chapter five

THE SAILING SEASON OF THE INDIAN OCEAN

Mariners of the Near East had been venturing on to the Erythraean Sea— the name by which Graeco-Roman writers referred to the more northerly reaches of the Indian Ocean and which include the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the Gulfs of Aden and Arabia—throughout antiquity.1 However, it is only during the  rst century ad that we are provided with detailed information regarding the nature of maritime trade in the northern waters of the Indian Ocean, through the sixth book of Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, and in the anonymously authored Periplus Maris Erythraei (to be referred to throughout the rest of this chapter as the Periplus). While the latter trans- lates as ‘A Sailing Round the Erythraean Sea’, it was noted by Casson that the title of the work is somewhat misleading for the text is primarily focused not on maritime conditions or navigational concerns but appears instead to be ‘ rst and foremost a guide for merchants,’ in which ‘the emphasis is overwhelmingly on trading information.’ It is this focus on trade which led Casson to conclude that the Periplus was probably written (in Greek) by a merchant out of Egypt and was based, at least in part, on personal obser- vation.2 There was certainly a demand for information regarding maritime trade across the Erythraean Sea during the early decades of the Roman Principate, with Strabo referring to the ‘large eets’ of commercial ships which, from at least the time of Augustus, were making voyages from Roman Egypt, sailing down the Red Sea and into the Gulf of Aden, from where they would venture out on to the Arabian Sea. Some of these merchant vessels would sail south and make for the trading ports along the African coast; other ships exiting the Gulf of Aden would instead have their prows turned to face eastwards and every year ‘as many as one hundred and

1 Prior to the Roman Imperial period, there are literary references to Egyptians, Phoeni- cians and Hellenistic Greeks trading with East Africa, while, as early as the third millen- nium bc, Babylon had trading links to both Africa and India (Casson 1995: 20f.; Oppenheim 1954). 2 Casson 1989: 7f.; 1991a. 214 chapter five twenty vessels were sailing from Myos Hormos [modern Quseir al Quadim, on the Egyptian Red Sea coast] to India.’3 Evidence for the ancient maritime trading links between the Mediter- ranean and India is also to be found in the archaeological record, most notably from the site of Arikamedu near Pondicherry on the Coromandel Coast of south-eastern India.4 Excavated remains of Mediterranean pottery assemblages recovered from the site indicate it was used as a port-of-trade by Graeco-Roman merchants from at least the second half of the second century bc, while the settlement appears to have reached its trading peak during the early years of the Principate, thus closely linking it to the upsurge in maritime trade between Egypt and India indicated by the literature from this time.5 While it seems that commercial contacts between the Mediter- ranean and India declined during the later Empire, the Peutinger Table still records the existence of a temple dedicated to the Imperial cult at the city of Muziris on the west coast of India. Recent  nds of late antique and early medieval pottery from sites such as Pattnam on India’s Malabar Coast also provide an indication that contact across the Arabian Sea was maintained throughout late antiquity and even into the Middle Ages.6 The archaeologi- cal and textual evidence therefore indicate that ancient exchange between the Mediterranean and India involved ‘a seagoing commerce of signi cant scale and sustained duration.’7 Of principal interest to this study, however, is not so much the scale or longevity of the trade between the Mediterranean and India, but rather the

3 Geography, 2.5.12. See also 17.1.13. For the results of recent excavations conducted at the site of Myos Hormos, see Peacock & Blue 2006. 4 E.g. Begley et al 1996; Suresh 2007; Wheeler 1954: 145f. 5 For pottery analysis from Arikamedu, see Will 1991; 1996. It is also interesting to note that Tamil Sangam literature dating to the  rst and second centuries ad also makes frequent reference to foreigners from the west acting not only as merchants but also mercenaries and craftsmen (see Rashe 1978: 645; Rajan 1988). While it cannot be assumed that all or indeed any of these were of Mediterranean origin since the Tamil term Yavana refers to any western foreigners, be they of Mediterranean, African or Arabian extraction, it is probably of no coincidence that, during the  rst two centuries ad, pottery and glassware from this region of south-west India exhibit strong Mediterranean stylistic inuences (Rashke 1978: 671). Indeed, it has recently been pointed out that in the ancient Tamil poem, the Purananuru, composed c. 200bc–ad100, ‘the poet urges the local king to taste the sweet teral (wine), brought by the lovely ships of the Yavanas and served on trays of chiselled gold, by beautiful damsels with sparkling wrists. These pointed references to the Yavanas bringing gold and wine to south India indicate that the Yavanas were primarily Romans, because we know from other sources that gold and wine were among the chief commodities exported from the Mediterranean region to India’ (Suresh 2010: 29). 6 Raschke 1978: 673; Rauth 2003: 101; Shajan et al 2008. 7 Rauth 2003: 99.