- The Alexandrian Tariff was a Roman Document listing 54 Items from India and the East that were subject to Duty in Egypt.
- It was issued by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius between c. 176-180 CE and was preserved in the Digest of Justinian.
Some of the Items
- Twenty Plants are mentioned in the Tariff including:
- Amomum, Cardamum, Dates, Grapes, Black Pepper, Long Pepper, Rice and Wheat.
Customs Duty was paid twice
- Goods and raw materials from the Eastern Trade with India paid an Import Tax.
- It then appears that as they departed Egypt, particularly as finished products manufactured in Alexandria, they paid an Export tax.
- Strabo mentions that Goods leaving Egypt paid Customs Duties for a second time.
Other Roman Documents relating to Roman Trade with India
- Coptos Tariff
- This was a listing of the people and the animals that had to pay road tolls between the Nile and the Red Sea.
- Periplus of the Erythraean Sea
- The document describes two sea routes from Egypt, one across to India and the other down to Africa, with all distances measured from Berenice.
- Pliny’s Description of the Route to India
- Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) described in detail the journey from Egypt to India in Book VI of his Natural History.
- Muziris Papyrus
- It is a contract between a Merchant of Alexandria and an Alexandrian Financier, regarding a cargo of Pepper and Spices from Muziris.
- The contract describes a Loan Agreement for a cargo worth approximately 9,000,000 sesterces carried from Muziris in India, on a Roman vessel called the ‘Hermapollon’.
- Diocletian's Price List
- Issued in 310 CE, Diocletian’s Price List was an Edict proclaiming the Maximum Prices, ‘Edictum de Pretiis Rerum Venalium’, which was designed to stop runaway inflation.
- It is a useful tool for historians to appreciate the cost of Roman goods and services.
Alexandria