How Roman trade with India made the Empire rich

[Music] in our previous episode discussing the economic history of the roman empire we covered how egypt and its vast wealth helped to facilitate the increased prosperity which the empire enjoyed during the early part of its existence while the great fertility of the nile region and the desert's plentiful mining resources undoubtedly played a part the greater factor was trade the well-managed egypt began to function as a conduit for massively prosperous trade to and from the east in this video we shall discuss the various routes used for this trade its history and its products in more detail welcome to our video on the red sea route indian ocean trade and how it interacted with the roman empire this video is sponsored by imperator rome the newest historical grand strategy game from paradox interactive build a glorious empire out of blood and marble take the reigns of power over any of hundreds of ancient nations including rome and carthage as you slowly expand to dominate the classical mediterranean europe and india expand trade build roads and command armies on the most detailed map ever made for a paradox game but keep an eye on your generals and governors some of them will increase their own power and plunge your land into civil war enjoy the panoply and majesty of the world of caesar and hannibal in imperator rome coming april 25th you can support our channel by buying the game via the link in the description [Music] the indian ocean was central to the economy of the ancient world the rich variation of climates across the various ecological zones of the subcontinent and other eastern regions made possible the cultivation of unique spices and other products which could not be grown in the temperate mediterranean or western europe by the 1st century a.d the indian population for example had grown to around 60 million people and it is said that the size of their great civilization even owed the romans how did the prosperous international trade between the mediterranean world and the east begin we shall cover a brief history of that topic now the red sea became prominent in ancient near eastern trade during pharyonic rule in ancient egypt when the kingdom's rulers launched expeditions into it to make contact with a land known as punt which was known to be a land of plentiful incense egypt required this valuable commodity due to its religious significance and they would use it for rituals such as mummification carvings and hieroglyphs in the tomb of hat shepsat reveal how she established a base on the red sea coast from which ships were sent to modern somalia returning loaded with frankincense almost a millennium later egypt was conquered by the great persian king kambeces ii his successor darius the first conquered the hindu kush mountain range and advanced into northern india herodotus recorded that the indian provinces of the akamenid empire subsequently provided a third of all imperial tribute showing the vast wealth of the indus region alexander the great destroyed that empire centuries later but he died young in 323 bc during the era of warfare after his death the seleucid empire and tomaic egypt vied for supremacy in battle to this end both desires to reinforce their armies with deadly war elephants the cellucids initially did not have a problem with this as they had access to the powerful indian elephants the ptolemies had a more difficult time as carthage restricted access to the north african elephant it was clear that for the sake of prestige and military prowess talmaic egypt had to acquire its own via other means to accomplish this king ptolemy ii ordered the construction of harbours and shipyards on the red sea following in the footsteps of earlier pharaohs who had exploited eastern links a greek port called arsene was established along with two more southerly bases named mias hormos and berenicke using these seaports as staging points the king sent egyptian sailors along with greek mercenaries along the african coast where they established hunting stations in ethiopia and somalia when captured elephants were transported by sea back to berenicke they were moved inland to the nile river a two week long trip in land during this long journey the caravans of animal handlers and guards often sheltered in caves or under rock formations to avoid the vicious desert heat of the daytime they would often leave graffiti in these shelters scratching their names or drawing the animals they were transporting for example an indian mahout or elephant handler named safon asks the greek god pan for a safe journey when they reached the nile the beasts were taken aboard barges and transported north on the river to the tolmeg heartland however by 200 bc the fading threat of selucid military superiority prompted the ptolemies to abandon their hunting operations nonetheless the infrastructure on the red sea remained in place and allowed merchants to capitalize and make profits from red sea trade in 118 bc an egyptian patrol ship discovered the shipwreck of a merchant vessel with only one survivor an indian sailor after being taken aboard he was spirited away to the court of ptolemy vii and was treated well apparently learning greek during his stay he explained to the tomeg court that he had been blown off course whilst sailing from india and offered to guide any ship which would return him to his homeland the egyptian ruler was enthusiastic about potential direct contact with the prosperous countries of ancient india and appointed a greek navigator named eudoxus to command the voyage the indian mariner revealed the secrets of the monsoon wind which would blow from the southwest in summer and the northeast in winter this helped the expedition to reach the indus kingdoms in only a few weeks and they both exchanged gifts and made trade deals with the indian rajas this discovery of swift monsoon aided sailing routes across the indian ocean began a crucial new era in the development of the ancient economy which the rising roman empire would subsequently exploit to the full after octavian's conquest of egypt in 31 bc rome controlled a concentric ring of territories around the mediterranean and now sought to expand its commercial interests further as we mentioned in our previous video augustus undertook a significant restoration of egypt's infrastructure governed at the time by his prefect alias gallus this leader was ordered by the emperor to restore the red sea shipyard at arsene in order to prepare for a campaign to arabia while this ended in disaster the restoration of harbour facilities allowed roman merchants to take advantage and build dozens of new commercial vessels with which to undertake new ventures to india during galas's prefecture his personal friend the greek geographer strabo accompanied gallus on a tour of the nile river during which he learned that six times the number of vessels now made the journey to india than during tolmaic times the nile city of coptos was the nexus of the so-called red sea route and was the main hub at which goods from arabia india and africa were received roman officials and agents consequently had their headquarters there in order to extract the required taxes to reach this city by ship on the nile from alexandria took 12 days as the journey was almost 400 miles from coptos merchants and other travelers would join overland caravans bound for two main red sea ports veronica and mias homos mios homos was closer to coptos but often had unfavorable sailing conditions whereas baronicae was further away but its winds were less tempestuous the caravan routes leading to these jumping off points were simple tracks marked by cairns made of stone the previously dire danger of mountain bandits was reduced when augustus constructed watchtowers and garrison outposts to protect the trade routes contingents of roman soldiers would even escort some of the larger caravans to their destination this would protect valuable trade and increase merchant confidence but this was not the only factor which drove the romans to protect the roots supplies for and resources from the valuable stone quarries emerald mines and gold veins passed through them which were crucial to increasing rome's prosperity at the end of the voyage were the two aforementioned main red sea ports veronica and mias homos the latter was the favored base for outbound voyages to india and it was from here that over 120 merchant vessels per year sailed during the prefecture of alias gallus in the augustan era the city's harbour had a strong winding entrance which would function as breakwaters protecting doc's ships the size of the port was exemplified in 25 bc when gallus brought his army back from arabia the prefect managed to land his entire hundred-plus strong fleet of ships at mioshomos the town itself was focused on the trade which ran through it workshops connected to shipbuilding and the shipping industry along with workshops for naval repair and temporary lodgings for traders were all common on the outskirts was also a large enclosure which possibly functioned as part of a caravanserai a rest stop for merchants and their precious camel mounts 180 miles and five sailing days south of mioshormos was berenice this larger port town served as an important administrative center for the roman government in egypt its harbour facilities had degraded under the ptolemies but were restored during tiberius's reign to enable long-term docking facilities this appears to have had its intended effect as the nicono archive reveals to us that commercial enterprises based in coptos were making plentiful outbound deliveries to the coastal city an increase in the graffiti on the route from coptos to berenicke dating to this period also confirms the rise this was all intended to facilitate trade from the indian ocean into which hundreds of roman ships would venture in order to reach distant kingdoms in africa arabia and india itself trade with india alone pumped more than a billion sisters worth of taxable eastern goods into roman territory every year the revenues raised by these taxes contributed to the cost of the professional army which secured roman dominance and ensured the pax romana in addition to adding vast quantities of wealth to the imperial treasury eastern goods transformed roman culture by offering unprecedented new food flavorings perfumes jewelry and clothing fashions luxuries which had never before been seen by the often austere romans many senior aristocrats such as pliny viewed the growth of this international trade with incredible pride he stated that no one can deny that life has been advanced by the interchange of commodities in this partnership of peace however eastern trade also brought new risks to roman structure which risked its long-term stability the unique environmental and geographical conditions in which imported eastern products such as incense and spices were grown meant that the empire had no equivalent export with which to meet the cost therefore in order to sustain the eastern trade rome had to ship vast amounts of bullion to pay for the eastern products pliny again comments on this troubling state of unbalance both pepper and ginger grow wild in their respective countries but we buy them using so much gold and silver in order to examine the rich contents of the eastern trade in more detail we shall look at the hermapollon which was briefly covered in our previous episode the miziris papyrus tells us that the ship carried 60 boxes of nard an indian aromatic plant 100 pairs of elephant tusks and three tons of turtle shell the ship's main cargo however were indian spices in the 135 tonnes of pepper and 83 tons of malabathrum indian cinnamon which were recorded in the maziras papyrus the full scale of indian ocean exports to roman egypt per year is a difficult matter to calculate but by upscaling the hermapollons contents we can attempt it assuming strabo's 120 merchant ships the red sea porch could have been receiving 16 000 tons of pepper and cotton worth 556 million sisters 10 000 tons of mala bathroom and other spices worth 158 million sisters 50 tons of nard worth 32 million sisters 576 tons of ivory worth 60 million sisters and 360 tons of turtle shell worth 18 million sisters per year this is a stunning volume of trade totaling around 26 000 tons of eastern goods per annum with various exotic spices as the main product trade on this scale was possible because rome was interacting with civilizations with populations as large as their entire empire we are planning to make more videos on the roman economy so make sure you are subscribed to our channel and have pressed the bell button we would like to express our gratitude to our patreon supporters and channel members who make the creation of our videos possible now you can also support us by buying our merchandise via the link in the description this is the kings and generals channel and we will catch you on the next one

Channel: Kings and Generals

Views: 881,625

Rating: 4.9307685 out of 5

Keywords: roman empire, john green, indian ocean, full documentary, raoul mclaughlin, history documentary, roman economy, kings and generals, ancient history, world history, ancient rome, documentary film, history lesson, decisive battles, animated documentary, historia civilis, military history, history channel, animated historical documentary, roman republic, julius caesar, Why Was Egypt Crucial for the Roman Empire?, augustus

Id: eDTaOOVbxLs

Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 25 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/belltoller]

Great video but I wish we knew more about the Indian side of things ....