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Dario NAPPOOxford University The ports of the Red Sea as customs gatesThe aim of this paper will be an analysis of the role played by the Roman ports on the Red Sea as key points for controlling the trade through the mean of taxation. The available documentation made it clear since many years the existence of taxes levied upon the items coming into the Empire at a 25% rate on the value of the incoming goods. Recently, a dossier of documents discovered at Berenike on the Red Sea added more information on the subject of the taxes levied upon the outgoing goods. This paper will analyse all the available evidence on the subject in order to reach two aims.The first one will be assessing the role of the Roman ports as customs gate and the overall functioning of the taxation system in the Red Sea controlled by the Romans, between the first and the fifth century AD.The second aim will be investigate what this general organization can tell us about the Roman policy in the Red Sea and how the analysis of taxation can shed some light on the study of the commerce itself.The final outcome will underline the role played by the Roman ports as means of political and commercial control of the Red Sea area, pointing at the deep interconnection between fiscal, military and commercial policies in the area, in the general frame of the trade between the Roman Empire and India.