Grant Parker

There was, of course, never a "Roman India" in the sense of an India controlled by Rome, or one Romanized in culture. Rather, the book is about India as perceived by the Romans (of the Imperial period: 1st to 6th centuries AD). The India of Roman collective imagination, if one wills. Examining various relevant texts, Parker surveys a number of recuring themes, such as India as a principal source of marvels (ie., monstrous races and other prodigities of nature), India as source of luxury products, and India as home of eastern wisdom as embodied by ascetical brahmans.

I mostly liked it. The language gets heavily academic at times, and at times I'd liked if Parker would have expanded a little more on the (known or infered) Indian reality or lack thereof behind Roman ideas, but these are quibbles.… (meer)