INDIAN SHIPPING
during the period of eighty years from Augustus to Nero (a.d. 68); for the largest number of coins[1] discovered in Southern India refers to this period. As already noticed, the locale of these discoveries points also to the conclusion that the things which India exported comprised mostly spices and precious stones. In the long interval between Nero and Caracalla (a.d. 217) there must have been a decline of this trade, considering the very small number of coins discovered which belong to this period, and the finds have been mostly in cotton-growing districts, so that the conclusion is irresistible that the trade with Rome in such luxuries as spices, perfumes, and precious stones must have ceased after the death of Nero, and only a limited trade in necessaries, such as cotton fabrics, continued. This fact is almost in keeping with, and indeed explained by, the rise of a new era in social manners in Rome at this period under Vespasian, when, to use the words of Merivale, "the simpler habits of the Plebeians and the Provincials prevailed over the reckless luxury and dissipation in which the highest classes had so long
- ↑ According to Sewell, "Roman Coins," in the J.R.A.S. for 1904, "612 gold coins and 1187 silver, besides hoards discovered which are severally described as follows: of gold coins 'a quantity amounting to five cooly-loads'; and of silver coins (1) 'a great many in a plate,' (2) 'about 500 in an earthen pot,' (3) 'a find of 163,' (4) 'some,' (5) 'some thousands,' also (6) of metal not stated, 'a potfull.' These coins are the product of fifty-five separate discoveries, mostly in the Coimbatore and Madura districts."
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