Dramatis Personae

This concluding chapter identifies the two co-signatories of the loan contract. The manager of the department charged with levying customs duties on Indian commodities ( paralemptes ) was also the lender of the loan contract written on the recto of the Muziris papyrus. In all likelihood, the borrower was the owner of the Hermapollon . However, the cargo imported from Muziris was so enormous that it could hardly have belonged to a single merchant, as the loan contract—signed by a single borrower—seems to suggest. In all likelihood, the underwriter, a lone Indian Ocean ship owner ( naukleros Erythraikos ), represented also the Indian Ocean merchants ( emporoi Erythraikoi ) who chartered transport space on his ship. The Muziris papyrus lays bare the terms of a cooperative arrangement between the paralemptes and the naukleros , which may have been a structural peculiarity of Roman trade with India in the first two centuries AD. Above the merchants/borrowers and customs collectors/lenders is the imperial administration, whose officers assist and monitor the arabarchs’ work.

Ancient history · Business · Estate · Loan · Papyrus · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Byzantine Studies and History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Finance · History