Trade was very important in Ancient Rome as the Empire cost a lot of money to run. Rome’s population was around 1 million at the time, which meant that they needed to earn a lot of money to survive. The Romans sailors used sea routes to trade and buy items such as papyrus from Egypt, glass from Phoenicia, pork and salt from Austria, tin from England and cooking pots from North Africa. Some sailors even travelled as far as west Asia to trade with people from India just to get Indian cotton, some spices and some silk. All of these were very expensive and only the very rih could afford to buy them. The Romans used to mainly trade olive oil, wine and cereals.