namely Naura (Cannanore?) and Tyndis (Ponnani?), for about these the Periplus has little to say: yet Tyndis lay on the navigable river Ponnani which would bring down the pepper of the Anaimalai hills and the beryls of Coimbatore. As far as we can tell, the pirates of South Konkan and Canara were Tamils of the Satiya Kingdom, not much frequented by the Greeks for commerce.¹

But with the three chief Tamil States of South India-namely the Kerala or Chera, the Pandya, and the Chola Kingdoms, the Romans were conducting a very active commerce. The Chera Kingdom was the one within easiest reach of western merchants and afforded them as a staple article pepper in unlimited quantities; in the Periplus the country is called Cerobothra, that is Cheraputra or Keralaputra, at one time extending from Cape Comorin to Karwar Point, but now the northern end was lost and the southern part (South Travancore) had passed into the hands of the Pandya rulers so that Kerala corresponded closely with the districts of Malabar, Cochin, and the north part of Travancore. Its most northern market-town was Tyndis, but its chief mart was the most well-known of all the coast-towns of India, namely Muchiri, residence of the ruler of Kodungalur or Kranganur, called by the Greeks Muziris and represented to-day not by Mangalore but by Cranganore on the river Periyar. The place was crowded with Greek and Arabian vessels; the Greeks brought imperial products in large ships and exchanged them for Indian, but much money had to be brought as well to make up the balance and to create a basis for exchange in India. Men paying a first visit traded silently with the Chera folk, as Pliny shews, but already, according to the Peutinger Table, a temple had been built at Muziris in honour of Augustus, though I feel doubtful about the two Roman cohorts alleged to have been stationed there. A Tamil poem speaks of the thriving Muchiri whither the fine large ships of the Yavana (Greeks) come bearing gold, making the water white with foam, and return laden with pepper, the Chera king giving rare products of the sea and mountains. As Lucian shews, the importance of the place lasted during the second century. Fifty miles to the south by sea and river lay another very important mart called Nelcynda represented not by Nileswara, as some have thought, but by the modern Kottayam in the backwaters behind Cochin. It was approached by stretches of water full of shoals and blocked channels, and vessels paying a visit unloaded and reloaded their vessels about twelve miles away at Bacare or Barcare, the modern Porakad. At this time Nelcynda belonged to the Pandya Kingdom which would be jealous of the control exercised by Cheras over the pepper trade and of

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¹Periplus, 53-54.