ABSTRACT
This chapter details the importance of deep-sea sailing. Modern scholarship has tended to restrict ancient sailing to coasting. Maritime trade followed seasonal routes and the cycle of journeys to a certain destination and back was widely framed by seasonality. The main characteristic of sailing routes is their segmentation. This has been the case of almost all the periods during which sail and oars prevailed in maritime trade. For a good understanding of the economic importance of sea-routes, both at long and short ranges, it is necessary to bear in mind the costs of seaborne transportation with respect to river-borne and road transportation. Modern scholarship is slowly revisiting the importance of the trade routes of the Atlantic. At the opposite corner of the known world as the Romans imagined it, the Roman Empire had a significant maritime outlet in the so-called 'Erythraean Sea'.
