and by the time the Romans were in direct contact with India, theflow was
in one direction only. Centuries earlier Herodotus had been told by the
Persians that the source of their gold, of which they appeared to have had an
abundance, was northern India. This was reportedly extracted in a most
peculiar way: giant ants carried it in the sand they brought up from their
nests. Indians then collected it, but if detected they were chased by the ants
and if caught killed.
ThePeriplusmentions the production of precious metals in a reference to
the Ganges delta, where it notes that there were“gold mines in the area”
and gold coins being minted. Actually gold could have been panned in the
streams and rivers of this area, but there were no mines, and no examples of
such coins have survived. Strabo reports“excellent”gold and silver mines in
various unnamed mountains but sees a problem with the Indians, who“are
inexperienced in mining and smelting; they also do not know what their
resources are, and handle the business in a rather simple manner.”In fact,
deposits were available in India, particularly in the south where gold had
been extracted, worked, and shipped by coastal traffic from very ancient
times. However, given that India had highly developed political and social
systems with ruling classes who had a taste for elite goods as well as
advanced religious systems with holy places that needed adornment and
sophisticated commercial systems that required some medium of exchange,
the country did not have deposits in sufficient quantities to meet its needs.
From early times India’s main source of imported gold came from the
north. Afghanistan had some in vein and placer deposits often found in
association with tin. But the big load was beyond in the mountains of
Siberia, which were a major source from which goldflowed west and east as
well as south up to the third centuryBCEwhen nomadic migration and war
disrupted and then destroyed the system. India begged for a new source.
Today Roman gold and silver coins, often with the likeness of early
emperors such as Augustus, have been found in substantial numbers in
southern India. They were used both as bullion, as a trade good valued by
weight, and as currency in areas undergoing rapid commercialization with-
out locally minted coins. Fewer such coins have turned up in northern India,
which had its own well-established currency system. There, Roman coins
were probably melted down and recycled. Roman merchants simply did not
have enough desirable products to cover the Roman demand for Indian pro-
ducts, so the shortfall had to be made up in hard cash. In commenting on
which Roman products were in demand in this place or that, thePeriplus
frequently mentions money and in some places such as the Malabar Coast
recommends that traders bring“a considerable amount.”
The balance of payments problem and its concomitant bullion drain was a
source of alarm to some Romans. Pliny mentions it several times, com-
plaining“that in no year does India absorb less thanfifty million sesterces of
our empire’s wealth, sending back merchandise to be sold with us at a
When India was the center of the world 97