Indian Historical Review 2013 Gurukkal 181 206

Article
Classical Indo-Roman
Trade: A Historiographical
Reconsideration
Indian Historical Review

40(2) 181206
2013 ICHR
SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi, Singapore,
Washington DC
DOI: 10.1177/0376983613499670
http://ihr.sagepub.com
Rajan Gurukkal
Visiting Professor, Centre for Contemporary Studies, Indian Institute of Science,

Bangalore, India
Abstract
It is an attempt to reconsider in the light of the extant sources including the latest
archaeological findings in India, Red Sea coast and Egypt, some of the long sustained
assumptions about the Indian role in the classical eastern Mediterranean transmarine
commerce. Perusing the political economy of the early Mediterranean exchange relations with the southern West Coast, the paper seeks to argue that the expression,
Indo-Roman trade popularized by Indian historiography is a misnomer, for what had
happened was literally Roman trade with the East having India little or no role in
it. Some Tamils might have accompanied the traders in the Arab or Mediterranean
ships, probably as merchant middlemen, suppliers of trade goods and providers of
other services on board. Even if we assume that Tamil chiefs had some role in shipping merchandises at least up to the Red Sea coast, the question of various capability
pre-requisites for arranging agents, managers, and intermediaries for the rest of jobs
including stay till the next Monsoon Wind, would remain, because such capabilities
were unlikely in a chiefdom level polity. Further, the classical Mediterranean trade
by nature was too systematized, extensively networked, document based, and monetized to have been compatible to contemporary Tamil chiefdoms of redistributive
economy, reciprocity and politics of plunder.
Keywords
Overseas trade, Non-monetised exchange, Political economy, Redistributive society,
Chiefdom level polity, Politics of plunder, Misnomer
Indias maritime contact with classical Rome, described as Indo-Roman trade, has been
a prominent theme in her historiography, inspiring several historians of national sentiments to celebrate the phase as that of a maritime civilisation. The paper seeks to argue
that the theme, somewhat accepted ipso facto by all and recently the Indian role reasserted in the light of certain new archaeological finds at the Egyptian, Mediterranean
sites like Myos Hormos (Quseir al-Qadim) and Baranike and the Indian site, Pattanam
on the southern west coast, is a sentimental construct in historiography. It is an attempt
Downloaded from ihr.sagepub.com at Templeman Lib/The Librarian on November 4, 2015
182
Rajan Gurukkal
to reconsider some of the long sustained assumptions on the topic of exchange relations with the eastern Mediterranean at the turn of the Christian era. A quick reappraisal of the extant literary source material and a critical evaluation of the recent
archaeological finds and a political economy critique constitute the content of the
paper. Its focus is the southern west coast especially the Tamil macro-region
(Tamilakam), as to see whether or not the recent archaeological finds necessitate any
revision of the extant presumptions about the features, processes and dynamic of the
Early Historic (second century BCthird century AD) social formation of the region. A
comparative appreciation of the political economy of Roman trade has also been
attempted to show the contrast. Pursuance of a critical political economy perspective in
understanding the early Mediterranean exchange relations with the southern west coast,
dependence on social formation framework in characterising the socio-economic
aggregate of unevenly developed communities, and holistic integration of the multiple
sources distinguish the study.1
Old Presumptions
Graeco-Roman texts of the mid first century AD such as Strabos Geography, an anonymous merchants experiential account called Periplus Maris Erythraei (PME), Pliny the
Elders Natural History (NH) and Ptolemys Geography, which give brief accounts on
ports such as Muziris, Tyndis, Nelcynda and Bacare on the west coast of India, constitute the data for the thesis of classical Indo-Roman trade.2 A few allusions in ancient
Tamil poems, popularly called the Cankam literature and the several hoards of Roman
coins discovered in different parts of the Tamil South provide evidence par excellence
for historians to imagine a glorious epoch of Indias heavy overseas transactions.3
1
For a discussion of the theme in holistic perspective see, Thapar, Early Mediterranean Contacts. How
theoretical insights help deeper understanding of trade relations is well exemplified in Ratnagar, Encounters:
The Westerly Trade.
2
The original text and translation of all these sources are now available online. See Schoff, The Periplus;
McCrindle, Ancient India as Described in Classical Literature (also see his Ancient India as Described by
Ptolemy); Majumdar, Classical Accounts of India; Nilakanta Sastri, Foreign Notices of South India. The well
known classics that have contextualised and historicised their contents are: Warmington, The Commerce
between the Roman Empire and India; Charlesworth, Roman trade with India: A Resurvey; Miller, The
Spice Trade of the Roman Empire.
3
References in ancient Tamil poems are very few and quite incidental. Prp. 2: 6 refers to a ship sailing to
acquire gold; Pn. 66 addresses Karikla Cla as born in the lineage of the one who controlled the wind and
set the ships on the vast ocean to sail; Pn. 126 refers to the inability of others to enter the western sea where
Cra led his gold-giving ship; Pn. 343: (46) mentions those bringing ashore in boats the gifts of gold given
by the ships; An. 149 (911) mentions the Yavana ships coming with gold and returning with loads of pepper;
and An.152 mentions the ships of Tittan Veliyan bringing gold. Roman coins have been found in India at over
130 sites, with a concentration in the Krishna valley in Andhra and the Coimbatore region in Tamil Nadu.
For early notices of finds see, Elliot, Coins of Southern India; and Sewell, Roman Coins Found in India
(also see his List of Antiquities, Vol. I). Find-spots are given in Aiyer, Historical Sketches of the Dekhan. The
Roman coins recovered from Kerala are discussed in Gupta, The Early Coins from Kerala. For a detailed
catalogue of Roman coins see Suresh, Symbols of Trade.
Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

183
Classical Indo-Roman Trade
ThePeriplus refers to those sailing out of Limrike to Soqotra with rice, cloth, slaves,
etc.4 The literature would have us believe that navigation between the east African
coast and the Indian west coast was, indeed, a common feature of the period.
Long before Hippalus theorising the Monsoon Wind, ancient seafarers had awareness about latitudinal parallels and corresponding destinations, as part of their traditional working knowledge of contemporary overseas navigators. They knew that sailing from the horn of Africa across the Arabian Sea by navigating the 12 latitude east
would take them to the southern west coast of India.5 Seasonal overseas traffic of goods
from the coast of peninsular India to Egypt, although not extensively, was quite active
under the Ptolemies themselves. However, the traders owed the phenomenal monsoon
wind sailing of ships, huge in size and large in number, to the east, to Augustus who
conquered Egypt at the end of first century BC and provided for the prosperity of
trade under imperial protection. His conquest of Egypt, the hub of contemporary trade
networks and caravan circuits from the horn of Africa across the desert to the Nile and
beyond, was motivated by its revenue potential and his patronage of overseas trade with
the East was under the pressure of social demand for eastern goods.6 With the Augustan
conquest of Egypt, Indo-Roman trade became significantly different from what it used to
be in the previous ages, especially at the organisational level where it showed features of
scheduled commerce under imperial patronage. The extent of social demand for oriental
goods is best expressed in Plinys reference to the growing anxiety of the Roman Senate
about the drain of gold due to the regular import of pepper and other spices from the East
which is famous and widely cited as proof of the influx of gold in bullion and as coins
to the Indian west coast.7 The heyday of Indo-Roman trade was the period between the
beginnings of first century AD and the second half of the second century AD.8 With the
devastation of the empires core as well as periphery by the Antonine plague during
the 60s and 70s of second century AD Romes easterly trade declined for good.9
4
PME, 3031. For details see, Casson, The Periplus Maris Erythraei.
PME, 57. See, Casson, The Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 8385. Also, Tchernia, Winds and Coins,
pp. 25076.
6
For a detailed discussion of the conquests, see, Whittaker, Rome and Its Frontiers, Ch. 3, pp. 5261.
7
See, Pliny, Natural History, 6.21, 6.26 and 12.41. The trade in exotics is mentioned to have drained more than
fifty million sesterces a year from the empire. This was a sum larger than the annual tribute that Caesar imposed
on Gaul after his conquest of the territory. See, McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, p. 2. The items of
oriental goods were: pepper, cardamom, cassiacinnamon, nard, ginger, rice, lentil, cotton, ebony, citron, sesame oil and seeds, sugar, indigo, lycium, bdellium, woods, cotton products, costus-roots, gum, aloes, coconut,
melon, peach, apricot, millet, frankincense, gum resins, myrrh, elephant, rhinoceros, lion, tiger, hound, monkey,
python, parrot, peacock, fowl, ivory, wool, woolen products, hide, fur, silk, lac, pearl, oysters, onyx- shell,
conch shell, tortoise shell, ghi, musk, agate, carnelian, onyx, sard, nicolo, amethyst, rock-crystal, opal, ruby,
sapphire, garnet, emerald, lapis-lazuli, zircon, tourmalines, jade, turquoise, iron, steel, copper and Indian girls.
For a catalogue of archaeologically documented merchandise from Indian, Arabian and Mediterranean origin
passing through Berenike, see, Sidebotham, Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route, pp. 22345.
8
Dating on the basis of an inscriptional source from the Indian side is shown in Fussman, The Periplus,
pp. 6671.
9
The original source is Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman historian of the fourth century, who reported the Antonine
plague of 165180 A.D. See the discussion in Potter and Mattingly, Life, Death and Entertainment, pp. 105106.
5

184
Rajan Gurukkal
New Evidence
Sherds of early Roman terra sigillata and amphorae collected at Arikamedu on the
Coromandel added to the evidence of shipping of goods to the Mediterranean.10 Indian
potsherd have corroborated the Periplus reference to the sailors of Limrike to
Soqotra. Recent excavations at the Mediterranean sites have yielded archaeological
remains of overseas trade goods shipped from the ports of southern west coast of India
and reportedly there are indications of the presence of Indians at Berenike as well as
along the caravan track on the Nile.11 Archaeological remains unearthed from the Red
Sea coast have added on to the revived enthusiasm of maritime historians in imagining
the Tamil merchants role in Mediterranean trade decisive. Archaeological discoveries
at several Egyptian and Mediterranean sites have provided new evidence for the transport of Indian goods through the Red Sea ports of Myos Hormos (Quseir al-Qadim)
and Berenike. Excavations at Berenike, the transit port between ancient Egypt and
Rome for merchants and merchandise making their way to the Indian coast, have
yielded 7.55 kg of black pepper (piper nigrum) in a ceramic container made of Nile silt,
along with various other goods from the west coast. Shards of common Indian pottery
in good quantity, a few shards of Indian Rouletted Ware, a couple of which have TamilBrhmi characters, brailing rings, remains of teak wood and cotton sails of Indian
weave are other items.12 Berenikes strategic importance as the starting point of sailors
bound to the east, coupled with the presence of teakwood among its archaeological
goods, probably suggests, according to some enthusiasts, the possibility of an Indian
boat-building centre on the Red Sea coast, the presence of Indian merchants and their
ships in the Red Sea. A few potsherd with Tamil-Brhmi characters, dating back to as
early as the first or second century AD, have been discovered at Myos Hormos (Quseir
al-Qadim) and Berenike,13 One of the shards has two Tamil names Ctan and Kannan
inscribed on it. Another label inscription reportedly mentions Korran (Korran Pumn
Korran) meaning chieftain. Excavations at Berenike have yielded shards reportedly of
domestic wares of ancient Tamils suggesting their extended stay in the place. Occurrence
of Indian potsherd at a few sites along the BerenikeKoptos route, encourages some
archaeologists to presume the sojourn of Indian traders travelling to Alexandria with
merchandise. Some terracotta objects unearthed at Berenike, seemingly tokens
(ostraca) of customs duty clearance given at Koptos for cargos to be sent across the
desert to the Red Sea ports, shed light on contemporary procedures of the legalisation
of goods on board.14 However, it is too small a collection to provide details such as the
10
For a reappraisal see, Begley, Arikamedu Reconsidered, pp. 46181. Also, Begley et al., The Ancient
Port of ArikameduNew Investigations; Begley et al., The Ancient Port of Arikamedu: New Excavations.
11
For details of excavations at ancient port sites of Egypt, see, Sidebotham and Wendrich, Berenike 1997;
Sidebotham and Wendrich, Report of the 1998 Excavations; Sidebotham and Wendrich, Berenike:
APtolemaic Roman Port, pp. 2831; Sidebotham et al., The Red Land. For a comprehensive interpretation
of the archaeological data, see, Sidebotham, Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route, pp. 7576.
12
See, Sidebotham and Wendrich, Report of the 1998 Excavations at Barenike. Also see, Sidebotham,
Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route, pp. 7576.
13
For details see, Salomon, Epigraphic Remains of Indian Traders in Egypt.
14
See Bagnall et al., Documents from Berenike 1.

185
volume and variety of cargos.15 Another set of ostraca known as the Nicanor Archive,
consisting of caravan transport receipts, was excavated from Kroptos.16 Nicanor was
an Egyptian caravan owner at Kroptos, from whom merchants had hired camels for
transporting goods across the desert to Berenike. It appears that at the delivery point an
ostraca was issued by the merchant acknowledging the safe receipt of goods from the
camel men who on return must have given it to Nicanor.
Archaeological finds at Pattanam on the southern west coast, a site recently identified as Muziris on the basis of certain geo-morphological traces,17 consist of a variety
of organic and inorganic categories of archaeological objects such as wood, plant-fibre,
spices, vegetables and nuts as well as beads and bead-materials, uncut gem-stones,
copper, bronze and iron objects, backed bricks, roof-tiles and shards of different types
of ceramics including the early Roman.18 They are the latest evidence for the long-term
regular transportation of spices, gems, beads and so on to the Mediterranean world and
beyond. As in the case of Arikamedu, the most clinching remains of Mediterranean
contacts are shards of ceramic variety such as amphora jars, garum jars and huge grain
jars.19 Excavated objects confirm that goods shipped from Muziris to Berenike were
mainly forest products like teak, ivory, peacock feather, akil and medicinal herbs;
spices such as black pepper, cardamom, costus, bellium, lykion, nard and malabathrom; marine products like coral, pearls and tortoise shells; and fabricated products such
as gems, glass, semiprecious-stone beads, cameo blanks and textiles including silk. In
addition to it excavation has produced evidence for the shipping of moong beans, green
gram, gooseberry, sesame seeds and coconut. All this re-affirms the Muziris goods
decisive influence on contemporary Mediterranean trade and the Roman economy.20
The port of Muziris, which Pliny calls the first emporium of India (primum emporium
indiae) had reached the zenith of its prosperity in first century AD, according to the
Periplus.21
15
See discussion in McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, p. 15.

For details see, Fuks, Notes on the archive of Nicanor. For details of excavation see, Sidebotham, Ports
of the Red Sea. Also see, Young, Romes Eastern Trade.
17
See Shajan et al., Locating the Ancient Port of Muziris. Also see, Cherian et al., Evidence for the Ancient
Port of Muziri. Selvakumar, V. et.al. (2009), Archaeological Investigations at Pattanam, Kerala: New
Evidence for the Location of Ancient Muziris, in Tomber, R. et.al. (eds.), Migration, Trade and Peoples,
The British Association for South Asian Studies, Part 1: Indian Ocean Commerce and the Archaeology of
Western India, London.2009. pp. 2941. I do not hold on anymore to the hypothetical assumption that I had
put forward jointly with Dick Whittaker in our article, Gurukkal and Whittaker, In Search of Muziris.
18
A comprehensive report of excavations done so far has not been published as yet. See the Interim Report
of Pattanam Excavations 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010. There is a report on the fifth season excavation, published
by the Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR) in 2011. It contains a brief note on all the major
archaeological finds. It has also compiled abstracts of papers presented by the Pattanam research team in the
Conference of the International Association for Asian Heritage, held at Colombo, Sri Lanka, in April, 2011.
19
For a study of the pottery, see, Tomber, The Imported Pottery at Pattanam.
20
For a conceptual analysis of the economic implications of ancient market in the empire see, Bang, The
Roman Bazaar. Also see, De Romanis, Muziris Trade in the Roman Economy.
21
For the reference in PME see, Casson, The Periplus Maris Erythraei, pp. 8384. Also see Pliny, NH,
6.26.
16

186
Rajan Gurukkal
Beads of semi-precious stones such as beryl, carnelian, quartz, agate, amethyst, garnet, chalcedony and onyx, and glass constitute the most voluminous quantity among the
craft-goods excavated at Pattanam.22 A good quantity of beryl and carnelian raw material,
a few stone moulds, their chips, broken pieces and abandoned defective ones collected
from trenches suggest craftsmen engaged in gem cutting, bead making and polishing
to have had camped at the site. Apart from lapidary, metal smelting, brick and tile production are also very well indicated. Although glass beads in huge quantity are present
among the excavated goods, there is no sign of a glass industry in the excavated area,
while remains, probably of a furnace, point to the possibility of some industrial activities.
Remains of spindle whorls, hop scotches, discs and lamps, unearthed at the site are suggestive of a textile industry. Triple groove roof-tiles that occur among the architectural
debris in a very limited way, suggest no local manufacturing. The occurrence of shards
of Indian Rouletted Ware (IRW),23 an evidently non-local pottery type, generally associated with long-distance inland merchants contemporaneous to Roman trade contacts, is
indicative of the involvement of merchants from faraway places like the Gangetic region.
A Brhmi label deciphered as amana (sramana) found on an IRW potsherd has been taken
as evidence for the presence of followers (upsaka-s) of the heterodox orders, mainly
Buddhist and Jain monks.24 A huge quantity of shards of local pottery, mostly of plain or
coarse bowls, found all along the trenches as an assortment showing the ill-disposed state
of the debris, indicate the functional presence of the most common wares.
A set of strikingly fresh evidence comes from the Muziris Papyrus, a very significant Roman document discovered in 1985, which records a loan agreement drawn in
Muziris by a second century Alexandrian creditor with a transmarine trader, signed
by the main merchant, the financier and a third person, the goods manager, probably a Greek stationed at Muziris across seasons. It contains a wide variety of information regarding the Mediterranean overseas trade with the west coast, particularly
with Muziris, the major port to which ships from Berenike had sailed. A ship, namely,
Hermapollon engaged in mercantile circuits between Berenike and Muziris during
the mid second century AD is mentioned in the document indicating the continued
prosperity of the port.25 There are many details in the document regarding the conveyance of goods from the Red Sea port to Koptos through the desert using camels, and
from there to Alexandria by river.26 On top of all, it helps us imagine how adventurous,
extensive, systematised and expensive the transactions were in those days.
22
See the brief KCHR, Report on Fifth Season Excavation.

The origin of IRW, a fine ware of high ceramic standardisation and uniform technology, has been attributed
to a single geological source, presupposing its distribution from a major kiln complex run by the potter community dispersed but within the same geological zone. The zone has not been clearly identified as yet. For
studies see, Begley, Rouletted Ware at Arikamedu, pp. 42740; Ford et al., A Geochemical Investigation,
pp. 90920; Magee, P, Revisiting Indian Rouletted Ware, pp. 104354. Also see, Suresh, Symbols of Trade,
pp. 9394.
24
See, Varier, Graffiti and Brhmi letters from Pattanam.
25
The full text of Muziris Papyrus in translation is given in, Rathbone, The Muziris Papyrus. For interpretation and contextualisation see, Casson, P. Vindob G. 40822. For details about the credit money context,
see, Casson, New Light on Maritime Loans.
26
See Rathbone, The Muziris Papyrus (SB XVIII 13167).
23

187
Reconsiderations
Mistakes have been inherent in the historiography of the subject matter, Indo-Roman
trade, from the very inception onwards in making inferences from archaeological,
numismatic and literary data. National sentiments and pride have always been ahead in
interpreting the meanings and implications of archaeological objects especially the
hoards of Roman coins. Some of the mistakes were inadvertent in the sense that the
ideological presuppositions and framework of understanding of pioneering historians
of trade could hardly help them recognise what aspects of their generalisations went
incompatible and anachronistic where and how in the context of the nature of contemporary economy, society and polity. It is strange that the same kind of overstatements
based on archaeological or epigraphic inferences continue to our times in spite of the
enabling presence of theoretical knowledge that helps make out socio-economic incompatibilities. There is exaggeration about the nature of South Indians participation in
contemporary transmarine commerce, in the writings of both the Western and Indian
archaeologists who make untenable inferences on the basis of certain remains the signification of which is unclear. Inferences based on inscribed port-shards, teakwood
remains, and pieces of Indian cotton sails constitute a set of speaking examples. It has
been inferred from the teakwood remains in the form of planks of secondary use and
pieces of sail-cotton of Indian weave, possibly parts of a dismantled South Indian ship
that many South Indian merchants had sailed in their ships to the Red Sea coast.
Similarly, shards of Indian common pottery on the Red Sea coast have been taken as
evidence for the prolonged stay of Indian merchants there. All this has been interpreted
as proof of direct and significant participation by South Indians in contemporary overseas trade and of their making fortunes out of it.
As we draw closer to the archaeological objects and inferences based on them, they
tend to wane and vanish as a mirage. For instance, the teakwood remains, mostly in the
form of unused planks, were obviously imported by the Roman ships. The inference
that they belonged to South Indian ships is imagination in the light of a few allusions in
ancient Tamil poems to a chieftain navigating his vessel in the sea. Nevertheless, there
is no evidence as to believe that huge seagoing vessels were built in India during the
period. In fact, the ships sailing with the monsoon wind had required the angular mast
of Arab design and hence it is most likely that the ships were designed and built by the
Arabs.27 Moreover, the Indian identity of the cotton pieces of sails excavated at Bernike
and Myos Hormos are not an undoubtedly established issue as yet. Likewise, the South
Indian origin of the port-shards excavated from the Egyptian ports and trade-routes is
not certain, for they are predominantly of coarse ware, widely used by manual labourers and slaves all over.28
Nevertheless, the few shards of IRW (sixteen shards of three dishes) and stamped
bowls collected from Berenike could be part of the personal belongings, probably
of merchants from India. Similarly the label inscription in Tamil-Brhmi characters
dating back to the first or second century AD, found on a potsherd which mentions
27
28
See, Catsambis et al., The Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology, p. 501.

See Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade, pp. 62431.

188
Rajan Gurukkal
Ctan and Kannan, could be perhaps names of two merchants from the Tamil South. A
similar label inscription discovered from Berenike mentioning korran (korra-pumn)
meaning chieftain may be indicative of the seafaring of a Tamil chieftain.29 As already
noted earlier, there are a few direct or indirect allusions in ancient Tamil poems to the
chieftains association with overseas trade.30 It is important to note that the GraecoRoman literature of the second century AD contains stories of rich Indian merchant
princes visiting Alexandria.31 It is difficult for us to take all this as solid evidence for
the Tamil Chieftains regular sail to Berenike with his merchants, because that would
have required him to stay at the Red Sea ports of Myos Hormos, Quseir al-Qadim and
Berenike, and to negotiate with various agencies for the transportation of goods across
the desert and beyond, a task least feasible in a chiefdom lacking the essential political
economy preconditions such as the existence of organised bodies of maritime traders,
ports with an adequate hinterland base, generation of unpaid surplus, rise of stratified
social relations, growth of aristocracy, the formation of the state power and its juridicopolitical manifestations.
No Local Base
The absence of archaeological or any other evidence for the existence of hinterlands of
crafts production and exchange is a crucial issue that precludes the feasibility of a sui
generis port town. As in the case of Arikanedu, excavations at Pattanam have shown
some indications of crafts production at the site, in the form of lapidary waste, swindle
whorls, crucibles and fragments of iron slag. But these are indications of artisans and
craftsmen camping at the port-site seasonally. There is no archaeological indication of
permanent industries anywhere. Instead, everything looks temporary and trade-induced
rather than a setup of manufacture relatively permanent, necessitating the opening of a
port at the strategic point. The ports seasonal character with a time lag of about
sixmonths was unavoidable since the ships were monsoon wind dependent and naturally the manufacture or mobilisation of arts and crafts was inevitably seasonal too.
However, there are no clues as to who owned and controlled these goods. Likewise,
there are no clues as to who worked the gems and who the bead-makers were. The
Pattanam data do not provide any clues to the local settlers and their means of subsistence. The only local artefact of significance with a local base was perhaps textiles
including silk, but we do not have any idea about who owned and controlled the industry, how and by what means.
29
There is an old argument that Korran was the chieftain of Kutiramalai in Sri Lanka and a contemporary of
the famous hill chieftains, El ini, Athiyamn Nedumn Aci and Kumanan. The ancient Greeks have noted
Hippuros (literal translation of Kudiramalai in Greek). See, Pillay, South India and Ceylon, p. 39. The later
studies have rejected this argument and it is now clear that korran is a generic term meaning chieftain rather
than the proper name of a chieftain. The label inscription, indeed, refers to a chieftain of the Tamil region.
30
See details given in Note 3.
31
For instance, the Charition mime which is a Greek mime found in Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 413 (P. Oxy. III
413), as an untitled manuscript, remotely derived from Euripides Iphigeneia in Tauris. It has the scene of
action transposed to India, wherein a number of characters speak in an unknown language, possibly Tamil.

189
At the lowest stratum of the Pattanam site early Iron Age non-burial remains have
been unearthed, for the first time in Kerala. Shards of Black and Red Ware (BRW)
dominate these remains that appear in their stratified contexts as superimposed by the
multicultural relics of overseas trade.32 The debris of superimposed material culture
over the BRW clearly shows replacement of the previous settlers rather than absorption or transformation. Nevertheless, the presence of local people in the port town is
well attested by shards of local wares in substantial quantity, but in what capacities
and functions are not certain. It is reasonable to presume that many were providers
of multiple goods as well as services in arts, crafts and manual labour. Apart from the
sequential disposition of the two strata, there is no archaeological evidence at the site
as to presume the transformation of the BRW people into crafts-specialists like beadmakers or gem-cutters. This precludes the possibility to try and discuss a general transition of the social formation from the Early Iron Age/Megalithic to the Early Historic
consequent on the overseas trade.33
The locality hardly seems to have become organically linked up with the port town
as its hinterland providing manufactured goods and services of specialised arts and
crafts, except iron smelting and pottery. It appears that specialists of crafts production
were non-local, mostly drawn from far-off places. They seem to have reached the port
town with the raw material concerned and stayed on doing their craft at the site during
the season. Though the craftsmen were seasonal migrants arriving with their goods
in sufficient quantity, most of them must have stayed back for the six-month duration
between the two monsoon winds. There is evidence for the continuation of their arts
and crafts production at the port town during the period of the annual sojourn. This
seems to be true in the case of bead workers and stone cutters, but not in the case of
fine-ware potters and silk weavers. However, it is clear from the ancient Tamil poems
that there were settlements of hereditary craftsmen such as potters, goldsmiths and iron
smiths in the headquarters of the three chiefships. There is archaeological evidence for
a wide distribution of beads as part of burial goods in the megaliths, clusters of which
survive at places, not too far from the port site of Pattanam and are quite accessible
through water bodies. Nevertheless, we cannot postulate these as indicative of local
crafts production, for the bead material is non-local and habitation remains are absent.
By and large the traders from the West too must have stayed back in the port seasonally. However, some of their agents might have been long-term inhabitants catering to the needs such as goods stocking and storage keeping. Some among them must
have been settled in order to oversee the production or the storage of long distance
goods such as silk textiles. There are indications probably of small warehouses both at
Aricamedu and Pattanam. It is quite reasonable to assume that the goods had arrived
from distant places in time, since the ships arriving by June and July could sail back
only in December with the north-east monsoon. They did not have to supervise crafts
production since the main manufactures shipped were beads, gems and textiles. Some
32
For details see, Shajan and Selvakumar, Pattanam: The First Iron Age. Also see, Cherian et al.,
Chronology of Pattanam.
33
See, Selvakumar et al., Trial excavations at Pattanam. Also see, Tomber, Amphorae from Pattanam.

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Rajan Gurukkal
of their agents would have been in the port towns for longer durations, for mobilising
the collection of spices. Even that had not involved much duration because, pepper
the most predominant spice item unlike long-pepper, was a product of contemporary
household agriculture and hence kept packed by the farmers well before the onset of
monsoon. So was the case of ginger, the next important spice. However, there were
several other items foraged from the forest, the acquisition and storing of which was an
immediate pre-monsoon activity too.
The site is conspicuous for the absence of the remains of any permanent structures.
It cannot be called an urban site in the strict sense of the term which denotes a strategic point of convergence of goods and services with its infrastructure of circulation,
communication and governance, sustained by the hinterland.34 Pattanam was a bazaar
where transmarine and overland merchants converged for exchange. It was predominantly a littoral landscape (neytal) inhabited by fisherfolk and salt makers (paratavar
and umanar), who had no role in the bazaar other than bartering their products. This
was not the case with the Greeks and Romans in their port, who were monetised and
urbanised in their cultural and social relations presupposing a higher degree of consumption demand for exotic goods.
Camps of Foreign Traders

Archaeological goods with a preponderance of Mediterranean objects excavated
recently at Pattanam and earlier at Arikamedu, make it explicit that contemporary
Indian ports were primarily camps of transmarine traders engaged in seasonal imports
and exports of goods. Among the excavated relics, Mediterranean ceramic goods are
strikingly high-flying and suggestive of personal use as containers and storage jars of
items meant primarily for self-consumption rather than exchange. The shards of
Mediterranean ceramics consisting of the Roman terra sigillata and amphorae besides
the West Asian torpedo jar as well as Turquoise Glazed Pottery appear to be part of the
personal objects of the foreign merchants camping at the site. Terra sigillata, a finer
slip variety of Roman pottery with a glossy red surface, was used on the dining table
by Roman aristocrats. We need hardly state that they were of personal use.
Amphorae jars were used as containers of wine, oil and certain lasting food items.
Their presence implies import of olive oil, wine and garum, of which the first and last
hardly had any use-value to the local people, although the wine might have attracted
the chieftains. Olive oil and garum were the main cooking oil of Romans and Greeks.
There are remains of huge jars as well, probably used for carrying grains and hence
indicative of their import. The Mediterranean merchants were not rice eaters, and hence
had required to carry with them enough of the grains of their need. Similarly, they had
to carry their oils and beverages too. It is reasonable to presume that the items such as
grains, olive oil, dry fruits and wine were imported obviously not for exchange, but for
the self-consumption of merchants and organisers of trade who were Greeks, Arabs,
34
For a scholarly examination of the nature of trade enclaves, see Champakalakshmi, Trade, Ideology and
Urbanization, pp. 11740.

191
Philistines and a few Romans. Remains of Roman glass bowls, fragments of painted
glass objects, and glass pendants discovered at the site, are suggestive of personal
belongings rather than merchandise. In fact, the kind of items found, imported from the
west, would suggest more than just a transit halt of foreign traders.
So far the excavated port sites are conspicuous for the absence of any permanent
structures or any other indications of the local ruling authoritys control. At the same
time autonomous existence and transactions by overseas merchants, trade organisers
and financiers are distinct in archaeological indications as well as documentary indications in the Muziris Papyrus. It is important to remember that the Papyrus was an
agreement signed under Roman law and between the merchant and the moneylender
with a third party (obviously a Roman trade manager) stationed at Muziris. This is a
clear indication of the autonomy of the port town as a foreign merchant camp under
Roman control in functional terms.35 The insignificant presence of indigenous merchants is evident from the meagre occurrence of the Indian fine-ware shards. Similarly,
the lack of signs of concentration of stone working or bead-making in any specific area
shows the peripheral role of craftsmen. Local people, seemingly confined to the role of
menial service providers, had no influence on the port town.
Ports of RomanIndian contacts in general had to be settlements of Mediterranean
merchants who were constrained to stay at the site of shipping, at least for a few
months, that is, during the gap between the two monsoon winds. It was not possible
to distinguish the merchant settlement from the port, since both were so integral to
each other in those days. The prolonged stay of Graeco-Roman people at the port is
presupposed by the Putingarian Tables mention of a temple of Augustus at Muziris.
Archaeological finds at Arikamedu as well as Pattanam suggest that Arabs, Greeks,
and Romans had stayed in the port town. It was at once the bazaar of foreign merchants with their storehouses close to the wharf at the inlet from where boats carried goods to ships off-shore. All this goes to suggest that the port was virtually the
enclave of foreign traders.
Indo-Roman or RomanIndian?
Indo-Roman Trade is an expression popularised by the Indian historiography at a
time when classicists were gratified to imagine trade connections between Rome and
India. It is also a fact that the nature of Romes contact with its eastern provinces was
not quite clear to them. We see the term essentially a misnomer in the light of the evidence that is available. Therefore, the label Indo-Roman Trade needs to be rethought
and substituted, for in actual practice it was RomanIndian trade. More correctly it
should be called Indo-Mediterranean trade, since the actual exchange was all with
Egypt and the Red Sea although the finances came from Alexandria and Rome. It operated virtually as scheduled commerce under the imperial protection of the Roman
35
The Muziris Papyrus is reportedly a part of the two separate documents; one pertaining to a maritime loan
and another relating to security. What has survived is the document that dealt with security. See, Casson,
New Light on Maritime Loans.

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Rajan Gurukkal
Empire. Roman aristocrats were the individual financiers and patrons of the merchants
and their costly enterprises across the continents and seas. It was a risky and uncertain
but systematised activity involving the participation of multiple actors from communities of uneven development, the organisation of which was never an individualistic
enterprise.36 A portion in the Papyrus is quite revealing:
...And I will weigh and give to your cameleer another twenty talents for loading up for the
road inland to Koptos, and I will convey [the goods] inland through the desert under guard
and under security to the public warehouse for receiving revenues at Koptos, and I will place
[them] under your ownership and seal, or of your agents or whoever of them is present, until
loading [them] aboard at the river, and I will load [them] aboard at the required time on the
river on a boat that is sound, and I will convey [them] downstream to the warehouse that
receives the duty of one-fourth at Alexandria and I will similarly place [them] under your
ownership and seal or of your agents, assuming all expenditures for the future from now to
the payment of one-fourth-the charges for the conveyance through the desert and the charges
of the boatmen and for my part of the other expenses.
It is quite important to interpret the Papyrus and the archives of Nicanor, which are
of great value for any study of the nature and organisation of exchange between classical Rome and the Indian coast. The document lists items, their prices and the traders
who lent out money and who borrowed. The Papyrus, now kept in the Vienna museum,
is obviously the traders personal copy, for it mentions various expenditures such as
customs duties, payment to the camel men, etc., and the privilege of the trader in the
transaction. It confirms the distinction between those engaged in transmarine commerce with the orient and the merchant middlemen. The document says that cargoes
had to be unloaded at Myos Hormos or Berenike and transported on camel back across
the desert route to Alexandria from where they were to be carried beyond by boats to
Koptos and finally all over Europe. It was a very wide network of Rome extending
from Pozzuoli near Naples through Alexandria and Bernike to Muziris, and involving many agents and managers of trust and responsibility under strict agreements of
obligations and assurances, and a huge expense by way of payments of taxes, wages,
service charges, securities and shares.37 On the whole the RomanIndian exchange
was an enormously expensive state enterprise by Rome. It was literally Roman trade,
primarily a state-sponsored enterprise, run under the imperial financial support and
physical protection of the Roman Emperor. The Roman military had offered protection all along the highly inhospitable camel/caravan routes for the safe transport of the
precious goods.
36
See, Kessler and Temin, The Organization of the Grain Trade; Fitzpatrick, Provincializing Rome. For
a detailed account of the organisation of trade and trading vessels, see Sidebotham, Berenike and the Ancient
Maritime Spice Route, pp. 195205.
37
H. Harrauer and P. Sijpesteijn (1985), Ein neues Dokument zu Roms Indienhandel, P. Vindob. G. 40822,
Anzeiger der sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Kl. 122 (1985) 12455 quoted in
Casson, L (1990): New Light on Maritime Loans: P Vindob G 40822, in Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und
Epigraphik, Vol. 84. Recto, Column 2 (English translation) p. 200.

193
The record shows that the price of oriental goods was astounding with 25 per cent of
the estimated cost added as taxes, tolls and transit wages paid at various points.38 The
Nicanor archives provide detailed information on the taxes levied on a variety of items
transported along the desert roads from Myos Hormos and Berenike to Egypt.39 The
Papyrus document gives us a concrete idea about the tremendously expensive nature of
contemporary Mediterranean trade on the goods from the Indian ports. It required huge
amounts of money for various purposes at several points between the port and market.
The object of the highest cost in the enterprise was the vessel itself, which should necessarily have been of a size large enough to withstand the weather conditions of the sea
and carry at least 11,000 talents of cargo. A Roman ship, reportedly, had the capacity
to carry over 11,000 talents of merchandise. Each such vessel loaded with cargo from
India was out and out a huge treasure worth over 5000 million drachmas.40
It was a very profitable enterprise too. A shipload of goods from the east was worth
seven million drachmas and hence they were transported with great care and protective
participation by the ruling aristocracy of Rome. Spices, ivory, pearls, nard, tortoiseshell, teak and silk were the most precious among the goods shipped. According to
Strabo the ships that brought oriental goods from Muziris amounted to 120 per year
on an average. There is no wonder in Plinys mention of the Roman Senate growing
anxious about the drain of gold. That the drain meant influx of gold to the Indian coast
is not true, for most of it had gone into the hands of traders. Pliny has noted that the
traders were able to sell their goods at hundred times their actual cost.
It will not be amiss to set forth the whole of the route from Egypt, which has been stated to
us of late, upon information on which reliance may be placed and is here published for the
first time. The subject is one well worthy of our notice, seeing that in no year does India drain
our empire of less than five hundred and fifty millions of Sesterces, giving back her own
wares in exchange, which are sold among us at fully one hundred times their cost price.
(Pliny, NH, 6.21, 6.26 and 12.41)
In this connection a differentiation should be made between finances relating to

the Orient/East which for the Romans included coastal west Asia, and finances for
India. It has also been argued that Roman writers exaggerated the drain of wealth
from Rome deliberately so as to get the patricians to cut down on their ostentatious
38
The Muziris Papyrus provides us real empirical data about the huge money involved in Roman trade with
India. A shipload of nard, ivory and textiles was worth 131 talents, estimated as the amount enough to purchase about 2400 acres of farmland in Egypt. The total weight of the consignment was about 7190 pounds or
three-and-a-half tons. An ordinary Roman merchant vessel had a capacity of 340 tons and was capable of
carrying over 11,000 talents of merchandise. Each ship with such cargos was a veritable treasure. See the
discussion in Casson, New Light on Maritime Loans, p. 198. The parcels of ivory and textile alone had
weighed 92 talents and were worth 528,775 drachmas, a value of 1155 talents, almost as much as the cost to
build the aqueduct at Alexandria. Also see, Sidebotham et al., Red Land, p. 186.
39
See, Rathbone, The Muziris Papyrus.
40
For details of transport costs, see Sidebotham, Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route, pp. 21216.
He estimates the buying power of Indian cargoes reaching Egypts east coast, pp. 21718. Also, see the discussion in Casson, New Light on Maritime Loans, p. 198.

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Rajan Gurukkal
lifestyle.41 Some scholars maintain that the taxes on these goods paid by Egyptian
traders to Roman authorities were high enough for there not to have been such a drain
on Roman finances.
Contrasting Political Economies

Rome was fabulously rich during the turn of the Christian era. Augustan conquests had
not only given Rome control of Egypts ports, but also mercantile command over South
Asian coasts, which was essential to meet the social demand for consumable goods
from the east. Mercantile command pumped into the hands of the Roman aristocracy,
enormous money enabling them to reinvest heavily in trade. Roman aristocracy was
rich enough to commission huge overseas vessels to get goods of demand in Rome
imported through Philistine, Arab and Greek merchants. In short, RomanIndian trade
was not accidental but very much a structured outcome of the political economy and
society of the Roman Empire that was characterised by huge wealth, absolute state
power, eminently organised militia, an adventurously enterprising aristocracy, a rich
entrepreneurial middleclass, sustained social demand for consumable overseas goods
and a wide network of trade and market.
A comparison between the political economies of South India and Britain is quite
relevant here. Though there was no Roman conquest of the Tamil region and its annexation as a part of the Empire unlike in the case of Britain, the political economy of late
Megalithic and Early Historic Tamilakam is comparable to that of the late Megalithic
semi-tribal Britain on the eve of Roman conquest.42 Britain, at the time of Caesars
conquest and incorporation into maritime trade, was a largely undifferentiated economy based on clankin ties and ethnic loyalties. However, the impact of the conquest
and annexation was drastic enough to push in new technology and relations transcending clankin ties and ethnic loyalties, which soon turned the economy to be differentiated and society became class structured. Corresponding to the growth of the ruling
aristocracy, an intermediary class was on the rise enabling expansion of trade networks
of the Empire, formation of several proto-urban centres, and the emergence of a few
monarchical states like those at St. Albans and Colchester. Such changes giving rise
to demand for luxury goods necessitated overseas trade, importing prestige items like
gold and wine in exchange of grain and slaves, to satisfy the kings and nobles. Britain
became a full-fledged trading region of monetised people with a considerable level of
effective demand. The political economy of the Tamil South was a stark contrast.
According to extant sources, especially the ancient Tamil anthologies, Tamilakam
or the Tamil macro-region was characterised by a combination of several unevenly
evolved and kinship based redistributive economies of chiefdoms structured by the
dominance of agro-pastoral means of subsistence and predatory politics. It is obvious
41
See Veyne, The Roman Empire, pp. 18384.

For the archaeology of the Megalithic culture, now frequently referred to as the Iron Age culture in the
Tamil South, see, Rao, The Megalithic culture of South India; Leshnik, South Indian Megalithic Burials.
Also see, Sundara, The Early Chamber Tombs of South India. For a discussion of the chiefdoms in the late
Megalithic phase see, Gurukkal and Varier, Cultural History of Kerala, pp. 23846.
42

195
that the conduct of overseas trade was not likely in such a social formation. However,
it is appropriate to consider in some detail the political structure of contemporary Tamil
chiefdoms so as to convincingly realise that it precludes the possibility of the region
to have organised overseas trade all by itself or to have involved in it as a partner. The
political structure of Tamil chiefdoms was uneven and complex, expressive of three
levels: the level of the village chieftain (Ur-Kilr), the level of the hill chieftain (MalaiVlir) and the level of the larger landscape chieftain (Ntu Vntar), across which existed
active interrelationships but with no running thread of hierarchical political control. An
extremely difficult type, it hardly fits in with any of the known models. None of the
levels represented the structure of a full-fledged state system, even at the Vntar level
that was based on communal holding of resources and kinship-based production. It was
not the structure of a simple pre-state polity either. Their authority was determined by
the range of redistributive social relationships sustained through predatory accumulation of resources.43
Allusions in ancient Tamil poems indicate that overseas exchanges did enrich the
status and ranking of the bigger chieftains, obviously through the acquisition of prestige
goods such as wine and gold, and their redistribution. However, acquisitions of such
luxury goods and enlargement of redistributive relations could hardly bring out any
fundamental change in the political economy of the chiefdom. Consciousness about the
benefit of overseas contacts is explicit in the initiatives taken by bigger chieftains who
were actively interested in promoting overseas exchange traffic, within their limits. A
poetic allusion in ancient Tamil literature praises the Cras for the measures adopted
to check the problem of piracy on the west coast and the arrangements of lights on
the shore for the ships to make out the coast during night. Nevertheless, it was not well
within the capacity of the chiefly infrastructure to extend services beyond the bare
minimum and hence it is not accidental that there exists no evidence for the chieftains
interest in the protection of trade and trade routes acquiring institutional manifestations. Several songs in the anthologies refer to the hazardous journey of merchants and
caravans through forests and arid planes with no facilities of protection from wayside
robbers.44 This exposes the nature of the political formations that precluded any organisational capability of protection and maintenance of traders and trade routes.
There is a clear indication as to how Roman trade contacts had influenced the three
chiefly linesthe Cra, Pndya and Cla (mvntar). Roman trade drew them from
their traditional seats such as Karur, Madurai and Uraiyur respectively, to the ports
such as Muziris, Korkai and Kaveri respectively where they seem to have established
their coastal headquarters. However, there is no indication of them to have exercised
any juridico-political control over the ports, overseas traders and markets. There
is a tradition about a Pndyan Queen in the third century BC to have represented a
43
For a detailed consideration of the structure and functional processes of the chiefdom level polity, see,
Gurukkal, Antecedents of the State Formation. Also see the article reproduced in Gurukkal, Social
Formations in Early South India.
44
Parameswaran Pillai, Purananuru (Pn)
Viswanathan Nair, Akananuru (An).

196
Rajan Gurukkal
confederacy of the entire ruling lines of the Tamil South to negotiate trade relations
with Emperor Augustus. A Pndyan delegation to Augustus is mentioned by Strabo.45
Some of the ancient Tamil poems allude to the Tamil chieftains as masters of the sea. A
poem (Pn. 66) refers to a chiefly ancestor to have mastered the movement of the wind
when his ship sailed on the dark and enormous ocean. Another poem (Pn. 126) refers
to a Cra to have owned a navy carrying gold to the shore. Some of the poems allude to
the strength of the chieftains in terms of new wealth (ynar), probably the Roman gold
in exchange for the resources of their forest hills (malaittrm). A poem incidentally
refers to the hill products (malaittrm) and sea products (kaarrram), mainly pearls,
of Cenkuuvan, a Cra chief and to the gold that reached ashore by boats, in exchange
(Pn. 343). This chieftain is celebrated in the poem as kaalpirakiyakuuvan,
meaning the Kuttuvan who lagged the sea behind, probably an expression referring to
his navigational expertise. A chieftain of the Pndya country, famous for pearl fisheries
and the silk industry, is eulogised as ynar maiyar kmn, indicative of his command
over the new resource (Pn. 71). Some of the hill chiefs (Vlir), next in importance to
the three lineages, were able to acquire new resources like gold coins, precious stones
and horses, the main prestige goods of the time, through exchange of spices abounding
on their hills. The Irunko-vl-s hill rich in resources like ivory, monkeys, animal skin,
sandalwood, etc., is praised in a poem (Pn. 202) as gold-yielding, obviously Roman gold
through exchange. These indications to chieftains participation in exchange cannot be
stretched too far to presume it as participation in the conduct of trade or leadership in
it, for there is no corresponding indication to the existence of a compatible political
economy.
Organisation of Labour
The nature of social organisation of labour can show the level of social stratification,
for at once it signifies the level of technology, productivity and the structure of social
relations of appropriation. As already noted, the principal social mode of labour realisation was familial and hence based on kinship. Skilled crafts like smelting, metal
working, stone cutting, bead-making and pottery were full-time trades of specialists
and hence hereditary.46 Iron had a central place among metals as the most extensively
used metal both for making productive tools and defensive weapons. The significance
of its use for weapons in a society of predatory operations for booty capture and redistribution cannot be exaggerated. Further, the practice of burying iron objects along
with the dead had pushed a great deal of iron out of circulation presupposing continuous iron working as a full-time occupation of hereditary specialisation. Another activity that had to be regular and extensive was ceramic production due to the brittle nature
45
The Pndyan Queens visit is not borne out by history. Historically it is well attested that there were rich
pearl fisheries on the Coromandel Coast as well as Sri Lanka. The delegation to Augustus is not borne out by
history too, although Strabo mentions about it. See, Strabo, XV, 14.
46
For details of social organisation of occupations see, Gurukkal, From Clan and Lineage. Also see the
article reproduced in Gurukkal, Social Formations in Early South India, pp. 25571.

197
of the product and its use in everyday life for mundane as well as ritual purposes.
Moreover, the variety, fabric, polish, glazing, slips, paintings, texture and decorative
designs of pottery suggest that it was a full-time technology of specialised expertise.
Another full-time function of hereditary nature was that of warriors (maravar) whose
service was essential for every settlement (r) since its principal mode of appropriation of resources was predatory. Such full-time artisans/craftsmen of hereditary occupations were certainly more in the headquarters of bigger chieftains of the Vlr and
Vntar levels, which as the major redistributive pools of resources could support more
full-time crafts. The familial and kin based division of labour and the hereditary nature
of crafts suggest a social milieu of clankin ties with little scope for the rise of complex
relations of flexibility enabling development of the technology and productivity into a
better phase that makes economy differentiated and society stratified.
Tendencies towards social stratification were much more likely at the headquarters
of the three biggest chiefly lineagesthe Cras, Clas and Pndyas. In the ruling headquarters, marketing centres and coastal towns/ports such as Muciri (Muziris), Tondi
(Tyndis) Korkai and Puhar, several hereditary craftsmen and specialised functionaries
drawn from the hinterlands must have worked and perhaps got organised into corporate bodies (nikamam). Probably in the coastal towns/ports organised merchant groups
must have used the labour of a class of servile people under conditions of coercion and
relations transcending kinship. Poems refer to captives working in pearl fisheries of
Korkai. In the headquarters of the Ventar chiefdoms, differential allocation of new position, status, roles and ranks within the complex redistributive relationships was quite
likely. It is reasonable to presume that it must have led to the beginnings of some kind
of notional hierarchy. However, this differentiation does not seem to have given rise to
social stratification. No indications of the emergence of a clearly stratified society are
seen in the ancient poems that mention only a primordial type of social differentiation
represented by the binary between the highborn (uyarntr) that comprised brahmanas
as well as gods and the lowborn (izipirapplar).47 That the second category comprised
all people suggests a very flexible kind of social division, and lack of indications to the
existence of intermediary positions, confirms the fluidity. Similarly the differentiation
in terms of the objective conditions of life was also confined to the binary between the
redistributors (puravalar) and its dependent benefactors (iravalar). In short, it was a
society, not altogether complex and clearly stratified although at the same time not too
simple to be egalitarian either.
It is anachronistic to talk about the existence of an aristocratic group in such a
society. The question then is as to whether or not chieftains could have constituted an
aristocratic group by themselves. Indeed, chieftains were rich in their valuables and
had people under their command but all in a contingent network of redistributive obligations within the kinclan ties. Such a group of chiefly distinction but subsumed by
the clan ties cannot be equated to a class by itself. It is not accidental that the sources do
47
There is a different perception in Kennedy, The King in Early South India. A better conceptualisation is
attempted in Seneviratne, From Kudi to Nadu. For a detailed examination of the issue see, Gurukkal,
Antecedents of the State Formation in South India.

198
Rajan Gurukkal
not indicate the existence of a distinct class. Chieftains who embodied the clan wealth
and an autonomous aristocratic class with increasing demand for non-local technoeconomic consumables are not the same. Therefore, it is hard to imagine the Tamil
chieftains to have had any direct role in the overseas trade that had involved deployment of several agents and managers, transport of goods through the sea, the desert,
and the river, unloading, weighing, reloading, and leaving the goods under the ownership and seal, paying cameleers, boatmen, etc. A chieftain had no organisational and
institutional infrastructure for all this. Moreover, it is explicit from Muziris Papyrus, a
business contract of detailed stipulations executed under the Roman Law, that contemporary overseas transactions required a document-based, law-bound, juridico-political
setup of an empire. The Papyrus says:
With regard to there being- if, on the occurrence of the date for repayment specified in the
loan agreements at Muziris, I do not then rightfully pay off the aforementioned loan in my
name-there then being to you or your agents or managers the choice and full power, at your
discretion, to carry out an execution without due notification or summons, you will possess
and own the aforementioned security and pay the duty of one-fourth, and the remaining threefourths you will transfer to where you wish and sell, re-hypothecate, cede to another party, as
you may wish, and you will take measures for the items pledged as security in whatever way
you wish, sell them for your own account at the then prevailing market price, and deduct and
include in the reckoning whatever expenses occur on account of the aforementioned loan,
with complete faith for such expenditures being extended to you and your agents or managers
and there being no legal action against us [in this regard] in any way. With respect to [your]
investment, any shortfall or overage [se. as a result of the disposal of the security] is for my
account, the debtor and mortgager... (Rathbone, The Muziris Papyrus)
A Misnomer
Conceptualising the extant evidence, the present writer had argued a couple of decades
ago that the expression, classical Indo-Roman trade could be a misnomer, for what
had happened was not trade but a kind of exchange between trading and non-trading or
the monetised and non-monetised societies, involving the use-value of goods and precluding the notion of exchange value, price and profit.48 Although the exchange had
involved gold and silver coins of Rome, they were money, measure of value and means
of payment only to the traders. To the people of the region, these were precious metal
objects. Several hoards of Roman coins have been found at different parts in the Tamil
South, including the recent addition from Valluvally, a place at a distance of six km
south of Pattanam. The excavations at Pattanam have yielded a few copper coins, probably in circulation among the merchants.
Ancient Greece and Rome absolutely illustrate the role of money as a driving force
of social integration and economic activity.49 Their monetary systems were highly
48
49
See Gurukkal, Forms of Production. Also see Thapar, Black Gold.

See Harris, ed., The Monetary Systems, p. 6.

199
developed and contributed to form the basis of the economic supremacy. Roman society was monetised quite rapidly during the second century BC; monetary circulation
rose markedly. As Roman domination expanded, regional money systems were permitted to operate in coexistence with Roman money. Provincial coins vanished as a result
of growing impoverishment and were replaced by Roman money. In the context of
Augustus reorganisation of the Roman state, the monetary system was reformed as
well. Roman money spread to the most remote corners of the empire by way of the
soldiers and the armys activities. The aureus and the denarius were the main trade
coins beyond the borders of the empire. Although coinage was the most widely used
form of money, bullion was prevalent in transactions outside the city of Rome, and the
extensive credit-money had contributed significantly to economic growth by sustaining stability of money supply.50
However, as in the case of any other civilisation, the Graeco-Roman was an
ensemble of unevenly developed communities too, of which some were even totally
non-monetised.51 Even among many whose services were hired at different points of
halt and transit the mode of payment was barter, as we understand from the Muziris
Papyrus. South Indian societies were largely in such a state wherein the dominant
mode of exchange was of goods for goods. Coins were there, issued by chieftains but
hardly do we have any indication of their use as means of payment and measure of
value. Perhaps they were used only by traders.
In any case, mere presence or absence of coins hardly means presence or absence
of trade in a society.52 Ancient Rome had a brisk exchange with China, but as of now
there is no numismatic evidence for it. Hundreds of Roman coins have been discovered
in hoards as stray finds at various sites in southern India, a substantial number of which
are often lost before being recorded and classified, hence failing to provide any reliable base to generalisations about the age, nature and volume of trade. On the contrary,
coins obtained as dispersed objects from stratified sites are better indicators of the period,
nature and context of exchange, than hoards. Occurrence of coins in hoards, perhaps
suggests their non-currency status in time, place and culture. Further, the survival of the
Roman coins in hoards, as fresh as from the mint, and several of them with an aperture
at the centre or loops on the periphery, is a clear indication of their non-currency status
in contemporary society. By and large the local people were not used to exchanges based
on money, for their transactions were through the system of goods for goods, reciprocity and re-distribution, as allusions in ancient Tamil poems.53 The peoples of Tamil
50
Harris, ed., The Monetary Systems.

The rural folk in ancient Greece and Rome followed the barter system. J.G. Manning says that monetisation penetrated under the imperial economy, since the private economy of the rural masses was still largely
characterized by barter while credit was constrained by personal, family, and status relationships. See, his
Coinage as Code.
52
See, for example, in relation to Sri Lanka, Weerakkody, Roman coins of Sri Lanka; Bopearachchi,
Seafaring in the Indian Ocean. Also, Weerakkody, Taprobane, and Burnett, Roman Coins from India. Also,
De Romanis, Romanukharattha and Taprobane.
53
The concept of reciprocity is integral to the concept of redistribution as defined in Polanyi, The Economy
as Instituted Process. See the concept applied and contextualised in Gurukkal, Forms of Production.
51

200
Rajan Gurukkal
macro region were largely non-monetised as clues from literary sources would have us
presume, a fact which probably accounts for the survival of the coins in hoards and as
fresh from the mint. As a contrast, the peoples of the Chinese coasts were monetised,
which probably accounts for the non-survival of Roman coins. What the people in the
Tamil macro region needed were gold and silver which they used as ornaments and
valuables of status and ranking. Hence the Roman coins were used mainly as objects
of treasure per se as their discovery in hoards and appearance quite fresh from the mint,
suggest. The gold and silver coins were turned into ornaments by putting them on a
thread as several pieces found with loops on the edge or aperture at the centre would
have us believe.
There is no palpable evidence for any kingdoms in India organising trade with
Rome, but on the contrary so much do for the Roman Empire doing it for satisfying
its demand. The Pndyan queens delegation to the Augustan Rome is well known
too, but still as a story, because the presumption that the delegation was for the formalisation of exchange relations and promotion of transmarine commerce between
the Pndya country and Roman Empire, is not borne out by evidence.54 Nevertheless,
the Roman Empire and its conquests had not led Rome to claim India as part of its
empire, either. Since there was no empire in contemporary India, the trade contacts
of the Roman Empire could have been based only on a relationship of imbalance in
matters of exchange. Actually, it is anachronistic to talk about Indo-Roman trade in the
light of the characterisation of the political economy of the ancient Tamil South and the
expression is hence a misnomer. The expression RomanIndian trade is more appropriate. In fact, in the strict sense, even the term trade is inappropriate to the context
of contemporary Tamil political economy.55 There has been little discussion of such
questions relating to the political economy of contemporary Indian societies. With the
result, the predominance of Indian overseas trade and her maritime civilisation based
on spice export particularly of pepper, has always been a case taken for granted in the
Countrys historiography.56
Poetic embellishments apart, it is hard to believe that a Tamil chief was able to
commission a sea-going vessel, do all arrangements of agents and managers, offer
protection to the transport of his cargoes along the desert and exchange them. The
chiefs hardly stand in comparison with the Roman aristocrats who were able to commission vessels for maritime trade. Chieftains of varying degrees of resource strength
54
Strabo, Geography, XV, 14. For interpretation and contextualisation see, Whittaker, Conjuctures and
Conjuctures.
55
The projection of evolved economic institutions and practices into transactions of primordial communities
is anachronistic. See, Herskovits, The Economic Life. The first detailed conceptualisation of the issue is in
Mauss, The Gift. Also, Polanyi, The Economy as Instituted Process. For a discussion in the context of
social formation, see, Godelier, Marxist Perspectives. Other relevant studies are: Sahlins, Stone Age
Economics; Gregory, Gifts and Commodities; Humphrey and Hugh-Jones, Barter, Exchange, and Value;
Gregory, Savage Money. Also his, Exchange and Reciprocity.
56
A scholarly overall assessment of the nature and extent of Indo-Roman trade is made in, Thapar, Early
Mediterranean Contacts with India. For specific details, Begley and De Puma, Rome and India; Young,
Romes Eastern Trade. Also, Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade.

201
were indeed far above the people, but by being part of the kinclan ties embodied their
tribes/clans, rather than constituting a class. However, the chieftains being in command
of forest eco-zones rich in spices, ivory, peacock, gems etc., and some of them of the
coastal tracts with pearls and textile, the major merchandises of the ancient overseas
trade, they must have acquired a good quantity of gold and silver as valuables which
could be exchanged for better status and ranking. These valuables do not seem to have
facilitated a more productive circulation of resources and labour, whereby changing
the redistributive society stratified. It is not accidental that there is no indication of the
chiefly political authority undergoing transformation into state power.
Concluding Observations
To conclude, the central argument in the paper is that the expression, Indo-Roman
trade popularised by Indian historiography is a mistake, for what had happened was
literally Roman trade with India having little or no role in it and therefore, at best it can
be expressed as RomanIndian trade. What emerges out of a critical examination of
recent archaeological discoveries at ancient port sites of Egyptian desert and the Indian
west coast besides the extant sources is that classical RomanIndian trade was an
exchange of serious imbalance quite natural to the transactions between an Empire and
a region of chiefdoms. A further argument is that most inferences made in the light
of recent archaeological and epigraphic material by both the Western and Indian
archaeologists, about South Indian merchants direct participation in overseas exchange
are socio-economically untenable, incompatible and anachronistic. Contemporary
Mediterranean trade with the eastern world was a heavily collaborative, highly systematised, extensively networked, document based, contractual activity, with clearly
stipulated rates of rent, interest, price and profit accounted in terms of money and with
precise sense of weights and measures. It is incompatible and anachronistic to presume
that contemporary Tamil chiefdoms, largely in the milieu of clan/kin ties and redistributive economy had the required techno-economic, organisational, institutional and
structural capabilities. Communities yet to transform themselves into class structured
society precluded the possibility of any individuals coming up to commission a transoceanic vessel or to finance transmarine trade. Even the chieftain who embodied the
wealth of the chiefdom could not have organised and controlled such an elaborately
networked and instituted trade all by himself. If the Tamils were to run transmarine
trade on their own they should have sailed with the southeast Monsoon Wind towards
Berenike and returned after six months with the northwest Monsoon Wind, for which
they should have had appropriate ship-building technology as well as suitable stay
arrangements. The extant archaeological indications in the form of shards of Indian
pottery at Berenike and along the Nile road are not enough to support the presumption.
At best it would have been possible for some of the adventurous traders to set on sail
in seagoing teakwood-boats up to the Red Sea coast and exchange their cargo there and
return when the next monsoon wind blows. Even if we presume that they had shipped
goods only up to the Red Sea coast and had agents, managers and intermediaries for the
202
Rajan Gurukkal
rest of jobs, the question of various capability pre-requisites for arranging all that
including stay till the next monsoon wind would remain. Such capabilities are utterly
unlikely in a chiefdom level society and polity. However, it is not unlikely that some
Tamils had accompanied the traders in the Arab or Mediterranean ships, perhaps as merchant middlemen and providers of trade goods and services on board, for it would not
have necessitated organisational and institutional capabilities. Hence, the whole historical imagination about Indias maritime civilisation is a distortion in historiography.
Abbreviations
Pn. = Purannru; An. = Akannru; Prp. = Patirruppattu
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Downloaded from ihr.sagepub.com at Templeman Lib/The Librarian on November 4, 2015

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Classical Indo-Roman Trade

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Classical Indo-Roman Trade

See discussion in McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East, p. 15.

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

See the brief KCHR, Report on Fifth Season Excavation.

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Classical Indo-Roman Trade

See, Catsambis et al., The Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology, p. 501.

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Classical Indo-Roman Trade

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Camps of Foreign Traders

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Classical Indo-Roman Trade

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Classical Indo-Roman Trade

In this connection a differentiation should be made between finances relating to

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Contrasting Political Economies

See Veyne, The Roman Empire, pp. 18384.

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Classical Indo-Roman Trade

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Classical Indo-Roman Trade

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

See Gurukkal, Forms of Production. Also see Thapar, Black Gold.

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Classical Indo-Roman Trade

Harris, ed., The Monetary Systems.

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Classical Indo-Roman Trade

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Classical Indo-Roman Trade

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Classical Indo-Roman Trade

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

Indian Historical Review, 40, 2 (2013): 181206

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