gems, ancient history, Rome, Greece, India, Alexander the great, ancient trade, commerce, Sri Lanka

Latin—and especially Greek—texts of the imperial period are rich with references to “India.” In this study, Professor Parker offers a comprehensive survey of such literary sources, contextualized through comparison with a broad array of archaeological and documentary evidence. He focuses on the social processes that gave rise to the exotic image of India in the Greco-Roman imagination, highlighting the formative influence of the Persian Empire and Alexander the Great’s campaigns. Three major social contexts receive particular emphasis: the trade in luxury goods; political discourse surrounding empire and its geographic and conceptual limits; and India’s role as a locus of special wisdom, often personified by the so-called “naked philosophers.” Roman conceptions of India ranged from detailed and concrete to wildly fantastical, and the book seeks to explain this diversity of views. It concludes with an exploration of how these ideas persisted and evolved into late antiquity and beyond.