[SunkenCiv]

Contrary to the article, Julius Caesar and Ashoka were not contemporaries, missed by over a century. That's an interesting detail about the ivory from Pompeii, since at least one piece found there was of Indian manufacture.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

http://www.maharashtratourism.gov.in/mtdc/Default.aspx?strpage=Museums_Maharashtra.html

"The two museums at Kolhapur and Ter together have priceless antiquities reflecting on the ancient past of Maharashtra and its contacts with the Roman world. Ter, ancient Tagara, today a neglected villaged in the Osmanbad district was an international marketing centre as early as the 1st century A.D. Of great value is the famous ivory figure of Shree Laxmi. At Kolhapur, is a hoard of beautiful bronzes, among which is a beautiful figure of the Greek Sea God, Poseidon."

http://www.livius.org/man-md/mauryas/mauryas.html

"After the death of Ashoka, the Mauryan empire declined. In c.240, the Bactrian leaders -who were of Greek descent- revolted from their Seleucid overlords, and although king Antiochus III the Great restored order in 206, the Bactrian leader Euthydemus declared himself independent within a decade. Not much later, the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom expanded into Drangiana and Gandara. The invasion of the Punjab, which took place in 184, revitalized the Greek culture in the region south of the Hindu Kush mountain range, where Euthydemus' son Demetrius created a new kingdom, consisting of Gandara, Arachosia, the Punjab and even a part of the Ganges valley... when king Menander reunited the Indo-Greek kingdom in c.125, the westerners were able to invade the heartland of the already contracted Mauryan empire, and even captured Patna. Never has a Greek army reached a more eastern point.... King Menander converted and became something of a Buddhist saint. One of the holy texts of Buddhism is called Milindapañha, 'Questions of Menander'."

[SunkenCiv]

update:

Historical Plunder
by Samyabrata Ray Goswami
Monday, April 9, 2007

Tagara is Maharashtra's oldest city, referred to as an important trading town by the second-century AD Greek geographer and astronomer, Ptolemy. It finds mention in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea -- a first-century AD account of contemporary trade and navigation -- as one of the two famous trading centres on the Indian west coast, the other being Pratishthana, modern Paithan in Aurangabad district... "Today, in the absence of political will, Ter's legacy is being ripped apart. A storehouse of artefacts from the second century BC to the 15th-16th centuries AD, it's an archaeologist's dream turning into his worst nightmare," complains A. Jamkhedkar, former director of the state archaeological department. The first excavation of Ter had begun in 1901 under the Raj. The remains of a stupa, a Roman-style temple and a wooden rampart that has a clear Roman influence have been the major finds so far.