For millennia, India has been a shopper's Mecca. The ancient Greeks and Romans braved monsoon winds to reach south Indian ports, eagerly trading for spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, pepper and sandalwood, as well as precious materials and gems, including diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls and ivory. The Romans went on a particularly wild shopping spree, spending some 50 million sesterces a year in gold and silver for Indian goods at a markup of one hundred times the original local value, even triggering fears of bankrupting the empire. Indeed, the lure of India long outlasted Roman reign: Venice later rose to prominence and power on the back of the spice trade, Marco Polo delighted in the wealth of pepper, ginger and cinnamon he found in Kerala and Christopher Columbus famously sailed west into the Atlantic in pursuit of Indian commodities.