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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
In the literature on Rome's trade with the Far East, it is confidently stated that sandalwood and teak figured among the imports from India. The evidence offered is a passage from Per. 36. As it happens, the words in the passage taken to refer to sandalwood actually refer to teak, and those taken to refer to teak have nothing to do with it.
1 A sail of six days east of the strait would place Omana near the Iran-Pakistan border. Some, following Pliny, HN 6. 149, place it in Oman on the Arabian side of the strait; see Hourani, G., Arab Seafaring (Princeton, 1951), pp. 16–17 and, for earlier upholders of this view, those cited by A. Hermann in RE s.v. ‘Omana’(1942).Google Scholar
2 Vincent, W., The Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean (London, 1807), ii. 378–9;Google Scholar Müller, C. in Geographi Graeci minores (Paris, 1853), i. 285;Google Scholar Fabricius, B., Der periplus des Erythräischen Meeres von einem Unbekannten (Leipzig, 1883), p. 75 n. 6.Google Scholar
3 LSJ s.v. σησάμινoѕ perpetuates the mistaken connection.
4 Watt, G., A Dictionary of the Economic Products of India (Calcutta, 1890), iii. 13–15;Google Scholar Yule, H. and Burnell, A., Hobson-Jobson (London, 19032), p. 842. Cf.Google Scholar Warmington, E., The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India (Cambridge, 1928), p. 214.Google Scholar The word is spelled σησ- in Cosmas Indicopleustes 11. 445 D and Dioscorides 1. 98, and this is the spelling adopted by Warmington as well as by Frisk, H., editor of the latest and only critical edition of the Periplus (Le Périple de la mer Érythrée, Göteborgs Högskalas Årsskrift 33 [Göteborg, 1927]).Google Scholar
5 Salmasius, C., Plinianae exercitationes in Caii Iulii Solini Polyhistora (Paris, 1629), ii. 1032.Google Scholar
6 See the texts of Müller, Fabricius, Frisk. For translations see Vincent, op. cit. p. 378; McCrindle, J., The Commerce and Navigation of the Erythraean Sea (Calcutta, 1879), p. 105;Google Scholar Schoff, W., The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (New York, 1912), pp. 36, 152;Google Scholar Huntingford, G., The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (London, 1980; Hakluyt Society, Second Series 151) p. 40.Google Scholar
7 Weeker in RE s.v. ‘India’ 1302 (1916); Schmidt, A., Drogen und Drogenhandel im Altertum (Leipzig, 1927), p. 95; Warmington, op. cit. p. 213; F. Cumont in CAH xi. 632(1936); HermannGoogle Scholar, ibid.; Wheeler, M., Rome Beyond the Imperial Frontiers (London, 1954), p. 118;Google Scholar Miller, J., The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1969), pp. 61, 86–7.Google Scholar
8 e.g. LSJ s.v. σαγάλινoς. The σάνταλoν cited by Warmington (op. cit. p. 215) and Miller (op. cit. p. 62, where it is attributed to the Periplus) is unattested in ancient times; cf. D. Dimitracos, 
(Athens, 1933–52) s.v.
9 Müller, op. cit. i. 285
10 Fabricius, op. cit. p. 75: ‘habe ich κερατεαν***ν (eigentlich vom Johannisbrotbaume gebräuchlich, den die Geoponika und Strabon erwähnen) geschrieben, verstehe aber den Teakbaum darunter’. Hourani (op. cit. p. 90), aware that the word for ‘teak’ nowhere appears in Per. 36, assumed that Schoffs translation ‘timbers of teakwood’ arose ‘by a legitimate inference’; actually Schoff was translating Fabricius’ text (cf. Schoff, p. 21: ‘The present translation is based on Müller's text, adopting most of Fabricius’ verbal emendations’).
11 Warmington, op. cit. p. 213; Charlesworth, M., Trade Routes and Commerce of the Roman Empire (Cambridge, 1926 2), p. 67;Google Scholar Hourani, op. cit. p. 90; Wheeler, op. cit. p. 118; Lewis, N., ‘On Timber and Nile Shipping’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 91 (1960), 137–41 at 137–8;Google Scholar Jairazbhoy, R., Foreign Influence in Ancient India (Bombay, 1963), p. 151;Google Scholar Miller, op. cit., p. 86; Raschke, M., Aufstieg u. Niedergang d. römischen Welt, ii. 9. 2 (Berlin, 1978), p. 1016, n. 1510.Google Scholar
12 The explanation was first offered by H. Yule, s.v. ‘Teak’ in Yule-Burnell, op. cit. (first edition, 1886), who cites the Marathi forms. I. Löw, citing the Aramaic loanword šaga, came to the same conclusion in 1901 (Berichte der Deutschen botanischen Gesellschaft xix. 3, reprinted in his Die Flora der Juden [Vienna and Leipzig, 1924], iii. 489–90).
13 Theophrastus (Hist. Pl 5. 4. 7) tells of the reported existence on Tylos (Bahrein) of a very special ‘wood from which they build their ships (or boats; the Greek word is ploia) and which is well-nigh free from decay in sea-water, for, kept immersed, it will last over 200 years’. Pliny, HN 16. 221, supplies roughly the same information. Some think that teak is meant, since it has the characteristic described and is widely used in boatbuilding (A. Hort in the Loeb Classical Library translation of Theophrastus; H. Rackham in the Loeb translation of Pliny); however, since no teak grows on Bahrein, they assume it must have been imported, as Per. 36 reveals it was at Omana (Hourani, op. cit. p. 90; cf. H. Bretzl, Botanische Forschungen des Alexanderzuges [Leipzig, 1903], p. 132). Others hold that Theophrastus is referring to Bahrein's native mangrove, Avicennia officinalis, which, like teak, is remarkably resistant to water (Bretzl, pp. 132–3, followed by O. Stein in RE s.v. ‘Tylos’ 1733 [1948] and J. André in the Budé edition of Pliny, HN 16 [p. 177; 1962]). Avicennia officinalis, however, like other mangroves, is not at all suitable for ship-timber, being too brittle; in India, for example, it is used solely for firewood (Watt, op. cit. i. 361). We would have to assume that by ploia Theophrastus means only canoes and other very small craft (cf. Bretzl, p. 39). Even so, this seems to suit his words better than assuming he is talking about an imported product.
14 Casson, L., Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton, 1974), p. 232 n. 35.Google Scholar
15 Casson, op. cit. p. 232.
