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Course: World history > Unit 2
Lesson 17: Transregional Trade: the Silk RoadThe Silk Road
Overview
- The Silk Road was a vast trade network connecting Eurasia and North Africa via land and sea routes.
- The Silk Road earned its name from Chinese silk, a highly valued commodity that merchants transported along these trade networks.
- Advances in technology and increased political stability caused an increase in trade. The opening of more trade routes caused travelers to exchange many things: animals, spices, ideas, and diseases.
In the first century CE, during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, silk had become a big problem. The luxury fabric, imported at great cost from China, had become a symbol of decadence and excess among Romans. In order to make their supply of silk last longer, merchants unraveled and re-wove their fabric into thinner, sheer garments. This practice had a side-effect of making the garments nearly transparent.
Seneca the Younger, a writer and imperial advisor, complained of people wearing silk:
“I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one's decency, can be called clothes. ... Wretched flocks of maids labor so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife's body.”
In the year 14 CE, the Roman historian Tacitus reported that the Imperial Senate made it illegal for men to wear silk, resolving that "Oriental [Eastern] silks should no longer degrade the male sex. "
This prohibition on silk did not last. The demand for silk continued to drive trade between the Roman Empire, China, India, and many places in between. To understand what caused this trade in silk, we need to look at how Chinese silk got to Rome.
Let's find out.
State power and the Silk Road
One cause of expanded trade was the growth of imperial power. Near the end of the second century BCE, Emperor Wu of Han mounted many campaigns against the nomadic Xiongnu people. Xiongnu horsemen had raided Chinese settlements along the northern border for many years. Emperor Wu looked for a new source of horses for his cavalry in order to deal with the threat of the Xiongnu.
Emperor Wu sent an emissary named Zhang Qian to find allies in the fight against the Xiongnu. Zhang returned to China, eager to discuss the wonders he had seen in Ferghana—modern-day Uzbekistan. Along with rice, wheat, and grapes, the region produced hardy, "heavenly" horses.
Ferghana horses became a highly-desired trade item in China. China imported so many horses that the Dayuan people who controlled the Ferghana valley refused to sell any more of the horses! This led to a three-year conflict known as the War of the Heavenly Horses. By 101 BCE, the Ferghana valley belonged to Han China. Control of the Ferghana valley also opened a route to the West.
With a new supply of horses, Han China projected its new military strength throughout Asia. The expansion of Han control led to the first Pax Sinica—or Chinese Peace. During this time, the standard of living in China rose and cities grew in size. Economic growth and political stability led to increased demand for luxury goods from far-off places.
Stop and consider: Why might economic growth and political stability cause more trade?
The Roman empire was expanding during this time, too. Victory in the Punic Wars gave Rome control over the western Mediterranean Sea. Over the next few centuries, Rome expanded to control all of the Mediterranean shoreline.
The first century CE saw the beginning of the Pax Romana—Roman Peace. The Pax Romana lasted about 200 years and was a period of relatively few wars. As with Han China, political stability brought more trade. Rome gained access to overseas trade routes to India via Egypt and began to trade regularly.
Although Rome and Han China expanded greatly, there was still a lot of distance between them. Central Asia is covered with mountains, deserts, and vast grasslands. Traders provided an essential link between the Roman and Han empires.
Travel on the Silk Road
Traders had to find ways to move their goods efficiently. To travel overland, the camel was favored mode of transportation. Nomadic peoples in central Asia started domesticating camels as early as the second millennium BCE. For example, the Han Chinese used camels captured from the Xiongnu to carry military supplies. Camels could withstand the harsh desert conditions through central Asia and were also able to carry up to 500 pounds at a time! Pack animals—especially camels—made the transportation of goods over land on the Silk Road viable.
Merchants and sailors made use of the ocean to transport goods, too. Sailors needed a strong understanding of wind patterns and storm systems to successfully navigate the oceans. For example, in the Indian Ocean, monsoon winds blow from the northeast in the winter and from the southwest in the summer. With a southwestern wind pushing them east, merchants were able to travel from the Red Sea between Egypt and Arabia to India in the summer and then back to the Red Sea in the winter. This information was exchanged among sailors and made its way beyond the Indian Ocean.
Stop and consider: How did environmental factors influence trade patterns along the Silk Road(s)?
The effects of exchange
One obvious effect of trade along the Silk Road was more goods were available in more places. Silk, owing to its soft texture and appealing shimmer, became so hotly desired that it was used as currency in central Asia. However, the process of raising silkworms and creating fabric from their cocoons remained a Chinese secret through the 6th century C.E. The fact that China remained the only source of silk meant that trade goods continued to travel across Asia. This involved many people and locations in the Silk Road trade networks.
Spices from the East Indies, glass beads from Rome, silk, ginger, and lacquerware from China, furs from animals of the Caucasian steppe and slaves from many locations all travelled along the Silk Road.
Some effects were cultural. During the rule of the Tang dynasty of China, for example, sculptures of camels from the caravans that frequently traded in China were placed in graves. Clearly the animals made an impression!
Ideas and diseases were also exchanged along the sea lanes and camel-routes—and both would have profound effects on the locations they traveled to. Toward the end of the second century, a plague tore through the Roman Empire, killing 10% of the population. Historians think that this plague first appeared in China before making its way through trade routes to the Near East, where Roman soldiers were campaigning.
As for the exchange of ideas, Buddhism came to China through trade with India. The Sogdians of central Asia often acted as traders between India and China. Sogdians also translated Sanskrit sutras into Chinese and spread the Buddhist faith as they traded. Other faiths, like Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Christianity also traveled along the sea and land routes. These religions developed and changed to fit the new regions they travelled to.
Stop and consider: What effects did trade have beyond moving goods?
Chinese silk in Rome
So now we have a sense of the economic and political conditions that enabled Chinese silk to make its way to Roman markets. Both the Han Chinese and Roman Empires controlled vast territories and kept them relatively peaceful. The Han conquered their way into central Asia. From there, nomadic traders carried goods farther west or south. Trade brought new faiths, new ideas, and new goods to places they had not previously been.
Want to join the conversation?
how much was silk worth after(17 votes)
What are the political factors that encourage and discourage trade on the Silk Road?(7 votes)
If you're a merchant, you want to always stay in an empire's borders and want to cross as few boundary lines as possible. When there wasn't control in an area of the Silk Road, bandits were prevalent, which discouraged trade. When a large empire controlled a large part of the Silk Road, for example in the Pax Mongolica, trade flourishes. Political disagreements between states, such as the disagreement stemming from religion between Christian Europe and the Muslim West Asia. This discouraged trade, as the Muslim states taxed goods going to Europe, which eventually forced Europeans to attempt to discover alternate trade routes.(11 votes)
- How was China's population affected by the diseases on the Silk Road?(5 votes)
- China's population wasn't affected in any special way by diseases on the Silk Road except the Black Death, to my knowledge. The Black Death in China started with an epidemic in the 1330's (that spread to Europe and caused widespread havoc). We don't have much concrete evidence just how many people were killed by the epidemics, but most historians estimate it that it was more than 5 million people that died. China had another wave of disease a bit after the European Plague. In the mid-1350's the Black Death hit Yuan Dynasty China again, when the Government was en route to collapse and being replaced with the Ming.(10 votes)
How was the silk road tied to the bubonic plague and black death?(4 votes)- People who had contracted the plague travelled from one city to another, often spreading the disease to the people they met there.(8 votes)
how many years did the silk road last?(3 votes)- The silk road started with exchanges from the Han Dynasty to the surrounding central asian areas, probably around the 225-200 BCE area. The Silk Road trade eventually reached Europe, and the Roman Empire had a healthy trading relationship with the Han Dynasty. It flourished through the Byzantine Empire, Song and Tang Dynasties, and the Mongol Empire. The Silk Road started to show signs of decline with the collapse of the Mongol Empire, as there was no longer a governing body that controlled the entire length of the Silk Road, ensuring peace. The Silk Road is generally agreed upon to have collapsed in the early 1700's, due to the benefits of transport by sea and the lack of security caused by the collapse of the Safavid Empire.(9 votes)
- did many people who travelled the ancient silk road survive the journey?(2 votes)
- If you didn't succumb to the heat and thirst caused by the desert, the attacks by bandits, some dangerous animals such as snakes, and various other safety concerns, you would survive till the end. Because there was probably a lower chance of survival than the people of old were willing to gamble with, much of silk road trading was instead done in relays. A merchant sells his goods to another, who sells them to another, and the goods travel the length of the Silk road rather than the people.(9 votes)
- How did Dunhang's caves participate in the silk road?
How did participate in the silk road, and how did they trade?(4 votes)
The caves themselves did not particupate in the silk road. They were produced as a by-product of the wealth brought to the region through trade that passed through the area.
Trade was carried out through caravans using beasts of burden moving across the land.
When sea trade opened, the silk road itself became less important, and the construction of religious shrines in the area fell off.(3 votes)
- how many years did the silk road last?(4 votes)
- It started in 130 B.C. all the way up to 1453 A.D.(2 votes)
How did the silk road affect the middle and lower class(4 votes)
What diseases did the silk road enable to spread?(3 votes)- Bubonic plague (the black death) came out of China and spread to Europe and north Africa on the silk road.(3 votes)