The Roman writer Pliny, who died in the destruction of Pompeii in 79 CE talks in his 37th book about a Roman knight who during emperor Nero visited the Amber Coast on the Baltic Sea and brought home large quantities of amber. He talks about ‘commercia’, venues where the amber was gathered and where commerce was conducted. We can assume that those venues for the most part were located at the estuary of the Vistula, where we also find Gotlandic trading Emporiums. During the time of the Emperors these trading Emporiums were visited by merchants from the Danube provinces and Quadiis country, who came to buy raw amber. This amber was transported along a well-organized trade route over the Vistula and the Oder outlet areas through the Moravian gateway and further to Carnuntum at the middle Danube, reaching the sea at Aquileia, which was famous for its amber workshops. The Amber Knight, as he is called in the literature, according to Pliny also visited the major venues in the Baltic Sea region. If this Roman makes a trip to the Gotlandic commercial Emporiums on the Baltic Sea coasts, he obviously does not avoid visiting the trade center in the middle of Mare Suebicum, namely Gotland, which already at that time was considered to have been the center for trade in the Baltic Sea region. Tacitus description is quite clear here. He says, you go straight out from the Vistula estuary to meet the powerful people in the Baltic Sea. From there it is due east and you come to the Baltic Sea coast. Already in the early Iron Age we know that the Gotlanders had trading emporiums there and professor Birger Nerman believes that the Gotlanders were the mediators of culture and commerce to the rest of the Nordic tribes.


Author(s): Gannholm, Tore (Åbo akademi)