens stocked with various spices. Martial mentions Apicius, a famous Roman said to have spent a fortune devising extravagant recipes. The name “Apicius” became synonymous with fine dining, and a surviving collection of Roman recipes, attributed to him, features pepper in almost every dish.
Pepper was added to popular seafood, sauces, salad dressings, broths, and meat dishes. Apicius recommends cooking lamb with “ordinary bean broth, pepper and laser, cumin, dumplings and a little olive oil.” Pepper was also added to wine to preserve and enhance its flavor. Petronius suggests that forgetting to add pepper was a minor culinary error, easily fixed.
Pepper was sold in cheap paper wrappings, often made from old books and discarded papyrus scrolls. Statius complained about a book he received with disintegrating pages, “like those papers that get soaked by Libyan olives, or are used to wrap up pepper, or incense.” Horace muses that the fate of all “impermanent writings” was to be torn apart by traders and used for wrapping spices.
High-status Romans often received gifts from their clients, including spiced foods for feasts. Persius writes about larders overstocked with “peppered hams” and other delicacies. Martial mentions a lawyer receiving modest gifts, including “half a peck of gruel and dried beans; by three half pounds of frankincense and pepper.” Persius describes a “miser” who lived off dry salted vegetables and shook pepper over his food only once a year, on his birthday, suggesting that spiced foods were commonplace for affluent Romans.
Martial, however, preferred silver to pepper as a gift and felt cheated when he received pepper instead of silver. He later regretted this preference when he needed expensive pepper sauce for a feast and couldn’t afford the ingredients.
Martial recommended a recipe with pepper-flavored songbirds, and Petronius describes a dish with small birds cooked in peppered egg-yolks. Juvenal describes the owner of a mansion who employed experts to “skilfully arrange the courses and someone to spice the food.” Trimalchio, a character in Petronius’s Satyricon, even sought mushroom spores from India to flavor his food.
Pepper was sent to all regions of the Roman Empire and enjoyed by people with modest incomes. Pepper husks were found at a Roman quarry in Egypt, and peppercorns were excavated at an army camp in Germany. Military writing tablets from Vindolanda Fort in northern Britain record a soldier’s order for pepper. Roman pepper-pots have been excavated in Gaul. Excavations of houses near Herculaneum have recovered fragments of pepper corns and cumin seeds, providing evidence of the town’s diet. Even the sewers of Herculaneum yielded organic remains, including pepper corns, along with fish bones, eggshells, and olive pits.
Paint Pigments and Other Exports
The Tamil ports offered Roman traders a variety of other valuable goods, including ivory, hawksbill turtle-shells, nard, cinnamon, diamonds, and Chinese silk-cloth. Indigo, a processed plant material, was another significant import. Roman artisans used indigo for outlines and “light and shade” decoration on plaster walls, producing a beautiful purplish-blue color. Pliny notes that the cost of many murals had become more of a talking point than the artwork itself, lamenting the use of expensive pigments from India. Indigo was imported in such bulk that it undercut the price of the best Mediterranean paints.
The Romans also imported other concentrated paint pigments from India, including minerals and plant products. These paints were used in encaustic, or hot-wax painting, to weatherproof timbers on ships and create decorative emblems. Surviving examples of this technique can be seen on Egyptian coffin portraits.
During the second century AD, the government of Han China received reports concerning Tamil trade in the Bay of Bengal. The Weilue refers to Pandya as “the Kingdom of Panyue” and notes that its inhabitants were the same height as the Chinese. The Weilue also suggests that traders from Yunnan in southwest China were reaching Pandya by way of Burma.
Roman Exports to the Tamil Kingdoms: A Two-Way Exchange
Roman merchants offered the Tamils a range of goods, including red coral, peridot, antimony sulphide, realgar, and orpiment, used for making clothing dyes and yellow paints. Wine also appears on the list of Roman exports, although in “limited quantities” compared to other cargo, especially base metals. Persius mentions “someone who barters beneath the rising sun (distant east) and hands over the produce of Italy for wrinkled pepper and pale cumin seed.”
Archaeological evidence suggests that the Indian kingdoms received relatively ordinary Mediterranean wines, similar to those enjoyed by Roman garrisons on the European frontiers. These wines tended to have a higher salt content, making them less prone to spoiling on long journeys. The Tamils, who did not cultivate grape vines, drank “toddy,” an alcoholic beverage produced from fermented palm sap. In India, Roman wines were considered high-status commodities. Tamil poets describe servants pouring exotic foreign wines for the ruling elite.
Roman wine sent to Nelcynda was loaded aboard Tamil ships and taken to Arikamedu, a trade station on the east coast of India. Hundreds of Roman pottery shards have been found at Arikamedu, many of them from Italian wine vessels. The eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, which destroyed the wine industry in Campania, likely impacted Roman exports to India, forcing many Italian businessmen to rely more heavily on bullion for trade exchanges.
Pliny the Elder, who died during the eruption of Vesuvius, warned that Indo-Roman trade was draining bullion from the Empire. His estimate for bullion exports to India (50 million sesterces) predates the volcanic disaster and therefore underestimates the long-term increase in bullion flow.
The Tamils used Roman money as gold and silver bullion, valuing it for its trusted metal content and distinctive designs. Roman coin hoards found in Tamil India generally contain either gold or silver coins, rarely including issues from other Indian kingdoms. The concentration of coins found near the Cheran capital Karuvur could be indicative of a period of unrest, perhaps a war that prompted people to hide their wealth.
The Kottayam hoard, the largest Roman coin hoard found in southern India, was discovered near ancient Nelcynda. It contained over 8,000 gold aurei in a brass bowl, possibly a coin consignment for a single Roman trade venture. The hoard’s value, 800,000 sesterces, confirms the significant bullion exports to the Tamil kingdoms.
Ancient Chinese evidence further supports this. In AD 166, a Roman ship reached the Chinese Empire, and the Han Court questioned the merchants. The Hou Hanshu reports that “the Romans conduct a sea trade with Parthia (Anxi) and India (Tianzhu) and their return gain is ten to one.” This tenfold price gain is consistent with later accounts, indicating the substantial profits involved in the trade.
The Tamils preferred certain coin issues, particularly Augustan denarii depicting the imperial princes Gaius and Lucius, and Tiberian denarii portraying his mother Livia. Roman merchants made efforts to accumulate these specific coin types for export.
Almost all the silver denarii found in India are coins minted before Nero’s currency reforms in AD 64, likely because Nero introduced base metal into new denarii, reducing their bullion value. However, older coins continued to be exported until the second century AD, when merchants switched to exporting silver bullion.
Roman merchants also exported older gold coins due to their higher gold content. When these coins disappeared from circulation, they switched to newer issues or bullion.
Bullion Exports
Ancient evidence suggests that the Roman Empire heavily relied on bullion exports to sustain its international commerce. This became a significant issue for the Roman regime after the civil war that brought Vespasian to power in AD 69. Vespasian sought to increase long-term Roman revenues and secure the imperial regime. Suetonius reports that Vespasian declared that 40 billion sesterces were required to stabilize the state.
Pliny, a member of Vespasian’s advisory council, provides estimates for the cost of eastern trade in his Natural History. He reports that “India drains more than 50 million sesterces a year from our Empire.” Most of this sum was likely gold, and Tamil India was the main destination for Roman coin.
Pliny also estimates the total value of Rome’s bullion exports to the distant East at 100 million sesterces annually, including India, the Seres (Chinese), and the Arabian Peninsula. Southern Arabia, a major exporter of frankincense and myrrh, likely received a significant portion of this bullion.
Roman-Arabian trade is significant because the Arabs took a large part of their profits as silver bullion. Strabo reports that the Nabataeans prized embossed silverware, and the Periplus confirms that Roman ships sent these articles to the Saba-Himyarite Kingdom. The King of the Hadramawt regime also received large quantities of silver denarii in return for frankincense.
These silver exports to India and Arabia likely exceeded the amount of new bullion entering the Roman economy from its mines, creating stress on the imperial currency system.
Roman Currency
The early Roman Empire was rich in silver, and the regime issued millions of silver denarii. Julius Caesar introduced the gold aureus for high-value purchases, and Augustus fixed its currency value in relation to silver denarii at a ratio of 25:1. This arrangement gave the Roman economy a stable monetary system.
However, these Roman rates did not reflect international values. Silver was comparatively rare in the Han Empire, and market values near the Chinese frontier suggest a silver to gold value of about 10:1. Indian Kingdoms also placed a high value on silver, leading merchants to export Roman silver instead of gold for better deals.
From the Augustan era onward, bullion wealth left the Roman economy in large quantities due to eastern commerce. The Roman economy likely experienced the early effects of this silver depletion by the mid-first century AD. Nero’s currency reforms in AD 64, introducing base metal into silver denarii and reducing the size of gold aurei, aimed to increase government funds and establish a lower silver to gold ratio closer to international trade values. However, silver exports continued.
Trajan further debased the denarii, bringing the silver to gold ratio in Roman currency down to 10:1. These policies suggest that by the early second century AD, silver was becoming scarcer and more valuable in the Roman Empire. While Nero and Trajan received large quantities of gold from new mines, silver was leaving the economy faster than it could be replaced.
Revenue in Cash and Goods
One of the biggest expenses for Roman merchants trading with India was the quarter-rate customs tax. Many traders had their capital invested in the return cargo and were unable to pay in cash. Roman officials therefore allowed merchants to pay their import taxes with a quarter-share of their incoming cargoes. Some of these goods were auctioned in Alexandria, while others were shipped directly to warehouses in Rome. This meant that a large proportion of the revenue Egypt sent to Rome took the form of eastern commodities.
Clay seals found in Alexandria, stamped with “The Spices of Caesar,” confirm that imperial authorities controlled the shipment of eastern goods. By the mid-first century AD, large government-owned stockpiles of eastern products in Rome were kept under imperial authority. Nero famously burned vast quantities of incense at his wife’s funeral, demonstrating the scale of these stores.
The imperial government took a greater interest in eastern goods during Vespasian’s reign. Roman authorities realized that eastern products would sell for higher prices in Rome than in Alexandria. Vespasian established a new treasury department, the Fiscus Alexandrinus, to manage the increased resources from Alexandria.
Vespasian’s son, Domitian, oversaw the completion of large purpose-built spice warehouses in Rome, known as the Horrea Piperataria (the Pepper Warehouses). The complex, located on the Sacred Way, likely held over 9,000 tons of spice when fully stocked. The prices Pliny provides for eastern goods are likely based on state-owned products sold from the Horrea Piperataria.
The Horrea Piperataria also stored frankincense and myrrh. Inside, the complex was divided into storerooms and courtyards, with water troughs to dampen the heavy aroma of the spices. Funerary inscriptions reveal that people worked in the complex as Piperarii (Pepper Workers). Some storerooms were hired out to professionals, including perfumers and doctors like Galen, who stored his medical treatments there.
Statius emphasizes the importance of eastern goods to the Roman system, describing the income of the imperial treasury, including newly mined bullion, wool, grain, gemstones, pearls, and ivory from beyond the Empire. The discovery of ivory splinters at the Horrea Galbae confirms the significance of tusks imported from Africa.
Return Voyage
During the Augustan era, a few Roman captains explored the east coast of India, but Strabo reports that “only a small number have ever sailed as far as the Ganges.” Roman ships were smaller and found it easier to negotiate the Palk Straits between India and Sri Lanka. However, as larger ships came into use, this passage became unsafe.
By the time of the Periplus, most Roman captains ended their voyages on the southern coast of India. From there, they began their return sailings with the onset of the northeast monsoon in early November, although Pliny notes that many ships delayed their departure until January, likely to receive additional pepper stocks.
Roman captains discovered that the best place to wait for the homeward monsoon was a large protected bay in the Mannar Gulf called “the Strand.” Many merchants and passengers remained at Muziris and Nelcynda while their vessels sailed to this final anchorage.
The sailing to the Strand took Roman ships past Balita and Comar, a port with a religious community dedicated to an unnamed Indian goddess, possibly Manimekala, known to Roman writers as the pearl-adorned “daughter of Hercules.” Tamil literature confirms these practices, describing people traveling to Kumari (Cape Comorin) to bathe in the sea and cleanse their sins.
Roman ships sailing around Cape Comorin reached the shallow Gulf of Mannar, where the pearl fisheries were located. The Strand, near the Palk Straits, was described in the Periplus as “a bay connected with an inland region named Argaru (Uraiyur).” Over a hundred Roman vessels gathered at the Strand to shelter from the ocean surf and tropical storms. Indian merchants brought cotton garments from Uraiyur for further trade.
When the time came to return, Roman captains sailed back to Nelcynda and Muziris, collecting passengers and any additional cargo. By this time, some travelers would have spent over four months in India.
Roman ships sailing back to Egypt were joined by Indian vessels making the same crossings. Tamil literature describes the onset of the northeast monsoon, with white clouds and a dark, roaring ocean, signaling Tamil merchants to launch their vessels loaded with spices, silk, and aromatic woods. Passengers aboard Roman ships who returned safely to Alexandria would have spent almost nine months in distant lands, pursuing profit or adventure.
