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The Roman Empire and the Kushans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

John Thorley
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Extract

It may seem strange to link the Roman Empire with a Himalayan kingdom which hardly gets a mention in most standard works on Roman history, but in fact during the second and early third centuries A. D. these two powers enjoyed a cordial and mutually profitable relationship which was of considerable economic importance to both. From the end of the first century A. D. to the middle of the third century the Kushans controlled what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, parts of Soviet and Chinese Central Asia, and much of the Ganges plain. Their history has proved difficult to reconstruct, since they left no historical writing, and even the chronology of their kings is still disputed, but enough is now known for us to begin to piece together, though still somewhat tentatively, the strange and exotic relationship between this distant state and the Roman world, and perhaps in the process to contribute from Roman history to the problems of Kushan dating.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , October 1979 , pp. 181 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1979

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References

Notes

1. Mainly Hou-han-shu, p. 118; see Sastri, K. A. Nilakanta, A Comprehensive History of India (Orient Longmans, 1957) ii 223 ffGoogle Scholar. for a discussion of the evidence.

2. The problem of ΣΩTHP MEΓAΣ, who also called himself BAΣIΛEYΣ BAΣIΛEΩN, has given rise to much speculation. See, e.g. Sastri, , op. cit., p. 233Google Scholar; Marshall, J., Taxila (Cambridge, 1951) i 68–9Google Scholar; Rosenfield, J. M., The Dynastic Art of the Kushans (Berkeley 1967), 18–19Google Scholar. Sastri has pointed out that the lay-out of the titles of ΣΩTHP MEΓAΣ is very similar to that used by Vima Kadphises.

3. Rosenfield, , op. cit., pp. 19–23Google Scholar; Srivastava, B., Trade and Commerce in Ancient India (Calcutta, 1968), pp. 179 ffGoogle Scholar.

4. The date of the Periplushas in the past been as much disputed as the chronology of the Kushan kings, but there is now fairly general agreement that it was written around A.D. 60–70. For the arguments see Dihle, A., Umstrittene Daten: Untersucbungen zum Auftreten der Griechen am Roten Meer (Cologne, 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. Periplus 39 and 56. The pattern described in the Periplusis fully confirmed by coin finds in India. The most convenient summary of the finds of Roman coinage is still to be found in Wheeler, R. E. M., Rome Beyond the Imperial Frontiers (Harmondsworth, 1955), pp. 164–73Google Scholar. New finds are frequently made (see, e.g., Seshadri, M., Archaeology, 1966, pp.244–7Google Scholar), but the pattern described by Wheeler remains largely unaltered. See also Warmington, E. H., The Commerce Between the Roman Empire and India (Cambridge, 1928), pp. 272 ffGoogle Scholar. The most obvious interpretation of the coin finds is that there was a drastic reduction in coinage exports from the Roman Empire after Nero's reign. This certainly accords well with the known stringent economic policy of Vespasian.

6. MacDowall, D. W. in Papers on the Date of Kanishka, edited Basham, A. L. (Leiden, 1968), pp. 144–5Google Scholar.

7. This was no mean figure, enough in fact to pay the whole Roman army for ninety years. We have no reason to doubt Dio's figures.

8. Marshall, , op. cit., p. 68Google Scholar.

9. See Ptolemy 7.1.15 and 93; 7.2 passim (description of south-east Asia). All. authorities seem to agree that the source of Kushan gold was the Roman Empire. It remains possible that the gold may have gone overland through Parthia, though the sea route is far more likely both because of its greater safety and simply because it did by-pass Parthia.

10. The literature on the chronology of the Kushan kings is now considerable. See, e.g., Sastri, , op. cit., pp. 227–48Google Scholar; Marshall, , op. cit., pp. 66–74Google Scholar; Rosenfield, , op. cit., especially pp. 257–8 (on Kanishka)Google Scholar; Hambly, G., Central Asia (London, 1969), pp. 46 ff.Google Scholar; and particularly Basham, Papers on the Date of Kanishka, where the central problem is very fully aired.

11. MacDowall, , op. cit., p. 143Google Scholar. For Huvishka's coinage see Marshall, , op. cit., p. 71Google Scholar.

12. For Bactrian (and also Indian) ambassadors see Hist. Aug. Hadr. 21, and Viet. Epit. 15.4. For RIOM see Rosenfield, , op. cit., 1. 96–8 and coins 182–4 on Plate ixGoogle Scholar; Rosenfield has doubts as to whether RIOM = ROMA, but the fully armed female figure depicted surely makes this highly likely. For Kanishka II's use of KAISAR see Sastri, , op. cit., pp. 245–6Google Scholar.

13. Ptolemy 7.1. 2–4 (Indus mouth and coastal region); 7.1. 43–61 (inland regions of the Kushan kingdom, covering Afghanistan, Gandhara, Indus valley, and upper Ganges); 7.1. 64–7 (approximately the modern Rajasthan, probably partly under Kushan control).

14. For Roman subjects in south India see, e.g., Wheeler, , op. cit., pp. 160 and 173 ff.Google Scholar, and for a brief summary of the main finds Wheeler, , op. cit., pp. 191–5Google Scholar. The trade through Kushan territory may have been organized on similar lines to the transit trade through Parthia, where routes were maintained and protected, and dues levied, by the Parthian government; see Ghirshman, , Iran (Harmondsworth, 1954), p. 284Google Scholar, and Colledge, M. A. R., The Parthians (London, 1967), pp. 77–84Google Scholar. For an example of a state monopoly in frankincense in south Arabia see Periplus 27–32.

15. For a convenient summary of the subject, with a good bibliography, see Rowland, B., The Art and Architecture of India3 (Harmondsworth, 1967), pp. 121–205Google Scholar.

16. See Rowland, , op. cit., p. 135Google Scholar.

17. For Yavanas in Tamil poetry see Mookerji, R. K., A History of Indian Shipping (Calcutta, 1912 and 1957), pp. 128–9Google Scholar, and Warmington, , op. cit., p. 60Google Scholar. For a full discussion of St. Thomas see Bussagli, M., East and West iii. (1952–1953), 88–94Google Scholar. For Titus at Miran see Rowland, , op. cit., p. 186Google Scholar; Stein, , Serindia i. (London, 1921), 538Google Scholar.

18. See Ghirshman, , op. cit., pp. 261–2Google Scholar, though the suggestion put forward here is not Ghirshman's.