Roman trading partners: The Kushans
Gandhāra was an ancient region in the Peshawar basin in the north-west of the ancient Indian subcontinent, corresponding to present-day north-west Pakistan and north-east Afghanistan. The centre of the region was at the confluence of the Kabul and Swat rivers, bounded by the Sulaiman Mountains on the west and the Indus River on the east. Gandhara was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BCE. Conquered by Alexander the Great in 327 BCE, it subsequently became part of the Maurya Empire and then the Indo-Greek Kingdom. The region was a major centre for Greco-Buddhism under the Indo-Greeks and Gandharan Buddhism under later dynasties. Gandhara attained its height from the 1st century to the 5th century CE under the Kushan Empire. The Kushans moved into Gandhāra from Central Asia after the fall of the Parthian dynasty about 75 CE. The Kushan dynasty had diplomatic contacts with the Roman Empire, Sasanian Persia, the Aksumite Empire and the Han dynasty of China and...