The southern tip of India was ruled by three rival kingdoms known as the Chera, the Pandya and the Chola. Most Roman ships visiting northern India sailed south to finish their voyages in these Tamil Kingdoms.1 On reaching the Tamil ports the Roman traders offered the local merchants large quantities of gold and silver bullion. From first-hand experience as a merchant the author of the Periplus reports that ‘the market here is mainly for a great amount of our money’.2 His words have been verified by dozens of Roman coin-hoards found in southern India containing hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of imperial coins. This Roman money consists of gold aurei and silver denarii.
The Cheran controlled inland gem mines in the Coimbatore district and their subjects harvested crops of black pepper in the highlands. Their rivals the Pandians had access to larger pepper harvests and managed substantial pearl fisheries on the southern tip of India. By contrast the Chola controlled a coastline on the eastern seaboard of India and dominated trade with the Ganges, Burma and Malaysia.
Many Roman ships visited northern India and then sailed south along hundreds of miles of coastline to the Tamil Kingdoms.3 The first Tamil trade-stations reached by these vessels were the village-ports of Naura and Tyndis. The voyage down western India took several weeks and Roman ships had to avoid the pirate bases that controlled stretches of the coastline south of Kalliena city. The Periplus lists a series of islands along this coast and warns that ‘around these places there are pirates’.4 Confirmation of this fact comes from a medieval copy of an ancient Roman map called the Peutinger Table which displays the words ‘PIRATE’ in bold red letters near that part of southern India.5
Sometimes Indian kings declared war on foreign vessels entering their territorial waters and in these instances Roman mercenaries were called upon to protect the freighter from eastern warships. The Satavahana were known to attack foreign craft during their war against the Saka Kingdom.6 Tamil sources also record an incident when a second century Cheran King named Netunceral attacked and seized Roman ships. The Patirruppattu describes how the king ‘captured the uncivilised Yavanas of harsh speech, poured oil on their heads, tied their hands to their backs and took their precious and beautiful vessels and diamonds’.7 The Cheran army had attacked the Roman merchant fleet, rounded up imperial traders and either forced them into slavery or imposed a ransom for their release.
World History
