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Raoul McLaughlin was educated at Lagan College, the first Integrated School in Northern Ireland. He studied Archaeology and Ancient History at Queen's University Belfast before completing a Master's degree and then a PhD on the study of trade beyond Rome's eastern frontiers. He lives in Bangor, mostra altro County Down, Northern Ireland. mostra meno

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Somewhere, I'd read that in the heyday of the Roman Empire that there was a fleet (or fleets) of vary large ships travelling from Red Sea Ports to India each year (for a period of 200 years or so) and they returned bearing mainly grain. This was news to me and I found it fascinating. Clearly there had been a lot of contact between India and the Roman Empire and I was interested to learn more about it. This book certainly delivers on the question of the shipping trade...though it deals with a fundamental question–how did the Roman Empire function and in particular, how did it pay for its military costs? The Roman Empire belonged to an ancient world economy that stretched thousands of miles across the Indian Ocean and significant commercial contacts linked Roman subjects with their distant counterparts in east Africa, southern Arabia and the kingdoms of ancient India.

There is reasonable documentary evidence about the economics of the Roman Empire. For example, in AD 14, the Emperor Augustus left a document in his Will that described the overall revenues and expenses of the Roman Empire. It included ‘how many soldiers there were in service and where they were; how much money there was in the central Roman treasury and the provincial treasuries; how much were the outstanding revenues and where they could be located... a description of the resources of the State, the number of citizens and allies under arms, information on the fleets, subject kingdoms, provinces, taxes both direct and indirect, necessary expenses and customary bounties.’
International trade had to pass through designated custom posts and all exports and imports were subject to fixed-rate taxes. Total trade figures were available, along with specific totals for certain commodities such as coin or bullion.
All goods sent to the Egyptian Red Sea ports had to pass through a single custom station and separate officials were tasked with assessing different commodities.
Cicero writes that in the Republican period Asia Minor was the only region to provide Rome with worthwhile surplus revenues and most provinces of the Roman Empire could barely meet their own protection costs. Furthermore, the revenues forwarded to central government in Rome were relatively small. Deficit regions were a problem for the late Roman Republic and certain European provinces had to be subsidised from treasury funds. Evidence indicates that most of the Empire’s revenue deficit territories were in northern Europe.
In the first century AD the Roman Empire deployed three or four Legions in Britain at any given time. These had to be supported by regional taxes supplemented by central government funds, Revenue comparable to the tax-wealth of Alexandria, was subsidising Roman Britain.
Ancient evidence suggests that by the late first century AD, bullion production provided Rome with between 120 and 200 million sesterces per annum. This was about a sixth of the revenue that the Roman Empire needed to meet its basic costs (1,000 million sesterces per annum). There were gold mines in Gaul and the Eastern Desert of Egypt, but the main bullion sources for the Roman regime were in the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal). Gold from Iberia was a long-term, reliable income source.
Most provinces paid very little tribute to central government and the expense of Empire was met by newly mined bullion and frontier customs taxes imposed on international trade. By the first century AD, the value of eastern imports entering the Empire via the Indian Ocean was more than 1,000 million sesterces per annum and this commerce raised more than 250 million sesterces in tax revenue for the Roman government.
Rome imposed a quarter-rate customs tax on all foreign goods crossing the imperial frontiers known as the tetarte. In Egypt this meant that Alexandrian merchants paid the imperial government a costly dividend to transfer eastern merchandise from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.
During the Augustan era the Roman army cost the Empire about 640 million sesterces a year. In this period, total spending by the Roman State has been estimated at 1,000 million sesterces per annum, taking into consideration administration costs, building expenses and other outlays. As long as international commerce thrived, the Roman Empire could meet these high-level military costs.
In the Roman Empire, merchants performed a function that in other regimes was managed by a complex and costly range of tax officials and State agents. Control over several crucial custom points in Egypt and the Arabian frontier, with only a small investment of military personnel, provided the Empire with up to a third of its required revenues. Added to this were the millions of sesterces in bullion extracted from imperial mines and paid directly into the army as newly minted cash.
When Strabo journeyed up the Nile with the Roman governor of Egypt, he heard direct reports about a dramatic increase in eastern trade. After only a few years of Roman rule the number of ships sailing from Egypt to India had increased from less than 20 to at least 120 vessels. This was an unexpected development for the Empire and it provided important new revenues for the imperial regime.
The entire merchant fleet of 120 ships was probably importing over a billion sesterces of Indian cargo per annum.
Strabo confirms that ‘large fleets are sent as far as India and the extremities of Africa and the most valuable cargoes are brought to Egypt. From Egypt they are sent forth again to all other regions and as a consequence, double duties are collected on both imports and exports’. During the Augustan era, Egypt was providing up to half the income needed to finance the entire Roman Empire.
Trade with India allowed the Romans to double the amount of revenue they received from Egypt and by the mid-first century AD the province was producing annual revenues worth 600 million sesterces.
The grain dole was a subsidy to Romans (annona) introduced by politicians in the Late Republic as a way of securing support from the citizen assemblies who took the lead in electing officials and ratifying State policy. The scheme was continued in the Imperial period when Augustus guaranteed that 200,000 adult male citizens in Rome received a regular grain dole from the State. And by guaranteeing food supplies for those who lived in the capital, the dole system allowed Rome to develop a larger urban-population than any other ancient city. The Han Empire of ancient China had a population equivalent to the Roman Empire, but its capital Luoyang was home to approximately 500,000 people. By contrast, during the height of its Empire in the first century AD, Rome had up to a million inhabitants.
Most of the grain sent to the Roman capital came from estates in North Africa that were either owned by the State, or subject to a government tithe. Egypt provided up to a third of the grain supply that fed Rome.
Ships on the normal trade run from Alexandria to Rome could complete several voyages during the summer months and most of these ships probably ranged in size from 70 to 400 tons.
Another important point about trade within the Roman Empire is that internal customs taxes (portorium) were generally low. Merchants shipping cargo between the provinces had to pay tax rates that were often set at about one-fortieth, or less than 3 per cent of the value of their goods. Furthermore, Italy was exempt from these port taxes as a special privilege designed to encourage incoming trade. This meant that merchants from Alexandria had to pay taxes to export goods from their home city, but paid nothing to offload this same cargo in Rome.
The grain dole also enabled people to afford other, non-essential items that could be purchased with their surplus income, including eastern products available in new food flavourings, perfumes and remedies. In Rome many people began to spend their surplus wealth on eastern spices, incense, ivory, gems and pearls. Pliny confirms that ‘pearls came into common use in Rome after Alexandria came under our power’ (30 BC). .....Throughout this era, the most fashionable, desirable and expensive items available to Roman consumers were the eastern goods delivered to Rome through the Red Sea trade. And Rome was centrally placed. Aristides proudly boasted that in Rome ‘there is clothing from Babylon and ornaments from the barbarian world far beyond’.
Incense production had an important impact on world resources and increased the prosperity of the regimes engaged in this trade. Nations that controlled the incense trade had a continuous source of revenue that offered them an important and dependable long-term advantage in world commerce. Myrrh and frankincense in particular were renewable crops that brought great wealth into territories near the Gulf of Aden. By contrast, civilisations like Rome and Parthia had no equivalent. By the first century BC the main kingdoms in southern Arabia were cultivating large groves of incense trees as cash-crops and were prepared to offer this valuable product to foreign merchants in return for gold and silver in the form of bullion and coins. The distant east produced many unique products that became highly sought after in Roman society for their properties as medicines, flavourings and perfumes. The value of the balsam crop is suggested by the rent that Cleopatra imposed on the gardens at Jericho. The site was producing income worth over 1,200 talents every year. This figure is equivalent to about 7 million sesterces in Roman currency at a time when the total revenues of Judea were less than 22 million sesterces. .
Among the intermediaries in the incense trade, the Nabataeans achieved a prime place in the trafficking overland of incense from southern Arabia to Roman markets. Their prosperity serves as an example of the riches to be made through the distant trade of valuable commodities. But by the first century BC, most incense was shipped aboard Arab dhows that visited ports in southern Arabia and carried cargo to harbours in the northern quarter of the Red Sea. On these journeys Arab vessels also visited settlements on the east coast of Africa
After an abortive attempt to capture central and south Arabia in early 25 BC by Aelius Gallus the area remained permanently beyond Roman rule and in a secure position to slowly drain the Empire of its bullion wealth through the long-term processes of trade. Pliny suggests that every year the Roman Empire exported more than 50 million sesterces of bullion wealth to Arabia to pay for incoming incense. 47 A large share of this wealth was procured by the Nabataean Kingdom which imposed tolls on caravans crossing their territory.
When the Persian King Cambyses II conquered Egypt in 525 BC he investigated prospects for an invasion of Meroe and sent spies and envoys south to establish contact. Deciding conquest was achievable, he led a large army south into Nubia, but his Persians were not equipped for a long-distance desert campaign. By the time they had covered one-fifth of the distance to Meroe (nine days march or 180 miles) the main army had exhausted its supplies and had resorted to eating their pack animals.
With the kingdom of Meroe to south of Egypt and Nubia Augustus was content to basically tax the trade rather than trying to annex and administer the territory. Foreign territories were ‘suitable’ conquests if they possessed rich revenues, or if they posed a threat to existing provinces. But in many cases Rome could obtain more revenue by taxing trade contacts with a free territory than they could gain by long-term conquest.
The Red Sea Route
Eastern contacts began in ancient times when the Egyptian Pharaohs launched ships into the Red Sea to make contact with a mysterious incense producing land named ‘Punt’.. Most of their incense came from Somalia and was brought to the Nile River by African intermediates, but when this traffic was interrupted by hostilities, the Pharaohs were forced to open the sea-lanes and send their own ships directly to Somalia. .
With the defeat of Cleopatra, Octavian had overthrown the last of the Hellenic dynasties that gained power after the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC). With all opposition removed, the entire Mediterranean was brought under a single Roman regime ending centuries of conflict and decades of repeated civil war. As supreme commander of the Roman Empire Octavian had assumed power over an estimated 45 million people.
Under Roman rule the Nile city of Coptos was the main clearing house for eastern imports and goods from Arabia, India and Africa were ‘transported to Coptos, the emporium which receives these cargoes’. and consequently the city became an important base for commercial businesses and transport companies involved in international trade. Roman officials and customs agents had their headquarters in the city and they managed the personnel and taxed the goods involved in distant trade ventures. It took about twelve days to sail from Alexandria to Coptos using river craft to transport cargo a distance of nearly 400 miles. From Coptos merchants and other travellers joined overland caravans bound for the two main Red Sea ports of Berenice and Myos Hormos. The danger from Bandits on the overland route danger was reduced when the Roman administration built new fortified stations in the desert called phrouroi and some of these outposts were large enough to accommodate several hundred soldiers. Plus the Romans built new fortified watering stations known as hydreumata.
Herodotus describes an ancient canal that connected the Nile River to the Suez Gulf but the passage was heavily silted. Conditions changed when the Nile–Suez canal was restored during the reign of the Emperor Trajan (AD 98–117). 104 The repaired route allowed passengers to sail directly from Alexandria to the main Red Sea harbours where they could board ocean-going vessels heading for India. Transport by barge canal was about one-sixth cheaper than overland haulage and many travellers used this route to bypass the hardships of the desert.

The Romans had no comparable product that could meet the cost of acquiring these goods from distant markets. So, in order to sustain international trade, the Romans had to export bullion to pay for their spices, incense and pearls. As Pliny explains, ‘both pepper and ginger grow wild in their respective countries, yet here we buy them by weight, using so much gold and silver’.
Assuming a fleet of 120 merchant ships, Roman Egypt could have been receiving: 16,000 tons of pepper and cotton, 10,000 tons of malabathrum and other spices, 7,000 boxes or 50 tons of nard, 360 tons of turtle-shell and 576 tons of ivory (over 14,000 tusks), per annum. Trade on this scale was feasible because the Romans were dealing with countries and populations that were as large as their entire Empire.

The Roman ships that sailed the Indian Ocean were large vessels by Mediterranean standards. With vessels that were up to 120 feet long and therefore had a cargo capacity greater than 350 tons. Some of the larger ships could have been double this size with over 500 tons of space made available for cargo, crew and provisions. The evidence suggests that Roman shipwrights involved in the Red Sea trade maintained their traditional building methods, but made use of eastern materials to create even stronger vessels.
Arabian pirates operated along the east coast of the Red Sea and there were further pirate bases around the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Roman freighters therefore carried teams of mercenary archers on board to repel possible attacks.
A single vessel could be carrying a dozen or more merchants, all expecting to make a profit in some distant market. A 200 ton cargo of black pepper was valued in Roman markets at over 6 million sesterces or 1,000 Greek talents. This sum could have paid the annual wages of 6,000 legionaries (more than the manpower of an entire legion) and pepper was one of the cheapest imports from India. The profits from international trade therefore gave Roman businessmen vast sums of disposable wealth to spend on their community.
the richest Roman businessmen earned more than the tribute of entire provinces.
Indian merchants travelled to Roman Egypt aboard their own ships and businessmen from the subcontinent were regular visitors to Alexandria.
One of the things I found interesting was the trade in “services”...in particular people...both slaves, and freemen such as mercenaries and carpenters. Roman women sought Indian slaves as personal attendants to escort them through public places, or as maidservants to attend to their fashion interests. The Alexandrian Tariff records that Indian eunuchs were subject to Roman import taxes which confirms that they were being sold to private buyers. The prices paid for eunuchs were extraordinarily high and could reach more than 100,000 sesterces for a single person. One of the most unusual imports from the east to reach Rome was abrasive sand. The amount of sharp sand required to cut a single, square block of marble was approximately the same size as the block itself.
The Roman merchant guidebook called the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea contains a list of the main products available from eastern ports. It’s a short practical handbook that contains sixty-six concise paragraphs written in a popular form of Greek known as koine.
9. East Africa and the Aksumite Kingdom
Roman ships entering the Indian Ocean attempted only one sailing per year when the seasonal monsoon winds favoured relatively safe, fast travel. Wind conditions permitted Roman ships to make voyages down the African coast anytime from January to September, but most vessels sailing to Somalia sailed in September, nearly two months after their colleagues had left for India. During the time of the Periplus, Roman ships on African voyages did not generally sail beyond the Horn. Distant trade connections continued down the east coast of the continent, but these routes were managed by Arab merchants who sailed in small dhow-like vessels with lateen sails. Some of these Arab trade runs extended hundreds of miles down the east coast of Africa to markets and trade outposts in Kenya and Tanzania.
Southern Arabia and the Saba-Himyarites
The first stop for Roman ships sailing to Arabia Felix was a port called Muza, which was on the Yemen coast close to the Farasan Islands and the entrance to the Red Sea (near modern Mokha). The voyage from Berenice to Muza was less than 800 miles, but the Periplus estimated the distance to be over 1,300 miles.
The Himyarite Kingdom ruled the myrrh-producing territories on the southwest corner of Arabia. Their rise to power came after the Roman attack on Arabia Felix (25 BC) which left the Sabaean Kingdom vulnerable to regional rivals. The Himyarites seized the Sabaean homelands and made the population subject to a new Saba-Himyar regime.
The Mercantile Code of Qataban dates to about 110 BC and is a market proclamation designed to centralise trade in recognised markets, facilitate the collection of taxes and regulate prices. The code specifies that ‘the King of Qataban has authority over all transactions and goods within his territory’.
The Indo-Parthians
Roman ships bound for India left the Red Sea ports in July when the seasonal northerly winds blew down the gulf. The first stage of the journey was a 700 mile sailing to the Arabian port called Ocelis. It took three weeks to reach Ocelis and Roman ships arriving at the town took on board fresh water and waited for the onset of the monsoon trade winds.
During the first century BC, Greek ships tended to follow the coasts of Iran on their eastern voyages to India. The Periplus describes this era as a time when ‘men formerly used to sail in smaller vessels, following the curves of the bays’. But when Greek pilots charted the shape of the Indian coast, they realised that shorter sea crossings were possible. When driven by gale-force winds, even the largest and most cumbersome Roman freighters were able to travel at speeds greater than six knots (nautical miles per hour). Roman ships heading for northern India crossed 1,000 miles of ocean in about seven days, while those sailing to the Tamil lands launched on a southern course and crossed more than 1,600 miles of open sea in just over ten days. Altogether, it took nearly seventy days to complete the entire voyage from Egypt to India.
They would spend at least two months in India, as the trade winds that returned them home did not begin to blow until early November.
Authorities in Rome were amazed at the value Indian society placed on Mediterranean coral. Pliny reports that [red] ‘coral berries are valued by Indian men as much as large Indian pearls are prized by Roman women. Indian soothsayers and seers believe coral to be a very powerful amulet for warding off dangers. So they enjoy it as a beautiful item and an object of religious power.’
An important part of the international commerce conducted at Minnagar [now Pakistan] involved spices, aromatics and plant-based drugs. Roman merchants received locally grown bdellium, nard and lyceum from the Himalayas and costus from Kashmir in Afghanistan. Silk route traffic reached the Indus, so Barbaricon [on the coast] offered silk and exotic animal furs, including mink and sable from the Asian steppe. Roman merchants also received locally produced indigo dyes, turquoise stones from Iran and blue lapis lazuli crystals mined in Afghanistan.
The Saka and Satavahana Kingdoms
Barygaza was ruled by a dynasty of Saka kings who came from homelands on the Asian steppe. The Roman Emperor Augustus received envoys from these Sakas in 26 BC, when he was campaigning in Spain. Suetonius explains that these Indo-Scythian ambassadors ‘were from nations previously known to us only through hearsay. The ambassadors carried a letter from Azes to the Emperor written in Greek on a vellum scroll. In it Azes explained that he held the allegiance of 600 minor sovereigns in northern India and ‘was anxious for an alliance with Caesar Augustus’. The Saka ambassadors who visited Augustus were accompanied by a Buddhist or Jain missionary who came from the Gujurat city of Barygaza. This holy man was known in India as a shramana (a monk or religious instructor), but the Romans took this title to be his personal name and called him ‘Zarmarus’ and ‘Zarmano-chegas’ (‘ Teacher’ or ‘Master of Shramanas’). Zarmarus probably sought patronage from Augustus and may have requested permission to establish a Buddhist or Jain monastery in Rome, Antioch or Alexandria. His request was denied, but Zarmarus remained in the company of the Emperor when he travelled to Athens in 21 BC.
To lessen these dangers [navigation at the river mouth] the Saka King Nahapana arranged for local rowing boats to guide Roman freighters past the sandbanks and tow them upstream to large sheltered docking basins in the Narmada River. The Periplus reports that ‘local sailors in the king’s service come out with rowers and long ships, known as trappaga and kotymba, to meet vessels on the gulf and guide them up to Barygaza’.
When the Sakas ruled Ujjain the Romans were able to do profitable business with the royal court. They offered high-value products to Saka royal agents in return for the precious stones the regime received as tax and tribute from Ujjain. According to the Periplus this included silverware, slave musicians, female concubines for the harem, fine wines, expensive clothing and choice unguents.
The Tamil Kingdoms of Southern India
There is evidence that Roman subjects brought Christianity to Tamil India. In the second century a Christian theologian named Pantaenus travelled to India hoping to establish a church movement but found that Christian communities were already worshipping in India using the Gospel of Matthew. These converts claimed that the apostle Bartholomew had brought Christianity to their kingdom and had given them a gospel written in Hebrew.
But Roman ships also carried mercenaries and artisans amongst their crew and people from these professions were prepared to travel inland to find employment with Tamil rulers.
Roman carpenters were active in the Tamil cities and their skills were highly sought after by the Pandian Kings. It seems these artisans were employed to carve wooden statues and craft decorations on royal buildings. Tamil accounts describe how Roman troops also guarded the command tent of the Pandian King when he went on campaign. Ancient Tamil literature mentions strange ‘war-engines’ constructed using Yavana engineering.
The Periplus puts black pepper top of the list of exports from the Tamil kingdoms. The Periplus explains, ‘pepper is mostly grown in only one region known as Kottanarike, which is connected to both trade ports (Muziris and Nelcynda). 100 The Roman demand for this product was so great that Indian merchants began calling the spice Yavanapriya (Yavanas’ Passion).
The Anuradhapura Kingdom of Sri Lanka and the Far East
Writing in AD 90, Josephus indicates Jewish knowledge of trade voyages to the Aurea Chersonesus, described as the ‘Golden- Peninsula, which belongs to India’. This is probably Burma, or the Malay Peninsula which Roman traders had begun to explore on their most distant voyages. According to Ptolemy there were three emporia and two city-ports on the northern Burmese coast. There were two further cities positioned near the Irrawaddy River which extended deep into Southeast Asia. Ancient Indian texts suggest that merchants made voyages to these regions mainly to obtain diamonds, sandalwood and cinnamon. Roman merchants probably used bullion to acquire these goods and would have sent slaves to the royal courts of Burmese kings.
The Chinese became aware of this commerce in AD 121 when a Burmese king from the State of Shan sent an overland embassy to the Han Emperor An. The embassy gave the Chinese Emperor diplomatic gifts that included exotic musicians and skilled conjurors.
Ptolemy seemed unaware of Sumatra, but he was able to record details about the neighbouring island of Java. Java was known to the Romans as Labadius, or ‘Barley Island’. It was said to be highly fruitful and had a capital city on its eastern coast called Argentae Metropolis. Roman traders probably received this information from early Indian settlers who called the island ‘Java-Dvipa’ meaning the ‘Millet Island’.
Most Roman vessels ended their voyages at the Burmese city of Tamala on the northwest edge of the Malay Peninsula. Alexandros indicates that Indian merchants landing at Tamala made a land crossing of the Kra Isthmus. Ptolemy explains, ‘they traverse from Tamala over the Golden Peninsula on a crossing that is 1,600 stades (176 miles) in the direction of the winter sunrise. There was a trade-station on the far coast of the peninsula where merchants embarked on other vessels for their voyages across the Gulf of Thailand (known to Ptolemy as the Perimulic Gulf).
The Antun Embassy to China and the Antonine Pandemic
In summer AD 165 Marcus Aurelius sent envoys east aboard a Roman merchant ship with instructions to make direct contact with the Chinese Empire. The Roman envoys who reached the Chinese outpost at Rinan were immediately dispatched under guard to the inland Han capital Luoyang along with part of their trade cargo.
At Luoyang the Roman delegates were granted an audience with the Han Emperor Huan and summoned to the inner court. They were asked a list of stock questions to confirm the scale and character of the Roman regime. Chinese reports claim the delegates represented ‘Antun’ which must be the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and his co-ruler Lucius Verus.
Based on these schedules the Chinese expected to receive further contacts from the Romans in AD 170, but no one came, not even Roman merchants seeking lucrative new trade prospects.
In AD 160, a virulent new disease was released into the ancient world trade routes, possibly by merchants returning from Borneo or some other previously remote region. The virus spread rapidly through Central Asia and in AD 162 an outbreak occurred among the Chinese army stationed on the northern frontiers of the Han Empire. In the space of a year the Han military lost a third of its operational army, with many more soldiers debilitated by the disease. Mounted steppe nomads immediately took advantage of the situation and overran the unprotected frontiers. The Hou Hanshu reports ‘the roads came under attack and communications were broken. There was widespread sickness in the army and three or four out of every ten men died.’ The epidemic was either an ancestral strain of smallpox or measles,
The epidemic of AD 162 inflicted more damage to the Chinese military than any enemy force could achieve
By AD 166 the disease had reached epidemic proportions in the densely populated cities of ancient Babylonia and the Roman army was ordered to withdraw from Iraq. The returning troops rapidly spread the disease into the main cities of the Empire, including the imperial capital.
Conclusion: Assessing the Roman Economy
Many elite Romans resented how people of low social standing could become prosperous from their successful business ventures and thereby gain fortunes that rivalled the inherited wealth of the aristocratic class. A further Roman criticism of eastern trade was that it created a consumer market for expensive foreign goods that were wastefully extravagant and ultimately unnecessary.
For these critics, foreign luxuries, especially in female fashions, were a measure of how far Rome had departed from its traditional values of austerity, military endeavour and respect for aristocratic ancestry.
The crisis of AD 22 abated because escalating prices attracted further merchants to Rome and the guarantee of profit led these businessmen to increase the provincial merchandise they shipped to the capital. Inflation was curtailed by increased supplies and prices fell back to affordable levels due to the additional imports.
The problem for Rome was that many eastern goods were a renewable commodity in the regions that profited from their production. These included incense and spices which were natural resources that were replenished every year. By contrast Roman wealth, in the form of gold and silver, coins and bullion, was a finite resource.
International trade steadily drained precious metal from the Roman economy and this process was only sustainable as long as the imperial mines continued to provide large enough volumes of fresh bullion. But when the mines were no longer productive, then the Roman Empire was destined to de-stabilise as other sources of government income failed to meet the cost of essential expenses, especially those needed to sustain its professional armies.
The evidence therefore suggests that Imperial Rome was financially dependent on a world economy and international trade was one of the main mechanisms that supported the Empire during its period of greatest prosperity.
Clearly there is a mass of information in the book. The voce just pulls a few of the themes and notes that I found especially interesting. Five stars from me.
… (altro)
 
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booktsunami | 1 altra recensione | Jan 12, 2024 |
Somewhere, I'd read that in the heyday of the Roman Empire that there was a fleet (or fleets) of vary large ships travelling from Red Sea Ports to India each year (for a period of 200 years or so) and they returned bearing mainly grain. This was news to me and I found it fascinating. Clearly there had been a lot of contact between India and the Roman Empire and I was interested to learn more about it. This book certainly delivers on the question of the shipping trade...though it deals with a fundamental question–how did the Roman Empire function and in particular, how did it pay for its military costs? The Roman Empire belonged to an ancient world economy that stretched thousands of miles across the Indian Ocean and significant commercial contacts linked Roman subjects with their distant counterparts in east Africa, southern Arabia and the kingdoms of ancient India.

There is reasonable documentary evidence about the economics of the Roman Empire. For example, in AD 14, the Emperor Augustus left a document in his Will that described the overall revenues and expenses of the Roman Empire. It included ‘how many soldiers there were in service and where they were; how much money there was in the central Roman treasury and the provincial treasuries; how much were the outstanding revenues and where they could be located... a description of the resources of the State, the number of citizens and allies under arms, information on the fleets, subject kingdoms, provinces, taxes both direct and indirect, necessary expenses and customary bounties.’
International trade had to pass through designated custom posts and all exports and imports were subject to fixed-rate taxes. Total trade figures were available, along with specific totals for certain commodities such as coin or bullion.
All goods sent to the Egyptian Red Sea ports had to pass through a single custom station and separate officials were tasked with assessing different commodities.
Cicero writes that in the Republican period Asia Minor was the only region to provide Rome with worthwhile surplus revenues and most provinces of the Roman Empire could barely meet their own protection costs. Furthermore, the revenues forwarded to central government in Rome were relatively small. Deficit regions were a problem for the late Roman Republic and certain European provinces had to be subsidised from treasury funds. Evidence indicates that most of the Empire’s revenue deficit territories were in northern Europe.
In the first century AD the Roman Empire deployed three or four Legions in Britain at any given time. These had to be supported by regional taxes supplemented by central government funds, Revenue comparable to the tax-wealth of Alexandria, was subsidising Roman Britain.
Ancient evidence suggests that by the late first century AD, bullion production provided Rome with between 120 and 200 million sesterces per annum. This was about a sixth of the revenue that the Roman Empire needed to meet its basic costs (1,000 million sesterces per annum). There were gold mines in Gaul and the Eastern Desert of Egypt, but the main bullion sources for the Roman regime were in the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal). Gold from Iberia was a long-term, reliable income source.
Most provinces paid very little tribute to central government and the expense of Empire was met by newly mined bullion and frontier customs taxes imposed on international trade. By the first century AD, the value of eastern imports entering the Empire via the Indian Ocean was more than 1,000 million sesterces per annum and this commerce raised more than 250 million sesterces in tax revenue for the Roman government.
Rome imposed a quarter-rate customs tax on all foreign goods crossing the imperial frontiers known as the tetarte. In Egypt this meant that Alexandrian merchants paid the imperial government a costly dividend to transfer eastern merchandise from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.
During the Augustan era the Roman army cost the Empire about 640 million sesterces a year. In this period, total spending by the Roman State has been estimated at 1,000 million sesterces per annum, taking into consideration administration costs, building expenses and other outlays. As long as international commerce thrived, the Roman Empire could meet these high-level military costs.
In the Roman Empire, merchants performed a function that in other regimes was managed by a complex and costly range of tax officials and State agents. Control over several crucial custom points in Egypt and the Arabian frontier, with only a small investment of military personnel, provided the Empire with up to a third of its required revenues. Added to this were the millions of sesterces in bullion extracted from imperial mines and paid directly into the army as newly minted cash.
When Strabo journeyed up the Nile with the Roman governor of Egypt, he heard direct reports about a dramatic increase in eastern trade. After only a few years of Roman rule the number of ships sailing from Egypt to India had increased from less than 20 to at least 120 vessels. This was an unexpected development for the Empire and it provided important new revenues for the imperial regime.
The entire merchant fleet of 120 ships was probably importing over a billion sesterces of Indian cargo per annum.
Strabo confirms that ‘large fleets are sent as far as India and the extremities of Africa and the most valuable cargoes are brought to Egypt. From Egypt they are sent forth again to all other regions and as a consequence, double duties are collected on both imports and exports’. During the Augustan era, Egypt was providing up to half the income needed to finance the entire Roman Empire.
Trade with India allowed the Romans to double the amount of revenue they received from Egypt and by the mid-first century AD the province was producing annual revenues worth 600 million sesterces.
The grain dole was a subsidy to Romans (annona) introduced by politicians in the Late Republic as a way of securing support from the citizen assemblies who took the lead in electing officials and ratifying State policy. The scheme was continued in the Imperial period when Augustus guaranteed that 200,000 adult male citizens in Rome received a regular grain dole from the State. And by guaranteeing food supplies for those who lived in the capital, the dole system allowed Rome to develop a larger urban-population than any other ancient city. The Han Empire of ancient China had a population equivalent to the Roman Empire, but its capital Luoyang was home to approximately 500,000 people. By contrast, during the height of its Empire in the first century AD, Rome had up to a million inhabitants.
Most of the grain sent to the Roman capital came from estates in North Africa that were either owned by the State, or subject to a government tithe. Egypt provided up to a third of the grain supply that fed Rome.
Ships on the normal trade run from Alexandria to Rome could complete several voyages during the summer months and most of these ships probably ranged in size from 70 to 400 tons.
Another important point about trade within the Roman Empire is that internal customs taxes (portorium) were generally low. Merchants shipping cargo between the provinces had to pay tax rates that were often set at about one-fortieth, or less than 3 per cent of the value of their goods. Furthermore, Italy was exempt from these port taxes as a special privilege designed to encourage incoming trade. This meant that merchants from Alexandria had to pay taxes to export goods from their home city, but paid nothing to offload this same cargo in Rome.
The grain dole also enabled people to afford other, non-essential items that could be purchased with their surplus income, including eastern products available in new food flavourings, perfumes and remedies. In Rome many people began to spend their surplus wealth on eastern spices, incense, ivory, gems and pearls. Pliny confirms that ‘pearls came into common use in Rome after Alexandria came under our power’ (30 BC). .....Throughout this era, the most fashionable, desirable and expensive items available to Roman consumers were the eastern goods delivered to Rome through the Red Sea trade. And Rome was centrally placed. Aristides proudly boasted that in Rome ‘there is clothing from Babylon and ornaments from the barbarian world far beyond’.
Incense production had an important impact on world resources and increased the prosperity of the regimes engaged in this trade. Nations that controlled the incense trade had a continuous source of revenue that offered them an important and dependable long-term advantage in world commerce. Myrrh and frankincense in particular were renewable crops that brought great wealth into territories near the Gulf of Aden. By contrast, civilisations like Rome and Parthia had no equivalent. By the first century BC the main kingdoms in southern Arabia were cultivating large groves of incense trees as cash-crops and were prepared to offer this valuable product to foreign merchants in return for gold and silver in the form of bullion and coins. The distant east produced many unique products that became highly sought after in Roman society for their properties as medicines, flavourings and perfumes. The value of the balsam crop is suggested by the rent that Cleopatra imposed on the gardens at Jericho. The site was producing income worth over 1,200 talents every year. This figure is equivalent to about 7 million sesterces in Roman currency at a time when the total revenues of Judea were less than 22 million sesterces. .
Among the intermediaries in the incense trade, the Nabataeans achieved a prime place in the trafficking overland of incense from southern Arabia to Roman markets. Their prosperity serves as an example of the riches to be made through the distant trade of valuable commodities. But by the first century BC, most incense was shipped aboard Arab dhows that visited ports in southern Arabia and carried cargo to harbours in the northern quarter of the Red Sea. On these journeys Arab vessels also visited settlements on the east coast of Africa
After an abortive attempt to capture central and south Arabia in early 25 BC by Aelius Gallus the area remained permanently beyond Roman rule and in a secure position to slowly drain the Empire of its bullion wealth through the long-term processes of trade. Pliny suggests that every year the Roman Empire exported more than 50 million sesterces of bullion wealth to Arabia to pay for incoming incense. 47 A large share of this wealth was procured by the Nabataean Kingdom which imposed tolls on caravans crossing their territory.
When the Persian King Cambyses II conquered Egypt in 525 BC he investigated prospects for an invasion of Meroe and sent spies and envoys south to establish contact. Deciding conquest was achievable, he led a large army south into Nubia, but his Persians were not equipped for a long-distance desert campaign. By the time they had covered one-fifth of the distance to Meroe (nine days march or 180 miles) the main army had exhausted its supplies and had resorted to eating their pack animals.
With the kingdom of Meroe to south of Egypt and Nubia Augustus was content to basically tax the trade rather than trying to annex and administer the territory. Foreign territories were ‘suitable’ conquests if they possessed rich revenues, or if they posed a threat to existing provinces. But in many cases Rome could obtain more revenue by taxing trade contacts with a free territory than they could gain by long-term conquest.
The Red Sea Route
Eastern contacts began in ancient times when the Egyptian Pharaohs launched ships into the Red Sea to make contact with a mysterious incense producing land named ‘Punt’.. Most of their incense came from Somalia and was brought to the Nile River by African intermediates, but when this traffic was interrupted by hostilities, the Pharaohs were forced to open the sea-lanes and send their own ships directly to Somalia. .
With the defeat of Cleopatra, Octavian had overthrown the last of the Hellenic dynasties that gained power after the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC). With all opposition removed, the entire Mediterranean was brought under a single Roman regime ending centuries of conflict and decades of repeated civil war. As supreme commander of the Roman Empire Octavian had assumed power over an estimated 45 million people.
Under Roman rule the Nile city of Coptos was the main clearing house for eastern imports and goods from Arabia, India and Africa were ‘transported to Coptos, the emporium which receives these cargoes’. and consequently the city became an important base for commercial businesses and transport companies involved in international trade. Roman officials and customs agents had their headquarters in the city and they managed the personnel and taxed the goods involved in distant trade ventures. It took about twelve days to sail from Alexandria to Coptos using river craft to transport cargo a distance of nearly 400 miles. From Coptos merchants and other travellers joined overland caravans bound for the two main Red Sea ports of Berenice and Myos Hormos. The danger from Bandits on the overland route danger was reduced when the Roman administration built new fortified stations in the desert called phrouroi and some of these outposts were large enough to accommodate several hundred soldiers. Plus the Romans built new fortified watering stations known as hydreumata.
Herodotus describes an ancient canal that connected the Nile River to the Suez Gulf but the passage was heavily silted. Conditions changed when the Nile–Suez canal was restored during the reign of the Emperor Trajan (AD 98–117). 104 The repaired route allowed passengers to sail directly from Alexandria to the main Red Sea harbours where they could board ocean-going vessels heading for India. Transport by barge canal was about one-sixth cheaper than overland haulage and many travellers used this route to bypass the hardships of the desert.

The Romans had no comparable product that could meet the cost of acquiring these goods from distant markets. So, in order to sustain international trade, the Romans had to export bullion to pay for their spices, incense and pearls. As Pliny explains, ‘both pepper and ginger grow wild in their respective countries, yet here we buy them by weight, using so much gold and silver’.
Assuming a fleet of 120 merchant ships, Roman Egypt could have been receiving: 16,000 tons of pepper and cotton, 10,000 tons of malabathrum and other spices, 7,000 boxes or 50 tons of nard, 360 tons of turtle-shell and 576 tons of ivory (over 14,000 tusks), per annum. Trade on this scale was feasible because the Romans were dealing with countries and populations that were as large as their entire Empire.

The Roman ships that sailed the Indian Ocean were large vessels by Mediterranean standards. With vessels that were up to 120 feet long and therefore had a cargo capacity greater than 350 tons. Some of the larger ships could have been double this size with over 500 tons of space made available for cargo, crew and provisions. The evidence suggests that Roman shipwrights involved in the Red Sea trade maintained their traditional building methods, but made use of eastern materials to create even stronger vessels.
Arabian pirates operated along the east coast of the Red Sea and there were further pirate bases around the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Roman freighters therefore carried teams of mercenary archers on board to repel possible attacks.
A single vessel could be carrying a dozen or more merchants, all expecting to make a profit in some distant market. A 200 ton cargo of black pepper was valued in Roman markets at over 6 million sesterces or 1,000 Greek talents. This sum could have paid the annual wages of 6,000 legionaries (more than the manpower of an entire legion) and pepper was one of the cheapest imports from India. The profits from international trade therefore gave Roman businessmen vast sums of disposable wealth to spend on their community.
the richest Roman businessmen earned more than the tribute of entire provinces.
Indian merchants travelled to Roman Egypt aboard their own ships and businessmen from the subcontinent were regular visitors to Alexandria.
One of the things I found interesting was the trade in “services”...in particular people...both slaves, and freemen such as mercenaries and carpenters. Roman women sought Indian slaves as personal attendants to escort them through public places, or as maidservants to attend to their fashion interests. The Alexandrian Tariff records that Indian eunuchs were subject to Roman import taxes which confirms that they were being sold to private buyers. The prices paid for eunuchs were extraordinarily high and could reach more than 100,000 sesterces for a single person. One of the most unusual imports from the east to reach Rome was abrasive sand. The amount of sharp sand required to cut a single, square block of marble was approximately the same size as the block itself.
The Roman merchant guidebook called the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea contains a list of the main products available from eastern ports. It’s a short practical handbook that contains sixty-six concise paragraphs written in a popular form of Greek known as koine.
9. East Africa and the Aksumite Kingdom
Roman ships entering the Indian Ocean attempted only one sailing per year when the seasonal monsoon winds favoured relatively safe, fast travel. Wind conditions permitted Roman ships to make voyages down the African coast anytime from January to September, but most vessels sailing to Somalia sailed in September, nearly two months after their colleagues had left for India. During the time of the Periplus, Roman ships on African voyages did not generally sail beyond the Horn. Distant trade connections continued down the east coast of the continent, but these routes were managed by Arab merchants who sailed in small dhow-like vessels with lateen sails. Some of these Arab trade runs extended hundreds of miles down the east coast of Africa to markets and trade outposts in Kenya and Tanzania.
Southern Arabia and the Saba-Himyarites
The first stop for Roman ships sailing to Arabia Felix was a port called Muza, which was on the Yemen coast close to the Farasan Islands and the entrance to the Red Sea (near modern Mokha). The voyage from Berenice to Muza was less than 800 miles, but the Periplus estimated the distance to be over 1,300 miles.
The Himyarite Kingdom ruled the myrrh-producing territories on the southwest corner of Arabia. Their rise to power came after the Roman attack on Arabia Felix (25 BC) which left the Sabaean Kingdom vulnerable to regional rivals. The Himyarites seized the Sabaean homelands and made the population subject to a new Saba-Himyar regime.
The Mercantile Code of Qataban dates to about 110 BC and is a market proclamation designed to centralise trade in recognised markets, facilitate the collection of taxes and regulate prices. The code specifies that ‘the King of Qataban has authority over all transactions and goods within his territory’.
The Indo-Parthians
Roman ships bound for India left the Red Sea ports in July when the seasonal northerly winds blew down the gulf. The first stage of the journey was a 700 mile sailing to the Arabian port called Ocelis. It took three weeks to reach Ocelis and Roman ships arriving at the town took on board fresh water and waited for the onset of the monsoon trade winds.
During the first century BC, Greek ships tended to follow the coasts of Iran on their eastern voyages to India. The Periplus describes this era as a time when ‘men formerly used to sail in smaller vessels, following the curves of the bays’. But when Greek pilots charted the shape of the Indian coast, they realised that shorter sea crossings were possible. When driven by gale-force winds, even the largest and most cumbersome Roman freighters were able to travel at speeds greater than six knots (nautical miles per hour). Roman ships heading for northern India crossed 1,000 miles of ocean in about seven days, while those sailing to the Tamil lands launched on a southern course and crossed more than 1,600 miles of open sea in just over ten days. Altogether, it took nearly seventy days to complete the entire voyage from Egypt to India.
They would spend at least two months in India, as the trade winds that returned them home did not begin to blow until early November.
Authorities in Rome were amazed at the value Indian society placed on Mediterranean coral. Pliny reports that [red] ‘coral berries are valued by Indian men as much as large Indian pearls are prized by Roman women. Indian soothsayers and seers believe coral to be a very powerful amulet for warding off dangers. So they enjoy it as a beautiful item and an object of religious power.’
An important part of the international commerce conducted at Minnagar [now Pakistan] involved spices, aromatics and plant-based drugs. Roman merchants received locally grown bdellium, nard and lyceum from the Himalayas and costus from Kashmir in Afghanistan. Silk route traffic reached the Indus, so Barbaricon [on the coast] offered silk and exotic animal furs, including mink and sable from the Asian steppe. Roman merchants also received locally produced indigo dyes, turquoise stones from Iran and blue lapis lazuli crystals mined in Afghanistan.
The Saka and Satavahana Kingdoms
Barygaza was ruled by a dynasty of Saka kings who came from homelands on the Asian steppe. The Roman Emperor Augustus received envoys from these Sakas in 26 BC, when he was campaigning in Spain. Suetonius explains that these Indo-Scythian ambassadors ‘were from nations previously known to us only through hearsay. The ambassadors carried a letter from Azes to the Emperor written in Greek on a vellum scroll. In it Azes explained that he held the allegiance of 600 minor sovereigns in northern India and ‘was anxious for an alliance with Caesar Augustus’. The Saka ambassadors who visited Augustus were accompanied by a Buddhist or Jain missionary who came from the Gujurat city of Barygaza. This holy man was known in India as a shramana (a monk or religious instructor), but the Romans took this title to be his personal name and called him ‘Zarmarus’ and ‘Zarmano-chegas’ (‘ Teacher’ or ‘Master of Shramanas’). Zarmarus probably sought patronage from Augustus and may have requested permission to establish a Buddhist or Jain monastery in Rome, Antioch or Alexandria. His request was denied, but Zarmarus remained in the company of the Emperor when he travelled to Athens in 21 BC.
To lessen these dangers [navigation at the river mouth] the Saka King Nahapana arranged for local rowing boats to guide Roman freighters past the sandbanks and tow them upstream to large sheltered docking basins in the Narmada River. The Periplus reports that ‘local sailors in the king’s service come out with rowers and long ships, known as trappaga and kotymba, to meet vessels on the gulf and guide them up to Barygaza’.
When the Sakas ruled Ujjain the Romans were able to do profitable business with the royal court. They offered high-value products to Saka royal agents in return for the precious stones the regime received as tax and tribute from Ujjain. According to the Periplus this included silverware, slave musicians, female concubines for the harem, fine wines, expensive clothing and choice unguents.
The Tamil Kingdoms of Southern India
There is evidence that Roman subjects brought Christianity to Tamil India. In the second century a Christian theologian named Pantaenus travelled to India hoping to establish a church movement but found that Christian communities were already worshipping in India using the Gospel of Matthew. These converts claimed that the apostle Bartholomew had brought Christianity to their kingdom and had given them a gospel written in Hebrew.
But Roman ships also carried mercenaries and artisans amongst their crew and people from these professions were prepared to travel inland to find employment with Tamil rulers.
Roman carpenters were active in the Tamil cities and their skills were highly sought after by the Pandian Kings. It seems these artisans were employed to carve wooden statues and craft decorations on royal buildings. Tamil accounts describe how Roman troops also guarded the command tent of the Pandian King when he went on campaign. Ancient Tamil literature mentions strange ‘war-engines’ constructed using Yavana engineering.
The Periplus puts black pepper top of the list of exports from the Tamil kingdoms. The Periplus explains, ‘pepper is mostly grown in only one region known as Kottanarike, which is connected to both trade ports (Muziris and Nelcynda). 100 The Roman demand for this product was so great that Indian merchants began calling the spice Yavanapriya (Yavanas’ Passion).
The Anuradhapura Kingdom of Sri Lanka and the Far East
Writing in AD 90, Josephus indicates Jewish knowledge of trade voyages to the Aurea Chersonesus, described as the ‘Golden- Peninsula, which belongs to India’. This is probably Burma, or the Malay Peninsula which Roman traders had begun to explore on their most distant voyages. According to Ptolemy there were three emporia and two city-ports on the northern Burmese coast. There were two further cities positioned near the Irrawaddy River which extended deep into Southeast Asia. Ancient Indian texts suggest that merchants made voyages to these regions mainly to obtain diamonds, sandalwood and cinnamon. Roman merchants probably used bullion to acquire these goods and would have sent slaves to the royal courts of Burmese kings.
The Chinese became aware of this commerce in AD 121 when a Burmese king from the State of Shan sent an overland embassy to the Han Emperor An. The embassy gave the Chinese Emperor diplomatic gifts that included exotic musicians and skilled conjurors.
Ptolemy seemed unaware of Sumatra, but he was able to record details about the neighbouring island of Java. Java was known to the Romans as Labadius, or ‘Barley Island’. It was said to be highly fruitful and had a capital city on its eastern coast called Argentae Metropolis. Roman traders probably received this information from early Indian settlers who called the island ‘Java-Dvipa’ meaning the ‘Millet Island’.
Most Roman vessels ended their voyages at the Burmese city of Tamala on the northwest edge of the Malay Peninsula. Alexandros indicates that Indian merchants landing at Tamala made a land crossing of the Kra Isthmus. Ptolemy explains, ‘they traverse from Tamala over the Golden Peninsula on a crossing that is 1,600 stades (176 miles) in the direction of the winter sunrise. There was a trade-station on the far coast of the peninsula where merchants embarked on other vessels for their voyages across the Gulf of Thailand (known to Ptolemy as the Perimulic Gulf).
The Antun Embassy to China and the Antonine Pandemic
In summer AD 165 Marcus Aurelius sent envoys east aboard a Roman merchant ship with instructions to make direct contact with the Chinese Empire. The Roman envoys who reached the Chinese outpost at Rinan were immediately dispatched under guard to the inland Han capital Luoyang along with part of their trade cargo.
At Luoyang the Roman delegates were granted an audience with the Han Emperor Huan and summoned to the inner court. They were asked a list of stock questions to confirm the scale and character of the Roman regime. Chinese reports claim the delegates represented ‘Antun’ which must be the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and his co-ruler Lucius Verus.
Based on these schedules the Chinese expected to receive further contacts from the Romans in AD 170, but no one came, not even Roman merchants seeking lucrative new trade prospects.
In AD 160, a virulent new disease was released into the ancient world trade routes, possibly by merchants returning from Borneo or some other previously remote region. The virus spread rapidly through Central Asia and in AD 162 an outbreak occurred among the Chinese army stationed on the northern frontiers of the Han Empire. In the space of a year the Han military lost a third of its operational army, with many more soldiers debilitated by the disease. Mounted steppe nomads immediately took advantage of the situation and overran the unprotected frontiers. The Hou Hanshu reports ‘the roads came under attack and communications were broken. There was widespread sickness in the army and three or four out of every ten men died.’ The epidemic was either an ancestral strain of smallpox or measles,
The epidemic of AD 162 inflicted more damage to the Chinese military than any enemy force could achieve
By AD 166 the disease had reached epidemic proportions in the densely populated cities of ancient Babylonia and the Roman army was ordered to withdraw from Iraq. The returning troops rapidly spread the disease into the main cities of the Empire, including the imperial capital.
Conclusion: Assessing the Roman Economy
Many elite Romans resented how people of low social standing could become prosperous from their successful business ventures and thereby gain fortunes that rivalled the inherited wealth of the aristocratic class. A further Roman criticism of eastern trade was that it created a consumer market for expensive foreign goods that were wastefully extravagant and ultimately unnecessary.
For these critics, foreign luxuries, especially in female fashions, were a measure of how far Rome had departed from its traditional values of austerity, military endeavour and respect for aristocratic ancestry.
The crisis of AD 22 abated because escalating prices attracted further merchants to Rome and the guarantee of profit led these businessmen to increase the provincial merchandise they shipped to the capital. Inflation was curtailed by increased supplies and prices fell back to affordable levels due to the additional imports.
The problem for Rome was that many eastern goods were a renewable commodity in the regions that profited from their production. These included incense and spices which were natural resources that were replenished every year. By contrast Roman wealth, in the form of gold and silver, coins and bullion, was a finite resource.
International trade steadily drained precious metal from the Roman economy and this process was only sustainable as long as the imperial mines continued to provide large enough volumes of fresh bullion. But when the mines were no longer productive, then the Roman Empire was destined to de-stabilise as other sources of government income failed to meet the cost of essential expenses, especially those needed to sustain its professional armies.
The evidence therefore suggests that Imperial Rome was financially dependent on a world economy and international trade was one of the main mechanisms that supported the Empire during its period of greatest prosperity.
Clearly there is a mass of information in the book. The voce just pulls a few of the themes and notes that I found especially interesting. Five stars from me.
… (altro)
 
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booktsunami | 5 altre recensioni | Jan 12, 2024 |
Somewhere, I'd read that in the heyday of the Roman Empire that there was a fleet (or fleets) of vary large ships travelling from Red Sea Ports to India each year (for a period of 200 years or so) and they returned bearing mainly grain. This was news to me and I found it fascinating. Clearly there had been a lot of contact between India and the Roman Empire and I was interested to learn more about it. This book certainly delivers on the question of the shipping trade...though it deals with a fundamental question–how did the Roman Empire function and in particular, how did it pay for its military costs? The Roman Empire belonged to an ancient world economy that stretched thousands of miles across the Indian Ocean and significant commercial contacts linked Roman subjects with their distant counterparts in east Africa, southern Arabia and the kingdoms of ancient India.

There is reasonable documentary evidence about the economics of the Roman Empire. For example, in AD 14, the Emperor Augustus left a document in his Will that described the overall revenues and expenses of the Roman Empire. It included ‘how many soldiers there were in service and where they were; how much money there was in the central Roman treasury and the provincial treasuries; how much were the outstanding revenues and where they could be located... a description of the resources of the State, the number of citizens and allies under arms, information on the fleets, subject kingdoms, provinces, taxes both direct and indirect, necessary expenses and customary bounties.’
International trade had to pass through designated custom posts and all exports and imports were subject to fixed-rate taxes. Total trade figures were available, along with specific totals for certain commodities such as coin or bullion.
All goods sent to the Egyptian Red Sea ports had to pass through a single custom station and separate officials were tasked with assessing different commodities.
Cicero writes that in the Republican period Asia Minor was the only region to provide Rome with worthwhile surplus revenues and most provinces of the Roman Empire could barely meet their own protection costs. Furthermore, the revenues forwarded to central government in Rome were relatively small. Deficit regions were a problem for the late Roman Republic and certain European provinces had to be subsidised from treasury funds. Evidence indicates that most of the Empire’s revenue deficit territories were in northern Europe.
In the first century AD the Roman Empire deployed three or four Legions in Britain at any given time. These had to be supported by regional taxes supplemented by central government funds, Revenue comparable to the tax-wealth of Alexandria, was subsidising Roman Britain.
Ancient evidence suggests that by the late first century AD, bullion production provided Rome with between 120 and 200 million sesterces per annum. This was about a sixth of the revenue that the Roman Empire needed to meet its basic costs (1,000 million sesterces per annum). There were gold mines in Gaul and the Eastern Desert of Egypt, but the main bullion sources for the Roman regime were in the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal). Gold from Iberia was a long-term, reliable income source.
Most provinces paid very little tribute to central government and the expense of Empire was met by newly mined bullion and frontier customs taxes imposed on international trade. By the first century AD, the value of eastern imports entering the Empire via the Indian Ocean was more than 1,000 million sesterces per annum and this commerce raised more than 250 million sesterces in tax revenue for the Roman government.
Rome imposed a quarter-rate customs tax on all foreign goods crossing the imperial frontiers known as the tetarte. In Egypt this meant that Alexandrian merchants paid the imperial government a costly dividend to transfer eastern merchandise from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.
During the Augustan era the Roman army cost the Empire about 640 million sesterces a year. In this period, total spending by the Roman State has been estimated at 1,000 million sesterces per annum, taking into consideration administration costs, building expenses and other outlays. As long as international commerce thrived, the Roman Empire could meet these high-level military costs.
In the Roman Empire, merchants performed a function that in other regimes was managed by a complex and costly range of tax officials and State agents. Control over several crucial custom points in Egypt and the Arabian frontier, with only a small investment of military personnel, provided the Empire with up to a third of its required revenues. Added to this were the millions of sesterces in bullion extracted from imperial mines and paid directly into the army as newly minted cash.
When Strabo journeyed up the Nile with the Roman governor of Egypt, he heard direct reports about a dramatic increase in eastern trade. After only a few years of Roman rule the number of ships sailing from Egypt to India had increased from less than 20 to at least 120 vessels. This was an unexpected development for the Empire and it provided important new revenues for the imperial regime.
The entire merchant fleet of 120 ships was probably importing over a billion sesterces of Indian cargo per annum.
Strabo confirms that ‘large fleets are sent as far as India and the extremities of Africa and the most valuable cargoes are brought to Egypt. From Egypt they are sent forth again to all other regions and as a consequence, double duties are collected on both imports and exports’. During the Augustan era, Egypt was providing up to half the income needed to finance the entire Roman Empire.
Trade with India allowed the Romans to double the amount of revenue they received from Egypt and by the mid-first century AD the province was producing annual revenues worth 600 million sesterces.
The grain dole was a subsidy to Romans (annona) introduced by politicians in the Late Republic as a way of securing support from the citizen assemblies who took the lead in electing officials and ratifying State policy. The scheme was continued in the Imperial period when Augustus guaranteed that 200,000 adult male citizens in Rome received a regular grain dole from the State. And by guaranteeing food supplies for those who lived in the capital, the dole system allowed Rome to develop a larger urban-population than any other ancient city. The Han Empire of ancient China had a population equivalent to the Roman Empire, but its capital Luoyang was home to approximately 500,000 people. By contrast, during the height of its Empire in the first century AD, Rome had up to a million inhabitants.
Most of the grain sent to the Roman capital came from estates in North Africa that were either owned by the State, or subject to a government tithe. Egypt provided up to a third of the grain supply that fed Rome.
Ships on the normal trade run from Alexandria to Rome could complete several voyages during the summer months and most of these ships probably ranged in size from 70 to 400 tons.
Another important point about trade within the Roman Empire is that internal customs taxes (portorium) were generally low. Merchants shipping cargo between the provinces had to pay tax rates that were often set at about one-fortieth, or less than 3 per cent of the value of their goods. Furthermore, Italy was exempt from these port taxes as a special privilege designed to encourage incoming trade. This meant that merchants from Alexandria had to pay taxes to export goods from their home city, but paid nothing to offload this same cargo in Rome.
The grain dole also enabled people to afford other, non-essential items that could be purchased with their surplus income, including eastern products available in new food flavourings, perfumes and remedies. In Rome many people began to spend their surplus wealth on eastern spices, incense, ivory, gems and pearls. Pliny confirms that ‘pearls came into common use in Rome after Alexandria came under our power’ (30 BC). .....Throughout this era, the most fashionable, desirable and expensive items available to Roman consumers were the eastern goods delivered to Rome through the Red Sea trade. And Rome was centrally placed. Aristides proudly boasted that in Rome ‘there is clothing from Babylon and ornaments from the barbarian world far beyond’.
Incense production had an important impact on world resources and increased the prosperity of the regimes engaged in this trade. Nations that controlled the incense trade had a continuous source of revenue that offered them an important and dependable long-term advantage in world commerce. Myrrh and frankincense in particular were renewable crops that brought great wealth into territories near the Gulf of Aden. By contrast, civilisations like Rome and Parthia had no equivalent. By the first century BC the main kingdoms in southern Arabia were cultivating large groves of incense trees as cash-crops and were prepared to offer this valuable product to foreign merchants in return for gold and silver in the form of bullion and coins. The distant east produced many unique products that became highly sought after in Roman society for their properties as medicines, flavourings and perfumes. The value of the balsam crop is suggested by the rent that Cleopatra imposed on the gardens at Jericho. The site was producing income worth over 1,200 talents every year. This figure is equivalent to about 7 million sesterces in Roman currency at a time when the total revenues of Judea were less than 22 million sesterces. .
Among the intermediaries in the incense trade, the Nabataeans achieved a prime place in the trafficking overland of incense from southern Arabia to Roman markets. Their prosperity serves as an example of the riches to be made through the distant trade of valuable commodities. But by the first century BC, most incense was shipped aboard Arab dhows that visited ports in southern Arabia and carried cargo to harbours in the northern quarter of the Red Sea. On these journeys Arab vessels also visited settlements on the east coast of Africa
After an abortive attempt to capture central and south Arabia in early 25 BC by Aelius Gallus the area remained permanently beyond Roman rule and in a secure position to slowly drain the Empire of its bullion wealth through the long-term processes of trade. Pliny suggests that every year the Roman Empire exported more than 50 million sesterces of bullion wealth to Arabia to pay for incoming incense. 47 A large share of this wealth was procured by the Nabataean Kingdom which imposed tolls on caravans crossing their territory.
When the Persian King Cambyses II conquered Egypt in 525 BC he investigated prospects for an invasion of Meroe and sent spies and envoys south to establish contact. Deciding conquest was achievable, he led a large army south into Nubia, but his Persians were not equipped for a long-distance desert campaign. By the time they had covered one-fifth of the distance to Meroe (nine days march or 180 miles) the main army had exhausted its supplies and had resorted to eating their pack animals.
With the kingdom of Meroe to south of Egypt and Nubia Augustus was content to basically tax the trade rather than trying to annex and administer the territory. Foreign territories were ‘suitable’ conquests if they possessed rich revenues, or if they posed a threat to existing provinces. But in many cases Rome could obtain more revenue by taxing trade contacts with a free territory than they could gain by long-term conquest.
The Red Sea Route
Eastern contacts began in ancient times when the Egyptian Pharaohs launched ships into the Red Sea to make contact with a mysterious incense producing land named ‘Punt’.. Most of their incense came from Somalia and was brought to the Nile River by African intermediates, but when this traffic was interrupted by hostilities, the Pharaohs were forced to open the sea-lanes and send their own ships directly to Somalia. .
With the defeat of Cleopatra, Octavian had overthrown the last of the Hellenic dynasties that gained power after the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC). With all opposition removed, the entire Mediterranean was brought under a single Roman regime ending centuries of conflict and decades of repeated civil war. As supreme commander of the Roman Empire Octavian had assumed power over an estimated 45 million people.
Under Roman rule the Nile city of Coptos was the main clearing house for eastern imports and goods from Arabia, India and Africa were ‘transported to Coptos, the emporium which receives these cargoes’. and consequently the city became an important base for commercial businesses and transport companies involved in international trade. Roman officials and customs agents had their headquarters in the city and they managed the personnel and taxed the goods involved in distant trade ventures. It took about twelve days to sail from Alexandria to Coptos using river craft to transport cargo a distance of nearly 400 miles. From Coptos merchants and other travellers joined overland caravans bound for the two main Red Sea ports of Berenice and Myos Hormos. The danger from Bandits on the overland route danger was reduced when the Roman administration built new fortified stations in the desert called phrouroi and some of these outposts were large enough to accommodate several hundred soldiers. Plus the Romans built new fortified watering stations known as hydreumata.
Herodotus describes an ancient canal that connected the Nile River to the Suez Gulf but the passage was heavily silted. Conditions changed when the Nile–Suez canal was restored during the reign of the Emperor Trajan (AD 98–117). 104 The repaired route allowed passengers to sail directly from Alexandria to the main Red Sea harbours where they could board ocean-going vessels heading for India. Transport by barge canal was about one-sixth cheaper than overland haulage and many travellers used this route to bypass the hardships of the desert.

The Romans had no comparable product that could meet the cost of acquiring these goods from distant markets. So, in order to sustain international trade, the Romans had to export bullion to pay for their spices, incense and pearls. As Pliny explains, ‘both pepper and ginger grow wild in their respective countries, yet here we buy them by weight, using so much gold and silver’.
Assuming a fleet of 120 merchant ships, Roman Egypt could have been receiving: 16,000 tons of pepper and cotton, 10,000 tons of malabathrum and other spices, 7,000 boxes or 50 tons of nard, 360 tons of turtle-shell and 576 tons of ivory (over 14,000 tusks), per annum. Trade on this scale was feasible because the Romans were dealing with countries and populations that were as large as their entire Empire.

The Roman ships that sailed the Indian Ocean were large vessels by Mediterranean standards. With vessels that were up to 120 feet long and therefore had a cargo capacity greater than 350 tons. Some of the larger ships could have been double this size with over 500 tons of space made available for cargo, crew and provisions. The evidence suggests that Roman shipwrights involved in the Red Sea trade maintained their traditional building methods, but made use of eastern materials to create even stronger vessels.
Arabian pirates operated along the east coast of the Red Sea and there were further pirate bases around the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Roman freighters therefore carried teams of mercenary archers on board to repel possible attacks.
A single vessel could be carrying a dozen or more merchants, all expecting to make a profit in some distant market. A 200 ton cargo of black pepper was valued in Roman markets at over 6 million sesterces or 1,000 Greek talents. This sum could have paid the annual wages of 6,000 legionaries (more than the manpower of an entire legion) and pepper was one of the cheapest imports from India. The profits from international trade therefore gave Roman businessmen vast sums of disposable wealth to spend on their community.
the richest Roman businessmen earned more than the tribute of entire provinces.
Indian merchants travelled to Roman Egypt aboard their own ships and businessmen from the subcontinent were regular visitors to Alexandria.
One of the things I found interesting was the trade in “services”...in particular people...both slaves, and freemen such as mercenaries and carpenters. Roman women sought Indian slaves as personal attendants to escort them through public places, or as maidservants to attend to their fashion interests. The Alexandrian Tariff records that Indian eunuchs were subject to Roman import taxes which confirms that they were being sold to private buyers. The prices paid for eunuchs were extraordinarily high and could reach more than 100,000 sesterces for a single person. One of the most unusual imports from the east to reach Rome was abrasive sand. The amount of sharp sand required to cut a single, square block of marble was approximately the same size as the block itself.
The Roman merchant guidebook called the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea contains a list of the main products available from eastern ports. It’s a short practical handbook that contains sixty-six concise paragraphs written in a popular form of Greek known as koine.
9. East Africa and the Aksumite Kingdom
Roman ships entering the Indian Ocean attempted only one sailing per year when the seasonal monsoon winds favoured relatively safe, fast travel. Wind conditions permitted Roman ships to make voyages down the African coast anytime from January to September, but most vessels sailing to Somalia sailed in September, nearly two months after their colleagues had left for India. During the time of the Periplus, Roman ships on African voyages did not generally sail beyond the Horn. Distant trade connections continued down the east coast of the continent, but these routes were managed by Arab merchants who sailed in small dhow-like vessels with lateen sails. Some of these Arab trade runs extended hundreds of miles down the east coast of Africa to markets and trade outposts in Kenya and Tanzania.
Southern Arabia and the Saba-Himyarites
The first stop for Roman ships sailing to Arabia Felix was a port called Muza, which was on the Yemen coast close to the Farasan Islands and the entrance to the Red Sea (near modern Mokha). The voyage from Berenice to Muza was less than 800 miles, but the Periplus estimated the distance to be over 1,300 miles.
The Himyarite Kingdom ruled the myrrh-producing territories on the southwest corner of Arabia. Their rise to power came after the Roman attack on Arabia Felix (25 BC) which left the Sabaean Kingdom vulnerable to regional rivals. The Himyarites seized the Sabaean homelands and made the population subject to a new Saba-Himyar regime.
The Mercantile Code of Qataban dates to about 110 BC and is a market proclamation designed to centralise trade in recognised markets, facilitate the collection of taxes and regulate prices. The code specifies that ‘the King of Qataban has authority over all transactions and goods within his territory’.
The Indo-Parthians
Roman ships bound for India left the Red Sea ports in July when the seasonal northerly winds blew down the gulf. The first stage of the journey was a 700 mile sailing to the Arabian port called Ocelis. It took three weeks to reach Ocelis and Roman ships arriving at the town took on board fresh water and waited for the onset of the monsoon trade winds.
During the first century BC, Greek ships tended to follow the coasts of Iran on their eastern voyages to India. The Periplus describes this era as a time when ‘men formerly used to sail in smaller vessels, following the curves of the bays’. But when Greek pilots charted the shape of the Indian coast, they realised that shorter sea crossings were possible. When driven by gale-force winds, even the largest and most cumbersome Roman freighters were able to travel at speeds greater than six knots (nautical miles per hour). Roman ships heading for northern India crossed 1,000 miles of ocean in about seven days, while those sailing to the Tamil lands launched on a southern course and crossed more than 1,600 miles of open sea in just over ten days. Altogether, it took nearly seventy days to complete the entire voyage from Egypt to India.
They would spend at least two months in India, as the trade winds that returned them home did not begin to blow until early November.
Authorities in Rome were amazed at the value Indian society placed on Mediterranean coral. Pliny reports that [red] ‘coral berries are valued by Indian men as much as large Indian pearls are prized by Roman women. Indian soothsayers and seers believe coral to be a very powerful amulet for warding off dangers. So they enjoy it as a beautiful item and an object of religious power.’
An important part of the international commerce conducted at Minnagar [now Pakistan] involved spices, aromatics and plant-based drugs. Roman merchants received locally grown bdellium, nard and lyceum from the Himalayas and costus from Kashmir in Afghanistan. Silk route traffic reached the Indus, so Barbaricon [on the coast] offered silk and exotic animal furs, including mink and sable from the Asian steppe. Roman merchants also received locally produced indigo dyes, turquoise stones from Iran and blue lapis lazuli crystals mined in Afghanistan.
The Saka and Satavahana Kingdoms
Barygaza was ruled by a dynasty of Saka kings who came from homelands on the Asian steppe. The Roman Emperor Augustus received envoys from these Sakas in 26 BC, when he was campaigning in Spain. Suetonius explains that these Indo-Scythian ambassadors ‘were from nations previously known to us only through hearsay. The ambassadors carried a letter from Azes to the Emperor written in Greek on a vellum scroll. In it Azes explained that he held the allegiance of 600 minor sovereigns in northern India and ‘was anxious for an alliance with Caesar Augustus’. The Saka ambassadors who visited Augustus were accompanied by a Buddhist or Jain missionary who came from the Gujurat city of Barygaza. This holy man was known in India as a shramana (a monk or religious instructor), but the Romans took this title to be his personal name and called him ‘Zarmarus’ and ‘Zarmano-chegas’ (‘ Teacher’ or ‘Master of Shramanas’). Zarmarus probably sought patronage from Augustus and may have requested permission to establish a Buddhist or Jain monastery in Rome, Antioch or Alexandria. His request was denied, but Zarmarus remained in the company of the Emperor when he travelled to Athens in 21 BC.
To lessen these dangers [navigation at the river mouth] the Saka King Nahapana arranged for local rowing boats to guide Roman freighters past the sandbanks and tow them upstream to large sheltered docking basins in the Narmada River. The Periplus reports that ‘local sailors in the king’s service come out with rowers and long ships, known as trappaga and kotymba, to meet vessels on the gulf and guide them up to Barygaza’.
When the Sakas ruled Ujjain the Romans were able to do profitable business with the royal court. They offered high-value products to Saka royal agents in return for the precious stones the regime received as tax and tribute from Ujjain. According to the Periplus this included silverware, slave musicians, female concubines for the harem, fine wines, expensive clothing and choice unguents.
The Tamil Kingdoms of Southern India
There is evidence that Roman subjects brought Christianity to Tamil India. In the second century a Christian theologian named Pantaenus travelled to India hoping to establish a church movement but found that Christian communities were already worshipping in India using the Gospel of Matthew. These converts claimed that the apostle Bartholomew had brought Christianity to their kingdom and had given them a gospel written in Hebrew.
But Roman ships also carried mercenaries and artisans amongst their crew and people from these professions were prepared to travel inland to find employment with Tamil rulers.
Roman carpenters were active in the Tamil cities and their skills were highly sought after by the Pandian Kings. It seems these artisans were employed to carve wooden statues and craft decorations on royal buildings. Tamil accounts describe how Roman troops also guarded the command tent of the Pandian King when he went on campaign. Ancient Tamil literature mentions strange ‘war-engines’ constructed using Yavana engineering.
The Periplus puts black pepper top of the list of exports from the Tamil kingdoms. The Periplus explains, ‘pepper is mostly grown in only one region known as Kottanarike, which is connected to both trade ports (Muziris and Nelcynda). 100 The Roman demand for this product was so great that Indian merchants began calling the spice Yavanapriya (Yavanas’ Passion).
The Anuradhapura Kingdom of Sri Lanka and the Far East
Writing in AD 90, Josephus indicates Jewish knowledge of trade voyages to the Aurea Chersonesus, described as the ‘Golden- Peninsula, which belongs to India’. This is probably Burma, or the Malay Peninsula which Roman traders had begun to explore on their most distant voyages. According to Ptolemy there were three emporia and two city-ports on the northern Burmese coast. There were two further cities positioned near the Irrawaddy River which extended deep into Southeast Asia. Ancient Indian texts suggest that merchants made voyages to these regions mainly to obtain diamonds, sandalwood and cinnamon. Roman merchants probably used bullion to acquire these goods and would have sent slaves to the royal courts of Burmese kings.
The Chinese became aware of this commerce in AD 121 when a Burmese king from the State of Shan sent an overland embassy to the Han Emperor An. The embassy gave the Chinese Emperor diplomatic gifts that included exotic musicians and skilled conjurors.
Ptolemy seemed unaware of Sumatra, but he was able to record details about the neighbouring island of Java. Java was known to the Romans as Labadius, or ‘Barley Island’. It was said to be highly fruitful and had a capital city on its eastern coast called Argentae Metropolis. Roman traders probably received this information from early Indian settlers who called the island ‘Java-Dvipa’ meaning the ‘Millet Island’.
Most Roman vessels ended their voyages at the Burmese city of Tamala on the northwest edge of the Malay Peninsula. Alexandros indicates that Indian merchants landing at Tamala made a land crossing of the Kra Isthmus. Ptolemy explains, ‘they traverse from Tamala over the Golden Peninsula on a crossing that is 1,600 stades (176 miles) in the direction of the winter sunrise. There was a trade-station on the far coast of the peninsula where merchants embarked on other vessels for their voyages across the Gulf of Thailand (known to Ptolemy as the Perimulic Gulf).
The Antun Embassy to China and the Antonine Pandemic
In summer AD 165 Marcus Aurelius sent envoys east aboard a Roman merchant ship with instructions to make direct contact with the Chinese Empire. The Roman envoys who reached the Chinese outpost at Rinan were immediately dispatched under guard to the inland Han capital Luoyang along with part of their trade cargo.
At Luoyang the Roman delegates were granted an audience with the Han Emperor Huan and summoned to the inner court. They were asked a list of stock questions to confirm the scale and character of the Roman regime. Chinese reports claim the delegates represented ‘Antun’ which must be the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and his co-ruler Lucius Verus.
Based on these schedules the Chinese expected to receive further contacts from the Romans in AD 170, but no one came, not even Roman merchants seeking lucrative new trade prospects.
In AD 160, a virulent new disease was released into the ancient world trade routes, possibly by merchants returning from Borneo or some other previously remote region. The virus spread rapidly through Central Asia and in AD 162 an outbreak occurred among the Chinese army stationed on the northern frontiers of the Han Empire. In the space of a year the Han military lost a third of its operational army, with many more soldiers debilitated by the disease. Mounted steppe nomads immediately took advantage of the situation and overran the unprotected frontiers. The Hou Hanshu reports ‘the roads came under attack and communications were broken. There was widespread sickness in the army and three or four out of every ten men died.’ The epidemic was either an ancestral strain of smallpox or measles,
The epidemic of AD 162 inflicted more damage to the Chinese military than any enemy force could achieve
By AD 166 the disease had reached epidemic proportions in the densely populated cities of ancient Babylonia and the Roman army was ordered to withdraw from Iraq. The returning troops rapidly spread the disease into the main cities of the Empire, including the imperial capital.
Conclusion: Assessing the Roman Economy
Many elite Romans resented how people of low social standing could become prosperous from their successful business ventures and thereby gain fortunes that rivalled the inherited wealth of the aristocratic class. A further Roman criticism of eastern trade was that it created a consumer market for expensive foreign goods that were wastefully extravagant and ultimately unnecessary.
For these critics, foreign luxuries, especially in female fashions, were a measure of how far Rome had departed from its traditional values of austerity, military endeavour and respect for aristocratic ancestry.
The crisis of AD 22 abated because escalating prices attracted further merchants to Rome and the guarantee of profit led these businessmen to increase the provincial merchandise they shipped to the capital. Inflation was curtailed by increased supplies and prices fell back to affordable levels due to the additional imports.
The problem for Rome was that many eastern goods were a renewable commodity in the regions that profited from their production. These included incense and spices which were natural resources that were replenished every year. By contrast Roman wealth, in the form of gold and silver, coins and bullion, was a finite resource.
International trade steadily drained precious metal from the Roman economy and this process was only sustainable as long as the imperial mines continued to provide large enough volumes of fresh bullion. But when the mines were no longer productive, then the Roman Empire was destined to de-stabilise as other sources of government income failed to meet the cost of essential expenses, especially those needed to sustain its professional armies.
The evidence therefore suggests that Imperial Rome was financially dependent on a world economy and international trade was one of the main mechanisms that supported the Empire during its period of greatest prosperity.
Clearly there is a mass of information in the book. The voce just pulls a few of the themes and notes that I found especially interesting. Five stars from me.
… (altro)
 
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booktsunami | 5 altre recensioni | Jan 11, 2024 |
A thorough analysis of Roman trade with Africa, Arabia, and India, illuminating a very important dimension of the economic vitality of the early Roman Empire.

The book begins roughly: it starts with all kinds of data about the Roman imperial economy, with how much various legions cost, what we know about how much they knew about their own economy, and the sources of income. One might begin questioning what one is reading.

The author first explains the nature of trade in the Roman world, discusses Egypt's prominence in place in terms of that trade, and then goes into detail about much of what was traded. The author will then follow the general trajectory of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and detail what the Romans knew and what we know about Egypt, Judea, Nabatea, Aksum, east African trading ports, Saba, the Arabian kingdoms, the various Indian kingdoms, Sri Lanka, and parts east. The author also spoke of a specific embassy sent to China and its reception.

The author is attempting to advance the thesis that the Romans well leveraged the information they gained about the monsoon winds to cultivate and develop trading with India which really sponsored the Pax Romana. The incorporation of Egypt into the Empire facilitated the trading connections with easily maintained tariff points to obtain what would become significant percentages of the imperial income while also allowing the grain dole to provide basic food for Rome and likewise providing the ability for even more families to enjoy more luxury items from the east. The appeal of incense, perfumes, pepper, spices, and silk would lead to the flaunting of wealth in Rome, but its trade would strip the Empire of its bullion.

In the author's telling the Antonine plague proves especially devastating, a blow from which the trading network would never fully recover. Connections with China would not materialize.

The book ultimately proves to be a great travelogue around the Indian Ocean around the first century CE, and a high quality exploration of the Roman economy.
… (altro)
 
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deusvitae | 5 altre recensioni | Jan 17, 2022 |

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