The Making of Roman India (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780521858342)

Latin and especially Greek texts of the imperial period contain a wealth of references to 'India'. Professor Parker offers a survey of such texts, read against a wide range of other sources, both archaeological and documentary. He emphasises the social processes whereby the notion of India gained its exotic features, including the role of the Persian empire and of Alexander's expedition. Three kinds of social context receive special attention: the trade in luxury commodities; the political discourse of empire and its limits; and India's status as a place of special knowledge, embodied in 'naked philosophers'. Roman ideas about India ranged from the specific and concrete to the wildly fantastic and the book attempts to account for such variety. It ends by considering the afterlife of such ideas into late antiquity and beyond.

Author: Grant Parker
ISBN-10: 0521858348
ISBN-13: 9780521858342
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 04/24/2008
Pages: 374
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.62lbs
Size: 9.03h x 6.30w x 1.07d