INDO-ROMAN TRADE

This volume represents a milestone in the study of the complex economic relations between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean in antiquity. D.R. is a recognised expert on the subject, and this publication on the one hand ties together many of his previous lines of research, while on the other it offers many new and interesting insights into Indo-Roman trade. The title only partially gives justice to its content: the volume contains much more than just an analysis of the Muziris Papyrus and the Indo-Roman pepper trade; it also offers a general review of trade between the Mediterranean world and the Indian Ocean. However, it is true that the undisputed protagonist of the volume is P. Vindobonensis G 40822, known as the Muziris Papyrus, a complex document, in fact containing two different texts, one on the recto and one on the verso. On the recto is a partially preserved loan contract in support of a commercial enterprise to Muziris, in India. On the verso, an equally fragmentary text lists the assessment of customs duties on the Indian cargo imported by the ship Hermapollon. The papyrus is usually dated to the mid second century CE. It was first published in 1985, and since then has been the subject of a long list of scholarly works (duly acknowledged in the ‘Introductory Notes’ of the book). In fact, the introduction and all of Part 1, i.e. around 40% of the book, are centred on the analysis of the text and the context of the Muziris Papyrus. Here, D.R. displays his huge competence on the papyrus. He proposes a full list of the integration and possible interpretation of controversial parts of the fragmentary text, restoring as far as possible the overall comprehension of the papyrus and of the documents contained in it. D.R. then offers a detailed analysis of the importance and the significance of the papyrus in the context not only of Indo-Roman trade, but also of ancient economic history. This is probably the most interesting part of the book, and a much needed one, adding order to decades of scholarship on the subject and offering a unifying and coherent interpretation of the text. Furthermore, D.R. underlines the challenges of the voyage between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, describing the geography and the weather conditions of the area under scrutiny. In the second half of Part 1 D.R. focuses on the Indian coasts and on the merchandise that it was possible to trade there. This part ends with a detailed analysis of the written sources on the trade, in particular the Periplus of the Red Sea, Strabo, Pliny and Ptolemy, amongst others. Reconciling the accounts of the sources with the available archaeological and numismatic evidence is never a straightforward process, and D.R. is aware of these difficulties. Nevertheless, in most cases his reconstructions sound persuasive, especially in the section devoted to Pliny the Elder, which is the most convincing and best argued of his philological analyses. The relatively brief Part 2 deals with the technicalities of the loan agreement on the recto of the Muziris papyrus. Here again the philological skills of D.R. are essential to allow him a coherent and convincing overall reconstruction of the loan contract as well as of the deadlines and clauses relating to the repayment of the loan. The fragmentary status of the text implies that some of the restorations proposed are somewhat speculative; therefore not all the hypotheses put forward by D.R. are equally convincing. For instance, THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 625