The role of commodities from the Indian Ocean is at the centre of this study of Roman imperial worldviews (c. 1st to 6th century). It begins by surveying the various kinds of objects brought to the Mediterranean from South Asia, e.g. spices and fabrics, and their routes, and then examines the ways in which Romans thought about them, both moralising and more strictly economic. This affords the chance to assess the notion of the exotic in Roman culture.Le r™le des marchandises venant de lÕOc an Indien se retrouve au centre de cette tude des visions romaines imp riales du monde (1er au 6e si cles). Ce travail commence par une tude g n rale des objets vari s import s ˆ la r gion m diterran enne de lÕAsie du Sud, par exemple des pices et des tissus, et de leurs itin raires, et examine par la suite ce que les Romains peuvent en avoir pens du point de vue moralisant et plus strictement conomique. Ceci permet dÕ valuer la notion de lÕexotisme dans la culture romaine.

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The Egyptian obelisks at Rome are monuments par excellence: as sites of memory they have been distinctive, but over time also prone to appropriation and recontextualization. Owing to their bulk, ancient (and modern) attempts to transport them have attracted much attention. This paper begins with a biography of the obelisk now at Piazza Navona and proceeds to a broader consideration of the qualities that constitute a monument. In particular, its physical transportation is examined in relation to transmuta-tions of context and audience in time and space. The social processes within which they have been implicated suggest reconsideration of the nature, and indeed direction, of biographic narrative. To what extent can narrative, in this biographic form, adequately represent monumentality?

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