Thanks to everyone for replying
Interesting- I'm sure the Roman publicanii could have made a lot of money out of this, which makes me half wonder if it did happen in OTL. I seem to remember reading something about it, but I'm not sure...
From all I have read although there were significant communities of Roman Expatriates in India. However there doesn't seem to be much that came out of their presence that we know of....
I don't think Hinduism in Rome is particuarly likely. Though if it did, that would be spectacuarly cool.
Instead of Hinduism, what if someone repackages Buddhism into something that could be palatable for Roman tastes. I can see a religion of quiet contemplation doing well with the likes of the Stoics or the Neo-Platonists.
Horizon said:
One problem is that there were already merchant communities in India producing the same goods and making a lot of money out of it. They are unlikely to accept any new merchants coming to their land and undercutting their profit.
But the thing is any organised Roman company is going to have a clear conduit to the Roman elites market, something the native merchants do not have direct access to. With such a wellspring of demand at their backs, the Roman merchants would feel confident in spending large amounts of resources in procuring the means of production.
Monty Burns said:
And then the Romans had no problems in taking over better ideas, thus if it's about sailing technology, I think we'd soon see improvements according to what the Asians have in usage.
But the thing is there isn't much the Romans could have adopted.At the end of the day any attempt by a Roman EIC to snatch any kind of power would be a numbers game, something they are not going to win.
Actually I think that one piece of technology that the Romans would want to adopt would be Indian Metal working. IIRC Indian Metal working was much more advanced than that of the Mediteranean world so I can see a concerted effort by the Romans to secure Indian steel or more importantly Indian blacksmiths
I think me using EIC in the the thread title might have given everyone the image of a triumphal colonial expedition sailing out to conquer the outmatched natives. Instead what I am proposing is a more commercial 'soft-power' operation interested in obtaining control of the various means of production while paying off the local Rajah to stay on his good side with an occasional bit of politicking thrown in.
In addition what about the secondary effects such a company could have ? If I'm not mistaken, the formation of East India companies played a big role in the establishments of stock markets. What if something similar were to take place TTL? Or maybe an Alexandrian merchant hoping to market amber in the Indian market starts a company to directly get amber from the barbarian north. Maybe you could eventually have entire tribes geared to finding amber with their chiefs acting as middle managers for the Germania Amber Corporation.