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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Justify Pliny’s statement that Rome was being drained out of its gold by India during the first century of the Christian era.

  • UPSC 2012
  • Post-Mauryan Period

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Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, complained that India, China, and Arabia together drained the Roman Empire of an estimated 100 million sesterces annually, with India alone accounting for the largest share. This was not rhetorical exaggeration — it reflects a real structural imbalance in Indo-Roman trade, corroborated independently by archaeology, numismatics, and the…

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What the full answer covers

  • The Structural Trade Imbalance
  • Archaeological Corroboration: Roman Coin Hoards
  • The Periplus and the Port of Muziris
  • Roman Settlements and the Monsoon Breakthrough
  • Wider Significance
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