26 Feb 2005 | Sir Mortimer Wheeler - Rome Beyond the Imperial Frontiers

I stumbled upon this book when browsing Marktplaats.nl, the Dutch branch of eBay. It wasn't the title which attracted me, although I do tend to be interested in such things, but the subtitle, which the seller was so kindly to provide, even at the price of less then one euro he wanted for the book: "A new and concise survey of Roman adventuring beyond the political frontiers of the Roman world, much of it based on the author's own explorations in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan". It should be clear why the book attracted me, even though the 'new' from the subtitle is very relative, given that the book was published 50 years ago.



The subtitle suggests the bulk of the book to deal with south Asia when, in fact, by far the largest part of the book talks about Roman (trade-)influence in northern Europe, Free Germany. Mildly interesting, but I couldn't overcome a major 'whatever'-feeling.

The second part of the book, much shorter and general, deals with Roman influence in Africa. Only the last part of the book, slightly more detailed but far more interesting than the African part, deals with Rome's influence in Afghanistan, the Indian subcontinent and regions ever further afield.



Although the author still remains surprisingly vague in the actuals and isn't able to draw any interesting conclusions, it is very obvious that trade existed between Rome and these far flung regions of the globe, with a trade-post dug up on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, by the author himself.
Of course, particularly for Afghanistan and, therefore, the rest of the Silk route, this can't be much of a surprise, considering that Alexander the Great himself left a significant group of men behind in what was then christened 'Bactria' (yes, the origin of the Bactrian or two-humped camel).

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