INDIAN SHIPPING
refers to the pepper[1] and ginger of India and the great demand for them in Rome, where they were bought by weight like gold and silver. Besides aromatics and spices, the articles for which there was a great inquiry in Roman markets were precious stones, pearls, and minerals, which have been carefully noticed and described by Pliny[2] with a skill rivalling that of a modern lapidary. The most highly prized of these stones was the beryl, found in India in only one place, namely Padiyur in the Coimbatore district, or at most in two, Vaniyambadi in the Salem district being said to also possess a mine; and these beryls were believed to be the best and purest in the world. And it is in the neighbourhood of these mines that the largest number of Roman coins has been found. Thirdly, the demand
- ↑ Cf. McCrindle, Ancient India, p. 121: "Pepper was in ancient times produced chiefly in those parts of India which adjoin the Malabar coast. The author of the Periplus names Tyndis, Muziris, Nelkynda, and Bacare as the ports from which pepper was exported. The ships, he tells us, which frequent these ports are of a large size on account of the great amount and bulkiness of the pepper and betel which form the main part of their cargoes." Cf. also Mommsen, Provinces of the Roman Empire, vol. ii., p. 301: "In the Flavian period, in which the monsoon voyages had already become regular, the whole west coast of India was opened up to the Roman merchants as far down as the coast of Malabar, the home of the highly esteemed and dear-priced pepper, for the sake of which they visited the ports of Muziris (probably Mangulura) and Nelcynda (in Indian doubtless Nilkantha, from one of the surnames of the god Shiva, probably the modern Nileswara). Somewhat farther to the south, at Kananor, numerous Roman gold coins of the Julio-Claudian epoch have been found, formerly exchanged against the spices destined for the Roman kitchens."
- ↑ Natural History, xxxvii. c. 1.
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