Looking East from the Classical World:
Colonialism, Culture, and Trade
from Alexander the Great to Shapur I
*The emperor Trajan’s arrival at the head of the Persian Gulf in.. was
the only visit there by a Roman army in the course of the wars against the
Parthian and Sassanid empires which continued sporadically for centuries.
The occasion gave rise to a well-known and illuminating anecdote, told by
Cassius Dio in hisRoman History. As it happens, both the author and hisHis-
torythemselves illustrate the relationship between the classical world and
Asia; for Dio was a Greek who came from Bithynia, the north-west corner of
modern Turkey, but who was also a Roman senator, and was twice consul in
the early third century. Looking back to Trajan’s campaign a hundred years
earlier, he writes in book of his eighty-bookHistoryin Greek: ‘‘Then he
came to the Ocean itself, and when he had learned its nature and had seen a
ship sailing to India, he said, ‘I would certainly have made an attempt against
the Indians, if I were still young.’ For he began to think about the Indians,
and was curious about their affairs, and said how lucky Alexander had been.’’^1
*First published inInternational History Review (): –.
This paper was a revised and expanded version of a lecture given at the Anglo-American
Conference of Historians in London in July , and also at Macquarie University, Sydney,
in November . As will be obvious, it can claim to do no more than touch, in a selective
and personal way, on a few of the profound issues raised by this topic. References to both
ancient evidence and modern literature are also very selective, and are intended to bring
out particularly interesting recent discoveries, and to suggest further reading. For lesser-
known ancient works I have noted English translations where available. I was extremely
grateful to Amélie Kuhrt for detailed comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to
Jenny Graham for drawing the map.
. Cassius Dio,Roman History, (Loeb trans., vol.VIII, –). For Trajan’s cam-
paign, see J. Bennett,Trajan, Optimus Princeps: A Life and Times(), chap. XIII.