History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer
Justify Pliny’s statement that the Rome was being drained out of its gold by India during the first century of the Christian era.
- UPSC 2012
- Early State and Society in Eastern India, Deccan and South India
Pliny the Elder, writing his Natural History in the 70s CE, complained twice that Rome's appetite for eastern luxuries was haemorrhaging bullion: fifty million sesterces drained annually by the India trade alone, and a further hundred million lost to the combined luxury trade with India, China and Arabia. Assessing whether this alarm was justified requires…
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What the full answer covers
- The Structural Roots of an Unequal Exchange
- Numismatic Evidence: The Coin Hoards
- Archaeological Corroboration
- The Reaction Within Rome
- Corroboration from the Indian Side
- Reading Pliny with Appropriate Caution
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