Sri Lanka and Greco-Roman Maritime Trade Relations

Abstract

Sri Lanka had maritime trade relations even in the 6 century BC and we had famous naval ports used for maritime trade especially for maritime ‘Silk Road’ used by people who were in Greco-Roman, China, India, Persia for their foreign trade. Therefore, Sri Lanka was able to make new economic relationships. In this study, we mainly focused on Sri Lankan maritime trade relationship with Greco-Roman. Our research problem is, what was the trade relationship between Sri Lanka and Greco-Roman?. Our objective is to identify the importance of Sri Lanka along with the GrecoRoman trade. This study was conducted under the qualitative research method using a library survey. From these three sources Literary sources, especially foreign texts have many records about Sri Lanka and Greco-Roman trade. Some of those authors were Cosmos, Pliny, Ptolemy and Strabo. Some archaeological evidence was found from ports like Mahathittha, Godawaya and Kingdoms like Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa. The main archaeological evidence is Roman and Indo-Roman coins for the trade relationship between Sri Lanka and Greco-Roman. Certain Indian factors were also important in conducting this research because Sri Lankan trade had a close relationship with the Indian trade also. From this research we understood that there was an internal transport system in Sri Lanka, Roman trade was spread many places in Sri Lanka, in some times India and Persia acted as intermediaries between Sri Lanka and Greco-Roman trade and the main point we identified was, Sri Lanka was a core in the ancient trade system and by the fifth century AD, Sri Lanka was one of the main trade centres in the Indian Ocean.