allies against Central Asian nomads. So long as the Chinese and Kushan
empires remained strong, tons of silk wouldflow through India on its way to
the Mediterranean to the immense profit of Indian middlemen.
Other exports from India included teak, ebony, and other tropical hard-
woods as well as sandalwood originating in Southeast Asia. Indian iron was
considered to be of very high quality, some of which went in the form of
swords even though theArthashastracalled for a prohibition on exporting
weapons. Curiously, it also called for a prohibition on the export of gem
stones, one of India’s oldest commodities. The Deccan was a principal sup-
plier of semi-precious stones, particularly agate and quartz; beryl was mined
in Kerala, and carnelian was found in various locations. Rubies and sapphires
were products of Ceylon, and other stones passed through India such as
Afghan lapis lazuli and Iranian turquoise. Probably most Indians paid as
much attention to theArthashastrain these matters as Romans did to Pliny.
Opening the Mediterranean market to Indian Ocean goods created a level
of demand that appeared bottomless except that the West wanted such
goods more than the East wanted western goods. The frankincense, myrrh,
pepper, cinnamon, nard, silk, and other delights of the East had to be paid
for, but with what? One of the few Mediterranean products for which there
was an ever-present demand in the East wasfine wine. This came from three
places: Italy, particularly Tuscany; Ionia, the Greek islands and coastal area
of western Anatolia; and Laodicea, in northern Syria just south of ancient Ugarit. A
visiting Egyptian once quipped that this region“had more wine than water,”
and Strabo observed that the mountains above Laodicea were“covered with
vines almost as far as the summits.”The most outstanding of these wines was
shipped to both Arabia and India even though Arabia also exported its own
wine of less exalted vintage. At Barygaza, the largest and most active port in
India for the Roman trade, wine was the most important import.
Other western products for which there was no adequate substitute inclu-
ded colored glass from Alexandria and Syria and murex purple dye. Of more
interest is a category of Mediterranean exports for which there were Indian
substitutes, but the Indians imported them anyway. For example, India was
the gem center of the world, yet one stone was not available. Identified by
Agatharchides and Strabo as“topaz,”it was actually peridot, a deep yellow-
ish green transparent variety of olivine from the island of Gazirat Zabarjad in
the Red Sea. Said to be invisible in the day, this gem supposedly had to be
sought out at night when it could be marked for extraction (actually mines
existed that went back to the Ptolemaic period). The Indians took as much
of it as the Egyptians cared to send. A larger market existed for coral, which
had been an early Mediterranean export to northern Europe, the most desir-
able being very hard and strikingly red in color. Coral was also available in
the Red Sea, but it was considered to be of inferior quality.
Roman ships brought plain Egyptian linen to South Arabia and multi-
colored textiles that were considered an Egyptian specialty to all major
When India was the center of the world 95