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The 'Myth' of the Silk Road
#14
Sorry Nathan, have been busy and haven’t had the time to continue discussion on Ball’s theories of silk trade.


Nathan Ross wrote:

But the idea of a land route to China during our period still seems unlikely

 What you say is true if you are thinking of a continuous road or trail from Louyang to Roman Syria but the geography of Central Asia makes that impossible, three quarters of Central Asia is desert surrounded by difficult if not high mountain ranges. Those mountain ranges and deserts were possibly the reason that Greek or Persian armies never progressed further east although two Han armies managed to cross the Pamir and Alai ranges to wage war in Ferghana over the ‘Heavenly Horses’. There must have been limited contact, including possible low-level trade between the Graeco-Bactrians and the occupants of the Tarim going by the discovery of the Sampul Tapestry, which had many Hellenistic elements to it, near Khotan.

 In regards to Maes, although we can't be sure he probably organised his itinerary for the merchants of Tyre as Marinus, who lived at Tyre got hold of his itinerary. There was a lot of competition between Eastern Roman cities and regions especially Tyre and Alexandria. Tyre prided itself on its Phoenician heritage even though it still considered itself as part of the Graeco-Roman world. It produced quality glass and fabrics but was mostly famous for its shellfish and its Tyrian purple dyes. Being locked out of the Indian Ocean Red Sea trade by its rival Alexandria which had certain advantages as it was the leading city of Egypt whose revenues went towards  the fiscus (personal treasury of the emperor) which received rich revenues and dues from the country and from trade, the emperors owned monopolies on the production and sale of innumerable articles and commodities, such as linen, oil, papyrus, bricks, alum, beer and other products.  it made sense that the cities of Tyre & Sidon would look to alternative overland trade routes to access quality silk and textiles for their garment workshops and new markets for their wares. The workshops unpicked Chinese silks and rewove them to make quality garments at a great profit which was probably more of a reason why dignitaries in Rome were screaming about the ridiculous prices being charged for silken goods.

 Han China never set out to find markets for silk in the west. It was used as a diplomatic means of exchange to keep both its allies and its enemies at bay. I think a lot of the silk the Hsiung-nu received as ‘tribute’ from the Han found its way to India and Parthia through various middlemen in Transoxiana and the Tarim. Chinese envoy Zhang Qian’s mission was to locate the Yuezhi for an alliance in which he failed but he was impressed with the horses of the Wusun, Ferghana and other horse breeding peoples and the Han, who needed better and bigger horses for their cavalry to combat the Hsiung-nu were keen to exchange silk and Chinese brides for these superior horses.

 I have always thought that the Silk Road was a series of routes utilizing land, ocean and river transport with nothing constant. There would not have been an ocean only means of transporting silk from China as a route around the Malay Peninsula was only discovered by Indian sailors around 150-160 AD so transporting silk to Indian ports would have had to be done overland by various eastern routes. Pliny mentions the Chera (Tamil) traders who traded goods like cotton and gold for silk with the blue-eyed Seres where goods were laid out on the bank of the river for perusal and exchanged.

 Ball seems to only use literary sources that are in line with his theories. He wrote that Pliny was bemoaning about the drain of 50 million sesterces a year in trade with India but failed to mention that this 50 million was part the 100 million that went into trade with India, Arabia and the Seres together so if Pliny is believed then not all silk trade was done through India. 

The Seres also provided furs and high quality iron (probably from th Altai region). Silk was not the major item in Indian sea trade as shown by a papyrus contract from 2nd century Egypt that concerns a loan connected to a voyage to Muziris to purchase goods which listed several cargoes of precious goods but no silk but valued at 1,151 talents and 5,852 drachmai of silver. In all 6,911,852 drachmai after taxes so these figures seem to back up Pliny. (Papyrus SB 18/13167). The sailor’s handbook the Periplus Maris Erythraei mentions goods that were in high demand in the east: oil, olives, grain, wine, glass, textiles and ceramics as well as the goods in demand in the west like spices, peppers, tortoiseshells, teak, muslin materials and it adds some silk. See list below from book (Schoff's older translation not Casson's more recent one), there are a couple of pages about the products and their origins but I have only copied the section on trade with Thina (assuming China) from the book. Interesting that in Roman times muslin cotton seems to have been a popular cargo in ocean trade & then forgotten in the west until the Crusades.

   


 The tonnages would have varied over time of course, from my understanding under the Julio-Claudians sea trade with the east increased as there were idle troops and lots of money to be spent improving ports, roads and canals to Alexandria which were neglected under the Ptolemies but they declined under the Flavians, improved under Trajan and Hadrian and went downhill after that. The majority of Parthian trade was probably done by sea as well although the Persian sailors would have hugged the coast more than the Graeco-Roman sailors but trade by sea was an expensive and risky business and the land routes were still essential even if they only covered a portion of the route.

 Ball mentions that Ptolemy wrote that the geographer Marinus did not trust Maes itinerary and so his itinerary should not count for much but Ptolemy and Marinus being geographers did not trust merchants distance measurements as they always exaggerated distances for profit and I think Ptolemy allowed for that in his geographies. Interesting that Ball in a more recent book “The Gates of Asia” put forward the theory that Maes was a ‘Scythian’ name and coming from Macedonia he could have Scythian or Sarmatian ancestry. There are a few interesting theories on Maes who except for Ptolemy is not known in any other sources. If he was organising trade routes through Parthia via Greek contacts in Seleucia in around 100AD then Trajan’s invasion of Parthia a few years later would have destroyed any ambitions that he himself or his backers had at least for a few years.

 China did not keep their monopoly on silk for ever as in the east Japan and in the west the various Sogdian cities developed sericulture industries of their own like they did with Persian rugs while the Persians and the Kushans eventually developed their own glassmaking industries which would have decimated the glass industries of Sidon, Tyre and Alexandria. The Arabs and the Byzantines developed silk industries all over the Mediterranean and I think by the Middle Ages even Italy was considered a major silk producer, so China's silk  trade dropped off after the Tang dynasty  but Chinese silk was still considered finer and superior to all the other countries.

 If you are interested there is an excellent Oxbow book by Berit Hilderbrandt called Silk which is a series of papers covering the history of Silk to the later fifth century in both Europe and Asia. It covers the land routes and sea routes quite extensively and it seems trade and exchange of silk was a two-way street with a lot of loom technology from the Mediterranean moving eastwards through Persia and the Kushan empire and eventually reaching Chinese weavers.
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
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Messages In This Thread
The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-12-2017, 01:17 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Dan Howard - 03-12-2017, 02:08 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 03-12-2017, 04:41 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-12-2017, 08:52 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Dan Howard - 03-13-2017, 12:03 AM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Alanus - 03-13-2017, 05:00 AM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-13-2017, 12:28 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 03-13-2017, 03:16 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-13-2017, 07:26 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Alanus - 03-13-2017, 09:00 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-13-2017, 09:32 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 03-14-2017, 03:59 AM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-14-2017, 12:21 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 03-28-2017, 04:07 AM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-28-2017, 08:14 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Alanus - 03-29-2017, 03:47 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Bryan - 03-29-2017, 05:13 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Alanus - 03-29-2017, 07:37 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Bryan - 03-30-2017, 02:51 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 03-31-2017, 12:04 AM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 03-30-2017, 10:16 AM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Alanus - 03-30-2017, 10:39 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 03-31-2017, 12:31 AM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 04-04-2017, 04:52 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 04-13-2017, 03:47 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 04-15-2017, 06:38 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 04-16-2017, 01:09 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 06-25-2017, 06:44 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Mikeh55 - 06-28-2017, 05:17 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 06-28-2017, 05:39 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Nathan Ross - 06-28-2017, 11:00 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Michael Kerr - 06-30-2017, 05:45 PM
RE: The 'Myth' of the Silk Road - by Robert - 07-14-2017, 11:09 AM

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