The ancient Indian Ocean trade network, which connected the Roman Empire, Arabia, India, and East Africa, was larger and more systematic than is generally recognized in Western historical curricula, and its documentation challenges the Eurocentric assumption that long-distance maritime trade was primarily a Mediterranean phenomenon.

Roman traders had sailed to India regularly from at least the 1st century BC. The discovery of the seasonal monsoon winds — which blow northeast from October to April and southwest from June to September, enabling a reliable round-trip voyage within a year — made regular trade between Egypt and India practical. The port of Berenice on the Egyptian Red Sea coast was a major departure point; Barygaza (modern Bharuch) and Muzuris on India's western coast were primary destinations.

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century AD), a practical merchant's guide written in Greek, describes the ports, winds, trade goods, and political conditions from Egypt around the Arabian Peninsula to India. It is one of the most direct windows into ancient merchant culture: pragmatic, detailed, and entirely uninterested in the cultural commentary that dominates literary sources.

What the Romans sought from India — pepper, fine cottons, gems, ivory, exotic animals — required exporting enormous quantities of Roman gold and silver coinage, which alarmed Roman writers who worried about the drain of precious metals. Indian archaeological sites along the western coast have yielded substantial hoards of Roman coins; Roman goods (amphorae, glassware, lamps) appear in Indian archaeological contexts from the 1st century BC through the 5th century AD.