the Red Sea, and Roman troops guarded and maintained the desert roads
between the Nile and Red Sea. This did not come free: tolls were levied and
customs duties exacted. In Egypt goods were taxed when they entered and
when they exited.
Beginning with the reign of the emperor Augustus (27 BCE– 14 CE)
embassies from Indian states north and south arrived in Rome to negotiate
agreements that included prices and guarantees of protection for Roman
merchants. These embassies always carried splendid gifts, doubtless to
advertise their wares, although the Romans decided to interpret this as
recognition of their position as world power. With the imposition of a 25
percent import duty, the eastern maritime trade became a significant source
of income for the state. The Roman government never tried to control com-
merce in the manner of the Ptolemies, and private enterprise was the general
rule, partly because the Roman government was not anxious to assume the
risks involved.
Roman Empire traders in Indian waters were referred to collectively by the
Indians as“Yavanas.”They were rarely Italians, leave aside actual Romans,
but they were subjects or citizens of the Roman Empire drawn from the
merchant communities of the eastern Mediterranean, principally Greeks (the
word “Yavana” derives from “Ionian”), Egyptians (many of whom were
ethnic Greeks from Alexandria), Levantines (Syrians and Phoenicians), and
Arabs. Behind them providing the capital were investors from all corners of
the empire. One document listing parties involved infinancing an expedi-
tion to the East African coast included men from Rome, Carthage, Sparta,
Massilia, southern Italy, and northern Greece. Investors had to be willing to
venture capital in what were chancy undertakings that could potentially
bring immense returns. Filling up the ships with the kind of merchandise
this trade dealt in required substantial capital even though a ship’s cargo
usually contained consignments from a number of separate traders, merchant
families, and consortiums. Although this was all private enterprise, players
on the investor side were often connected to the Roman government as offi-
cials or as members of the senatorial class. For the Roman elite, who were
beginning to feel that they deserved to enjoy the benefits that their super-
power status made possible, the Red Sea connection opened the door to
luxuries and exotica that their rustic ancestors could not have imagined.
Spice warehouses were established in Rome to handle theflow, and supply
could hardly keep up with demand despite a steady rise in production and
prices.
By thefirst centuryCE, construction techniques pioneered in the Mediterranean
were being used to build larger, more seaworthy ships in Red Sea and
Arabian coast shipyards, in response to the demand for Indian Ocean goods.
These ships had planking held together not with coir but by mortise and
tenon joints, a much stronger system of construction, and they had rein-
forced hulls. An increase in quantity matched that of quality. Strabo notes:
When India was the center of the world 89