Looking East from the Classical World equivalent to million Roman sesterces. Only a small number of ships of the
size of theHermapollonwould have been required to match even the larger
of the figures given by Pliny the Elder. When reading the papyrus, we are
not in the realm of fantasy, but in the real world of the author of thePeriplus.
Nothing stated here should be taken as offering a clear disproof of ideas
or notions entertained in the modern world. A ‘‘Silk Road’’ across central
Asia may have existed, and the Iranians may have been imbued with dualis-
tic conceptions of the world, which perhaps influenced Judaism, during the
Captivity or after, or lay behind Mani’s heretical preaching. The study of the
social, cultural, and religious history of ancient Iran, however, has hardly
begun, and nor can we yet place the Greek inscriptions of central Asia, in-
cluding the two Buddhist proclamations of Asoka, in a historical setting.
Only with the seaborne trade of the first century..do we place our feet
on firm ground.