{"id":1316,"date":"2009-10-23T23:48:21","date_gmt":"2009-10-24T03:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=1316"},"modified":"2018-08-08T02:48:58","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T06:48:58","slug":"18180-2-anon-1st-century-ad-the-periplus-of-the-erythraean-sea-travel-and-trade-in-the-indian-ocean-by-a-merchant-of-the-first-century-translated-from-the-greek-and-annotated-by-wilfred-h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1316","title":{"rendered":"18180. [2] (Anon. 1st Century AD<\/span>) The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century [translated from the Greek and annotated by Wilfred H. Schoff]"},"content":{"rendered":"

I first read this in 1989, when I became fas\u00adci\u00adnat\u00aded by ancient India. Along with the work of Megas\u00adthenes, it gave me a vivid pic\u00adture of the trav\u00adel, com\u00admerce, and cul\u00adtur\u00adal con\u00adnec\u00adtions between India and the Mediter\u00adranean world in antiq\u00adui\u00adty, and this in turn awak\u00adened me to my present atti\u00adtudes toward the nature and ori\u00adgins of democ\u00adra\u00adcy. The Periplus dif\u00adfers from most oth\u00ader doc\u00adu\u00adments from the era in that it was\u00adn\u2019t writ\u00adten by an aris\u00adto\u00adcrat or an intel\u00adlec\u00adtu\u00adal. It\u2019s a set of sail\u00ading instruc\u00adtions and obser\u00adva\u00adtions on prod\u00aducts for sale and pur\u00adchase in the Indi\u00adan Ocean and its adja\u00adcent gulfs, writ\u00adten by an Alexan\u00addri\u00adan mer\u00adchant sea cap\u00adtain. His name is unknown. But he was a keen observ\u00ader, with an order\u00adly mind. The book was gath\u00ader\u00ading dust in the Shas\u00adtri Indo-Cana\u00addi\u00adan Col\u00adlec\u00adtion of the Uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adty of Toron\u00adto Library, when I first looked at it \u2014 few peo\u00adple were inter\u00adest\u00aded in such things then.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s an alto\u00adgeth\u00ader dif\u00adfer\u00adent sto\u00adry. There is a pletho\u00adra of books on the Indi\u00adan Ocean trade of antiq\u00adui\u00adty, and the Periplus is a stan\u00addard resource for his\u00adto\u00adri\u00adans. Some\u00adthing has changed for me, as well. Now, I\u2019m read\u00ading it with Google Earth in front of me, as I turn every page. The remark\u00adable thing is that I can fol\u00adlow the Periplus like a soar\u00ading eagle, from land\u00admark to land\u00admark. All the names have changed, though some sur\u00advive in dis\u00adtort\u00aded form, in mod\u00adern lan\u00adguages. But the author had cer\u00adtain\u00adly been to the places he described. Where he says there\u2019s a cliff or a moun\u00adtain or a reef, there it is, for me to see with my own eyes. With intense plea\u00adsure, I fol\u00adlowed the text, while zoom\u00ading in and out along the whole coast of the Red Sea, East Africa, Ara\u00adbia, the Per\u00adsian Gulf, the Makran coast, Sindh, the Rann of Kutch, the Mal\u00adabar coast, the mag\u00adi\u00adcal land of Taprobane (Sri Lanka).\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in 1989, I would\u00adn\u2019t have dared to pre\u00addict that such god-like pow\u00aders would be avail\u00adable to me in my lifetime.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I first read this in 1989, when I became fas\u00adci\u00adnat\u00aded by ancient India. Along with the work of Megas\u00adthenes, it gave me a vivid pic\u00adture of the trav\u00adel, com\u00admerce, and cul\u00adtur\u00adal con\u00adnec\u00adtions between India and the Mediter\u00adranean world in antiq\u00adui\u00adty, and \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-br-reading-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1316"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7934,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions\/7934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}