76 ORIGIN AND SPREAD OF THE TAMILS peacock was introduced from India by its merchants to Babylon. 5. Pliny on the drain from the Roman Empire: Pliny says that at the lowest computation, India, Seras (Ceras ?), and Arabia drained from the Empire a hundred million sesterces (about £1,087,500) every year~" so dearly do we pay for our luxury and our women;" again, in a more important passage he tells us that India took away from Rome not less than fifty-five million sesterces (about £600,000) yearly, giving in return merchandise which was sold for one hundred times its original cost, that is to say tbrough expenses incurred on the journey. This is confirmed by Chinese sources, for in the Chin-Shu annals we are told that the Parthians and Indians traded with the Roman Empire by sea, reaping profit, and althougb a corresponding passage in the Later Han annals reads tenfold and implies that "Syria" made the profit, Pliny's statement seems to confirm the higher estimate." (E. H. Warmington, The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India, pp. 274-275.) . 6. Overseas trade between Rome and South India : The evidence available from the classical writers of the West reveals for the reign of Augustus the following connections between the Cera kingdom and the Pāņdya kingdom and the Roman Emperor. (1) "From the South Indian Cera kingdom (sometimes confused with the Seres or Chinese, because of the soft "C" and the appellation Seri given to the Ceras by the Ceylonese) whence came pepper, and where at some time a temple was built to Augustus at Muziris (Cranganore), perhaps by way of thanks to that Emperor. Hence the alleged ** Seres" as ambassadors, unless they were Bactriads (Kuşans)
