Roman trade with India

The Roman Empire funded up to half its empire from tax on trade with India. At the height of Rome’s power, the richest city in the western world ran a huge, unbalanced trade account with a land its armies never reached.

Pliny the Elder, who had governed provinces, put the annual outflow at 50 million sesterces in bullion. The emperor Tiberius complained Roman wealth was passing to foreigners. Domitian built dedicated warehouses for pepper in the heart of the city attempting to control prices. A single shipload, recorded in a surviving papyrus, was valued at close to 9 million sesterces, a massive sum. Based on those numbers, customs duties on Indian cargoes produced close to half of the revenue needed to finance the empire. Two legions in Egypt held the customs house that made the scheme work.

India sent pepper, ivory, gems, perfumes and medicines.

Romans prized Indian black pepper, precious gemstones like beryl, pearls, sapphires, and fine cotton and silk textiles along with ivory. Rome paid in bullion. Taxes on imports and exports produced the revenue. The Red Sea corridor required a trip by ship of 4,500 km, (2800 mi) followed by a caravan route of 380 km (236 mi) across the Egyptian Desert, and then another 760 km (472 mi) by ship on the Nile, for a total distance of 5,640 km (3500 mi). The Persian Gulf corridor required a trip by ship of 2,350 km (1460 mi) from India and then by caravan across the Syrian desert for 1,400 km (870 mi), for a total of 3,750 km (2330 mi). To get to India, Chinese silk had traveled another 5,000 km (3100 mi) across the mountainous terrain of Central China.

Great braziers of incense were burned at the Colosseum in Rome to cover the stench of the blood and gore left in the hot sun. During mass spectacles like gladiatorial games and wild beast hunts (venationes), the volume of organic waste created a severe odor problem. Romans honored their dead by burning prodigious quantities of incense at their funerals. The wealthier the dead, the more elaborate the ceremony. Pliny reported that at the funeral of a guilty Nero’s consort Poppaea, a full year’s supply of Rome’s incense was consumed. Facing severe financial problems, Vespasian tried in vain to restrict the import of Indian luxury goods to Rome. Vespasian even taxed the collection and trade of urine around AD 70. Romans traded human urine as a valuable industrial commodity because stale urine breaks down into ammonia, a powerful natural cleaning and bleaching agent.

Poppaea