For the Roman Empire, trade was extremely significant. Numerous cities such as Rome had to import large quantities of food across the empire. Also from Europe, Africa, and the Near East, luxury goods came. There was an error. Carriage of goods on land was costly and often dangerous, and therefore most of the trade was carried out by shipping.
The trade is different from back then because it does not take so long and we have better ways of preserving things not so we can import lots of different items, so make it longer and there you go (:
