The Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary

Lionel Casson

Published by Princeton University Press 1989

The Periplus Maris Erythraei

Text with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary

Lionel Casson

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400843206

Overview
Contents

About this book

The Periplus Maris Erythraei, "Circumnavigation of the Red Sea," is the single most important source of information for ancient Rome's maritime trade in these waters (i.e., the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and western Indian Ocean). Written in the first century A.D. by a Greek merchant or skipper, it is a short manual for the traders who sailed from the Red Sea ports of Roman Egypt to buy and sell in the various ports along the coast of eastern Africa, southern Arabia, and western India. This edition, in many ways the culmination of a lifetime of study devoted to Rome's merchant marine and her trade with the east, provides an improved text of the Periplus, along with a lucid and reliable translation, a comprehensive general commentary that treats in particular the numerous obscure place-names and technical terms that occur, and a technical commentary that deals with grammatical, lexicographical, and textual matters for readers competent in Greek. An extensive introduction places the Periplus in its historical context.

Reviews

"No scholar in modern times has been better equipped to study the Periplus than Lionel Casson, whose work on ancient seafaring and trade has made him preeminent in this field. He has an unequalled mastery of the linguistic problems that beset any editor of this text and at the same time a fine practical sense of the day-to-day problems that would confront a merchant using this handbook. His commentary illuminates the trade routes, the exploitation of monsoons, the objects of trade, and the needs of the various emporia where the traders stopped. . . . This is a major contribution to the economic history of the Roman Empire and the Empire's eastern neighbors."—G. W. Bowersock, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
LIST OF MAPS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
PREFACE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	x
ABBREVIATIONS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xii
NOTES TO THE READER Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xvii
INTRODUCTION
I. TEXT AND AUTHOR Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	5
II. TRADE IN THE INDIAN OCEAN Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
III. POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
TEXT AND TRANSLATION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
GENERAL COMMENTARY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
COMMENTARY B (TEXTUAL, LEXICOGRAPHICAL, GRAMMATICAL) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	244
APPENDIX 1. HARBORS AND PORTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271
APPENDIX 2. DISTANCES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	278
APPENDIX 3. THE VOYAGES TO AFRICA, ARABIA, AND INDIA Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	283
APPENDIX 4. THE TERMS FOR CLOTH AND CLOTHING Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	292
APPENDIX 5. INDIA'S WEST COAST, FROM BOMBAY TO CAPE COMORIN Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	294
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	301
INDEX OF CITATIONS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	315

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