Complex sentence: Following the beginning of the Age of Discovery and the finding, by the Portuguese, of a sea route to India, they became particularly important spice traders and in silver arbitrage-the silver was needed to pay the Asians for those spices.
Split into simpler sentences: Following the beginning of the Age of Discovery and the finding, by the Portuguese, of a sea route to India, they became particularly important spice traders. They also traded in silver-the silver was needed to pay the Asians for those spices.