A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c12.14

c12.14

The third and strongest line of argument in support of this suggested chronology for the Śangam is to be found in the striking correspondence between the evidence of the poems on the trade and other relations of the Tamil states with the Yavanas (Greeks and Romans) in this period and that of the classical writers on the same subject, particularly Strabo, the anonymous author of the *Periplus of the Erythraean Sea*, Pliny, and Ptolemy. The details are set forth later in the chapter, and they show beyond a shadow of doubt that this stratum of Tamil literature must have belonged to the age of the classical writers mentioned above.