1889.] on the Civilization of Ancient India., 157 



local school of sculpture followed the lines of Roman art, and is not the 

 direct descendant of pure Greek art. This proposition of course is to 

 be taken strictly as applying only to the Peshawar school. It does not 

 apply to the case of the Ionic pillars at Taxila, nor to the sculptures 

 at Buddha Gaya or Bharhut. The Sanchi work too is probably free 

 from Roman influence, and I cannot perceive any very clear traces of 

 such influence at Amaravati, though I am not certain that it is alto- 

 gether absent. The art work in some of the caves in Western India, 

 on the other hand, was in all probability influenced by the specially 

 Roman developments of Greek art. 



I pass by on the present occasion the wider questions suggested by 

 an examination of the entire field of early Indian art, and confine 

 myself to the discussion of the nature and degree of Roman influence 

 on the local Gandhara or Peshawar school of sculpture, which is special- 

 ly characterized bv the use for decorative purposes of the Indo-Corin- 

 thian capital. 



A brief outline of some of the most material facts in the history 

 of the intercourse between Rome and India will help my readers to 

 appreciate more accurately the value of comparisons between Indian 

 and Roman works, and to understand the bearing of such comparisons 

 on the chronology of the Gandhara school. 



Roman influence was not felt by India until after the establishment 

 of the empire of the C»sars, and the subjugation of Egypt by Augustus ; 

 and even during the reign of Augustus, the maritime commerce be- 

 tween Rome and India appears to have been conducted by Arab ships. 



The discovery or re-discovery of the course of the monsoon by 

 Hippalos, about the middle of the first century A. D., first rendered 

 it possible for Roman ships to reach the Indian shores. 



The overland trade between India and the Roman empire appears 

 to have first attained large dimensions at about the same time. Pliny, 

 who died A. D. 79, laments, in a well-known and often quoted passage, 

 the heavy drain of gold from the capital towards the east, and his evi- 

 dence is confirmed by the large number of coins of the early Roman 

 empire which have been found in India. 



The overthrow of the Nabatsean kingdom of Petra in A. D. 105 

 secured for Palymra the commercial preeminence on the principal 

 land route between the Roman empire on one side and India and China 

 on the other, and that city retained the preeminence thus gained until 

 it was sacked by Aurelian in A. D. 273. Palymra was visited by the 

 emperor Hadrian about the year A. D. 130, and about A. D. 200, in the 

 reign either of Septimus Severus, or of his son Caracalla, was made a 

 Roman colony. 



