<P> The southern route so helped enhance trade between the ancient Roman Empire and the Indian subcontinent, that Roman politicians and historians are on record decrying the loss of silver and gold to buy silk to pamper Roman wives, and the southern route grew to eclipse and then totally supplant the overland trade route . </P> <P> Roman and Greek traders frequented the ancient Tamil country, present day Southern India and Sri Lanka, securing trade with the seafaring Tamil states of the Pandyan, Chola and Chera dynasties and establishing trading settlements which secured trade with the Indian Subcontinent by the Greco - Roman world since the time of the Ptolemaic dynasty a few decades before the start of the Common Era and remained long after the fall of the Western Roman Empire . As recorded by Strabo, Emperor Augustus of Rome received at Antioch an ambassador from a South Indian king called Pandyan of Dramira . The country of the Pandyas, Pandi Mandala, was described as Pandyan Mediterranea in the Periplus and Modura Regia Pandyan by Ptolemy . They also outlasted Byzantium's loss of the ports of Egypt and the Red Sea (c. 639--645 CE) under the pressure of the Muslim conquests . Sometime after the sundering of communications between the Axum and Eastern Roman Empire in the 7th century, the Christian kingdom of Axum fell into a slow decline, fading into obscurity in western sources . It survived, despite pressure from Islamic forces, until the 11th century, when it was reconfigured in a dynastic squabble . Communications were reinstated after the Muslim forces retreated . </P> <P> The Seleucid dynasty controlled a developed network of trade with the Indian Subcontinent which had previously existed under the influence of the Achaemenid Empire . The Greek - Ptolemaic dynasty, controlling the western and northern end of other trade routes to Southern Arabia and the Indian Subcontinent, had begun to exploit trading opportunities in the region prior to the Roman involvement but, according to the historian Strabo, the volume of commerce between Indians and the Greeks was not comparable to that of later Indo - Roman trade . </P> <P> The Periplus Maris Erythraei mentions a time when sea trade between Egypt and the subcontinent did not involve direct sailings . The cargo under these situations was shipped to Aden: </P>

Who opened trade between india and the mediterranean world