"Through vigorous, creative thinking, Simmons wrestles with a glittering array of objects, odors, sensations, and tastes that comprised an entangled ancient world, moving beyond banal assertions of connectivity and the seductive mirage of 'Indo-Roman' trade. This is what the study of global antiquity can achieve with the right combination of languages, skills, and good sense."-- Josephine Quinn, author of How the World Made the West: A 4,000 Year History "From Hadrian's Wall to Sri Lanka, Simmons reconstructs a connected world brought together by the combined ingenuity of kings and merchants living around the Indian Ocean and beyond it. This is a bold and compelling new vision of how desires, tastes, and ambitions wove together Romans and Greeks, Egyptians and Kushans, Tamils and many, many other peoples." --Greg Woolf, author of The Life and Death of Ancient Cities: A Natural History "Drawing on an impressive array of sources, this book makes a major intervention through its nuanced discussion of the consumption of commodities that moved across the Indian Ocean, their sensory impact, the reactions and anxieties they provoked, and how they changed the lives of people in an interconnected Afro-Eurasian world."-- Upinder Singh, author of Political Violence in Ancient India "In this extensively researched book, Simmons makes use of a fresh and compelling consumer perspective to understand the extensive trade networks that democratized access to far-flung goods. He deftly engages with literary sources from the Indian subcontinent and the Greco-Roman Mediterranean to understand the meaning and attraction of perfumes, foods, textiles, wine, and gems--and how they transformed into items of desirable exotica."-- Monica L.

Smith, University of California, Los Angeles "A valuable addition to the field, this provocative and engaging book is distinctive in its focus on commodities and the ways in which they inform human activity, relationships, and senses of self."-- Matthew Cobb, author of Rome and the Indian Ocean Trade: From Augustus to the Early Third Century "This book is ambitious, tackling in a novel way a subject that has seen much discussion in recent years. Simmons's range is impressive, and the rich combination of sources drawn from the Roman world and from the Indian subcontinent is the product of deep and wide study."-- Astrid Van Oyen, author of The Socio-Economics of Roman Storage: Agriculture, Trade, and Family.