the mediterranean and the indian ocean 469
captains) who facilitated this trade (Goitein and Friedman, 2008: 121–164).
Continuities from Roman through Abbasid times, then, include the potential trade
imbalance (Indian goods for Mediterranean precious metals) and trade diasporas and
their concerns. As evidenced by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century and later,
who invested large sums and went to great lengths (all the way around Africa) to
bring Indian Ocean goods to the Mediterranean, and by modern superpowers, who
seek both political–military and economic control over Indian Ocean routes to oil,
imperial interests in controlling the routes that link the Indian Ocean to the rest of
the world run deep.
Migrations and exchange of ideasClosely related to the movements of goods is the movement of peoples and ideas.
Merchants moved along the routes connecting the Mediterranean and the Indian
Ocean, sometimes only a segment of the route (in a form of transit trade, or what has
been called “peddler trade”) and later across much greater distances, supported by
bank-like institutions and/or investment groups. As early as the first century ce, slaves
from the Mediterranean were a desired commodity in Indian Ocean markets, in par-
ticular at Socotra and Barygaza (Periplus Maris Erythraei, 31 and 49, trans. in Casson,
1989: 69 and 81). While not documented in the records of the Jewish merchants of
the Abbasid period, slaves continued to be traded between the Mediterranean and
Indian Ocean (Goitein and Friedman, 2008: 17 and Sheriff, 2010: 217–237).
Pilgrims, or individuals motivated by religion, traversed these routes as well. From the
Apostle Thomas to Cosmas in the first millennium to the extensive travels of Ibn
Battuta and the nameless Muslims from all around the Indian Ocean basin who
travelled to Mecca on pilgrimage, individuals moved along the routes that bound
the Mediterranean with the Indian Ocean (Risso, 1995 and Sheriff, 2010:, 239–261).
Varieties of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam not only travelled along the routes
linking the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean but also bound the seas together.
While the land routes were a significant facilitator of ideas moving east and west, the
sea lanes were also important in the diffusion of religions. As early as the third century
bce, Asoka claimed to have proselytized Buddhism as far as the Mediterranean king-
doms of Alexander’s successors, including Syria, Egypt, Macedon, Cyrene, and Epirus
(Rock Edict 13 in Nikam and McKeon, 1959: 29). Apart from these claims by Asoka,
a Sri Lankan epic poem in Pali recorded in the fifth century ce makes reference to a
certain Dhammarakkhita, a yona (or Greek) who was a very successful Buddhist mis-
sionary (Mahavamsa XII). Similarly, across hundreds of years and thousands of miles,
Christianity and Islam were spread through the efforts of rulers, missionaries, and
other travelers, as well as traders along the routes linking the Mediterranean with the
Indian Ocean.
Looking forward and back: oil and Dürer’s rhinoWhat follows in the centuries subsequent to Portuguese expansion into the Indian
Ocean is an intensification of the patterns—political-military, commodities
exchange, migrations, and idea networks—traced through millennia. European,
and later global, demand for goods cultivated in Indian Ocean regions continued,