<P> There is suggestive archaeological evidence that Roman traders were present in Southeast Asia, which was roughly mapped out by Ptolemy in his Geography where he labelled the land bordering the Magnus Sinus (i.e. the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea) as the Sinae . Their port city of "Cattigara", lying beyond the Golden Chersonese (Malay Peninsula) where a Greek sailor named Alexander allegedly visited, was quite possibly the ancient settlement at Oc Eo, Vietnam, where Roman artefacts from the Antonine period such as medallions from the reigns of Antoninus Pius (r . 138 - 161) and Marcus Aurelius (r . 161 - 180) have been found . An event recorded in the Chinese Weilue and Book of Later Han for the year 166 seems directly connected to this activity, since these texts claim that an embassy from "Daqin" (i.e. the Roman Empire) sent by their ruler "An Dun" (Chinese: 安敦; i.e. either Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) landed in the southern province of Jiaozhi (i.e. northern Vietnam) and presented tributary gifts to the Chinese ruler Emperor Huan of Han . Rafe de Crespigny and Warwick Ball contend that these were most likely Roman merchants, not official diplomats sent by Marcus Aurelius (given the absence of this event in Roman sources). </P> <P> Despite two other Roman embassies recorded in Chinese sources for the 3rd century and several more by the later Byzantine Empire (Chinese: 拂 菻; Pinyin: Fú lǐn), only sixteen Roman coins from the reigns of Tiberius (r . 14 - 37 AD) to Aurelian (r . 270 - 275 AD) have been found in China at Xi'an that predate the greater amount of Eastern Roman (i.e. Byzantine) coins from the 4th century onwards . Yet this is also dwarfed by the amount of Roman coins found in India, which would suggest that this was the region where the Romans purchased most of their Chinese silk . For that matter, the spice trade remained more important to the Roman economy than the silk one . </P> <P> From the 3rd century a Chinese text, the Weilüe, describes the products of the Roman Empire and the routes to it . </P> <P> Mercury, who was originally only the god of the mercatores and the grain trade eventually became the god of all who were involved in commercial activities . On the Mercuralia on May 14, a Roman merchant would do the proper rituals of devotion to Mercury and beseech the god to remove from him and from his belongings the guilt coming from all the cheating he had done to his customers and suppliers . </P>

What helped increase trade in the roman empire