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