Spice trade Spice trade The spice trade refers to the trade between historical civilizations in Asia, Northeast Africa and Europe. Spices such as cinnamon, cassia, cardamom, ginger, pepper, and turmeric were known and used in antiquity for commerce in the Eastern World. These spices found their way into the Middle East before the beginning of the Christian era, where the true sources of these spices were withheld by the traders and associated with fantastic tales. Early writings and stone age carvings of neolithic age obtained indicates that India's southwest coastal port Muziris, in Kerala, had established itself as a major spice trade
Cassia (gens) namesakes are the Via Cassia, the road to Arretium, and the village of Cassianum Hirpinum, originally an estate belonging to one of this family in the country of the Hirpini. Their most famous member is Gaius Cassius Longinus, an assassin of Julius Caesar alongside Brutus. A possible clue to the origin of the Cassii is the "cognomen Viscellinus" or "Vecellinus", borne by the first of this gens to appear in history. It appears to be derived from the town of Viscellium or Vescellium, a settlement of the Hirpini, which is mentioned by Titus Livius in connection with the Second Punic