coins struck chiefly by emperors down to Nero, and after the death of that emperor the traffic on Rome's part was not confined so closely to the Tamils, but was spread more evenly along Indian coasts in general, and was conducted more by barter than with money, resulting in a decrease in the numbers of coins found in southern districts representing emperors subsequent to Nero.

The last notices of importance given by the Periplus are concerned with the regions of the Ganges and beyond; the author applies this name to the districts of Bengal, to the river itself (particularly the Hughli estuary) and to a mart which is probably the modern Tamluk; and in these regions there was a considerable trade in Chinese and Himalayan cinnamon-leaf, Chinese silk, and articles of local produce; the Malay Peninsula, regarded as an island, was known to send the finest of all tortoise-shell in the Indian seas, while to the north lay the land of This, that is, the great unexplored states of China, of which a great city was Thinae, that is, so far as we can tell, Nanking; the country produced silk sent to the west partly by land, partly through India and the Indian Ocean, and cinnamon-leaf; but few Chinese merchants ever came from there; instead the Besatae once a year brought cinnamon-leaf and sold it by silent barter at a spot (near Gangtok?) situated on the confines of their own homes in the Himalayas and the regions ruled by the Chinese. We shall deal with this trade and its importance later on.

This thriving commercial activity in Indian seas as revealed by the Periplus was of course in existence to a certain extent before the discovery of the best way in which to use the winds of the Indian Ocean, but the account was written at a time when the effects of the discovery were beginning to manifest themselves to their fullest extent. Certain general considerations of the available evidence will illustrate the far-reaching effects of Hippalos' discovery on Rome's traffic with India.

II. Roman Coins and Roman Wine

The literary evidence for trade from Roman and Tamil sources finds surprising corroboration from Archaeology and Numismatics. Sir Mortimer Wheeler describes the hordes of Roman coins found in India, and the Roman pottery and other articles excavated at Arikamedu, near Pondicherry. R. E. MORTIMER WHEELER, Rome beyond the Imperial Frontiers, G. Bell and Sons, London, 1954, xii, p. 192. The following reading is from pages 138 to 153.