BCE under Emperor Augustus. Rome was the largest and, probably, the wealthiest city in the world commanding huge resources realised through conquests in Europe and North Africa. The wealth of Rome greatly increased the demand for various products from India, especially the spices and textiles of the Tamil country, resulting in a great expansion of trade. Roman Trade-Ship The second development was the discovery of the pattern of monsoon winds in the Arabian Sea in the first century CE by Hippalus, an Egyptian sailor.
Till then, the sea trade between India and the Mediterranean world was controlled by the Arabs. Arabs had a monopoly of the knowledge of the source regions of products such as cinnamon and pepper, which formed the main export to Rome. But when the information about the direct sea route became common knowledge, Roman ships began to sail directly to the western coast of India. They could thus avoid sailing close to the coastline, which made them vulnerable to attacks by pirates.
XI History - Lesson - - Polity and Society in Post-Mauryan Period Rome, and the volume of trade peaked in the second half of the fi rst century CE, during the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Th e growing trade imbalance, which had to be met through exports of coins or silver, became a source of concern. Th ere was a complaint that each year the trade to India caused a drain of million sesterces to Rome. Ultimately Emperor Vespasian passed laws to curb the luxury consumption of the wealthier classes in Rome, and imports from India subsequently comprised only cotton textiles and pepper, which were relatively low- value commodities.
A further change in the trading pattern evolved because of the increased vulnerability of the traditional overland silk route. Silk cloth and yarn from China were carried by sea to the Coromandel ports, from where they were transshipped to Rome. Information about the trade relations of the Tamil region with the south-east and further east is very scanty. However, tortoiseshell (an important export to Rome) was sourced from islands near Malaya