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Indo-Roman relations began during the reign of Augustus (23 Sept. 63 BCE – 19 Aug. 14 CE), the first emperor of the Roman Empire. The presence of Romans in the Indian Subcontinent and the relations between these regions during the period of the Roman Empire are poorly documented. Unlike the earlier conquests of Alexander in the Indian subcontinent, there are no surviving accounts by contemporaries or near-contemporaries, so modern understanding depends on more abundant literary, numismatic, and archaeological evidence, mainly relating to the trade between them. ==Early contacts== Indo-Roman relations were built on trade. Roman trade in the subcontinent began with overland caravans and later by direct maritime trade following the conquest of Egypt by Augustus in 30 BCE. According to Strabo (II.5.12), not long after Augustus took control of Egypt, while Gallus was Prefect of Egypt (26–24 BCE), up to 120 ships were setting sail every year from Myos Hormos to modern-day India: Augustus maintained the Ptolemaic Red Sea ports and the picket service from the Red Sea to the Nile, whence goods could be carried downstream to the ports of Pelusium and Alexandria. He also replaced the Ptolemaic patrol fleet on the Red Sea to keep piracy in check. He received embassies from Indian kings in 26 and 20 BCE and, although little specific is known about them, as Carey puts it: "These missions were certainly intended for something more than an exchange of empty compliments."〔Carey (1954), p. 496.〕 By the time of Augustus, if not before, a sea-captain named Hippalus had "discovered" (or, rather, brought news to the West of) the relatively safe and punctual contact over the open sea to India by leaving from Aden on the summer monsoon and returning on the anti-trade winds of winter. This would have been made safer and more convenient by the Roman sack of Aden in a naval raid c. 1 BCE.〔Carey (1954), pp. 567.〕 Cassius Dio (d. sometime after 229 CE) in his ''Hist. Rom''. 54.9 wrote:
The overland caravans would have gained more convenient access into the Indian sub-continent after the expansion of the Kushans into northwestern India during the 1st century CE, and then down the Ganges Valley in the early 2nd century.〔Hill (2003).〕
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