The old Silk Roads played a major role in connecting the world through trade, and the new version can too
by Pepe Escobar, posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times
Forget about the incessant drumming of Cold War 2.0 against China. Forget about think-tank simpletons projecting their wishful thinking on the perpetual “end of China’s rise.”
Forget even about a few sound minds in Brussels – yes, they do exist – saying Europe does not want containment of China; it wants engagement, which means business.
Let’s time travel to nearly two millennia ago, when the Roman Empire was fascinated by the business opportunities offered by those “mysterious” lands in the East.
After the Fall of Rome and the Western half of the Empire in the 5th century, Constantinople – the second Rome – which was in fact Greek, turned into the maximum embodiment of the only true “Romans.”
Yet contrary to the Hellenistic Greeks following Alexander the Great, who were so enticed by Asia, Romans from the end of the Republic to the establishment of the Empire were prevented from traveling further on down the road, because they were always blocked by the Parthians: never forget the spectacular Roman defeat at Carrhae in 53 BC.
For more than four centuries, in fact, the eastern limes of the Empire were remarkably stable, ranging from the mountains of eastern Armenia to the course of the Euphrates and the Syria-Mesopotamian deserts.
So we had in fact three natural limes: mountain, river and desert.
Rome’s overarching strategy was not to allow the Parthians – and then the Persians – to totally dominate Armenia, reach the Black Sea and go beyond the Caucasus to reach the Russo-Ukrainian plains and forward to Europe.
The Persians, meanwhile, limited themselves to strengthening the Euphrates borders, which were only broken many centuries later, by the Seljuk Turks in the late 12th century and the Mongols in the early 13th century.
This is an absolutely crucial fracture in the history of Eurasia – because this border, later perpetuated between the Ottoman and Persian empires, is still alive and kicking today, between Turkey and Iran.
It explains, for instance, the current high tension between Iran and Azerbaijan, and it will continue to be exploited non-stop by divide and rule actors.
Something extraordinary happened in the year 166: Roman merchants arrived at the court of Chinese emperor Huan-ti, the 27th emperor of the Han dynasty. We learn from the History of the Later Han that a “Roman envoy” – probably sent by none other than emperor Marcus Aurelius – was received by Huan-ti in Luoyang.
They traveled via what the Chinese in the 21st century would rename the Maritime Silk Road – from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea all the way to northern Vietnam, then overland to Chang’an – today’s Xian.
Trade along the Silk Road was in fact conducted by an array of intermediaries: nobody traveled the whole way back to back.
Luxury industry products – silk, pearls, precious stones, pepper – from China, India and Arabia came into contact with Roman merchants only in one of the fabled hubs of the “communication corridors” between East and West: Alexandria, Petra or Palmyra. Then the cargo would be loaded in Eastern Mediterranean ports all the way to Rome.
Caravan trade was controlled by Nabateans, Egyptians and Syrians. The most efficient “Roman” traders were in fact Greeks from the Eastern Mediterranean. Scholar JN Robert has shown how, since Alexander, Greek was a sort of universal language – like English today – from Rome to the Pamir mountains, from Egypt to kingdoms that were born out of the Persian Empire.
And that brings us to a literally groundbreaking character: Maes Titianus, a Greek-Macedonian trader who was living in Antioch in Roman Syria during the 1st century.
The trip was epic – and lasted more than one year. They started in Syria, crossed the Euphrates, kept going all the way to Bactria (with fabled Balkh as capital) via Khorasan, crossed the Tian Shan mountains, reached Chinese Turkestan, then traversed the Gansu corridor and the Gobi desert all the way to Chang’an.
Since the legendary Geographical Guide by Claudius Ptolemy, the Maes Titianus caravan is recognized as the only Classic Antiquity source completely describing the main Ancient Silk Road land corridor from Roman Syria to the Chinese capital.
It’s crucial to note that Bactria, in today’s northern Afghanistan, at the time was the known eastern limes of the world, according to the Romans. But Bactria was way more than that; the key trade crossroads between China, India, the Parthians and Persia, and the Roman empire.
The Pamir mountains – the “roof of the world” – and the Taklamakan desert (“you can get in but you won’t get out”, goes the Uighur saying) were for centuries the major natural barriers for the West to reach China.
So it was geology that kept China in splendid isolation relative to the Roman empire and the West. In military terms, the Romans and then the Byzantines never managed to cross this eastern border that separated them from the Persians. So they never managed to advance their conquests all the way to Central Asia and China, as Alexander famously tried.
Yet the Arabs, during the lightning-fast expansion of Islam, actually managed it. But that’s another – long – story.
The Maes Titianus caravan adventure happened no less than over a millennium before the travels of Marco Polo. Yet Polo had much more sophisticated PR – and that’s the narrative imprinted in Western history books.
To evoke it now is a reminder of the early steps of the Ancient Silk Roads, and how the interconnectedness remains imprinted in the collective unconscious of great parts of Eurasia. Peoples along the routes instinctively understand why an evolving trade corridor uniting China-Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran-Eastern Mediterranean makes total sense.
Parachuted Prime Minister Mario “Goldman Sachs” Draghi may insist that Italy is Atlanticist, and may be constantly deriding the BRI. But sharp heirs of the Roman Empire do see that business partnerships along New Silk Road corridors make as much good sense as during the time of Maes Titianus.
Thanks Pepe for this beautifully written account of the ancient silk road tidbits. I learned about Maes Titanus’ epic journey for the first time.
You are absolutely right: Peoples along the routes instinctively understand why an evolving trade corridor uniting China-Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran-Eastern Mediterranean makes total sense.
History at its finest from Pepe. It makes absolute sense for all the players in that area to revive this route and do business with each other. They were way ahead of anything being done now by the US. The US is just a blink of the eye compared to them.
“Ancient Silk Roads … interconnectedness remains imprinted in the collective unconscious of great parts of Eurasia.”
May I recommend a ground-breaking scholarly book, The Shape of Ancient Thought, for a deep look at Eur-Asian interconnectedness. “The merchant unloaded among his wares a sackful of books”.
The ancient Silk Road traversed modern Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and China. It seems to me that proponents of The U$ Century as The End of History have been doing nothing in this present century but collide unpleasantly with one recalcitrant part of History after another.
“As I was going up the stair / I met the man who isn’t there”
Now that they have met with History and realise it is not going away, they do not like its look. History looks very big, and they are afraid it is going to swallow them up.
May I also recommend “The Silk Roads. A New History if the World” and “The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World”, both by Peter Francopan.
Obrigado Pepe for this delightful trip down memory lane.
Like friend Outlaw Historian, I would love to see Khiva too, and many other ancient stops on the ancient silk road. ‘Have quill / notebooks – will travel.’
One of key geopolitical hotspots confronting us now is as Pepe says, the “𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝘂𝗽𝗵𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀…𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘣𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘌𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘢 – 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳, 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘱𝘦𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘵𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘴, 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘬𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺, 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘛𝘶𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐𝘳𝘢𝘯.”
This is what the west is pushing Turkey to breach now, using Azerbaijan as hook, as part of the pan-Turkic Neo-Ottoman gambit.
It is amazing the apocalyptic roles of the Euphrates river in our times: central to Petrodollar (at its mouth is much of the world’s oil and gas), the Syrian war of which it forms fronts, the terrible water wars originating from Turkey, and the land routes East to South and East Asia.
Also watch Antioch (now Antakya, Turkey), among the “cradles of Christianity.” It may be pivotal soon, if Syria war enters Turkey. It was severed by Treaty of Sevres from new Turkish Republic, then negotiated back from French, and begrudged to this day by Syrians. It is located only 90km as crow flies from Hmeimim, Latakia.
I feel this ancient pearl of the old world is waiting to be born anew, like Alexandria, Petra and Palmyra!
”And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch”. Antioch remained a pillar of the Church for hundreds of years, until the ‘christian’ West handed it to the enemies of the Church. Turks should be expelled from there.
Oddly enough I was searching for a dc heating element I might be able to direct connect with a (rather powerful) solar panel, I didnt have much luck, but what I did find was a 12dcv 1000w 5″ electric burner in china for a whopping $3 and some change. There was a ton of small appliances for like under $8.
Now I know they wont last forever but even if it lasted a year, a chinaman could live on rice cooked on this burner and cut his yearly food bill quite considerably. A tough situation to compete with.
A thing like that for your rv camper or tent here would be like $40. And who in china needs much needs money when things dont cost hardly anything, and all that robotic chinese stuff that sells for big bucks here, can subsidize a lot small buck items in China.
I thought I was on another planet going thru that catalog.
First of all don’t do it. DC will kill you instantly if you get a shock. Get a cheap inverter and storage. You’ll thank me later.
@Marfa: “DC will kill you instantly”.
12 volts DC? Less likely to shock you than 110/240 volts AC.
Nikola Tesla (the genuine Tesla) invented 3-phase only because high voltage AC is easier to distribute from a central power supply. But DC (from a solar battery) gives you more amps for your volt. Thus a 12 volt DC cooker is more powerful than a 110/240 volt AC cooker; and safer. Clever, those Chinese.
I think Alabama may be on to something.
> invented 3-phase only because high voltage AC is easier to distribute
nope. the 3-phase gives you an alternating sine wave with a phase of 120 degrees that gives you phenomenal torque. Tesla the car, guess what kind of synchro motors they run.
transmission is all about pressure and voltage is pressure. and losses. 440KV or even higher lines are a/c. and they can be stepped up and down better and multiplexed better by phasing it.
12V DC, try this if you dare. sit in your bath tub and short the ends of a 12V battery. live to comment about it here.
2nd of all I’m trying to keep the cost down, and the efficiency up. 3rd of all the industry wants to keep the cost up, and efficiency down as that drives company profits. 4th of all, i’m a trained electrician , but thanks for the warning.
Magical writing.
Magnificent analysis.
And a history lesson to boot.
Thanks Pepe
Sempre articoli interessantissimi.Segnalo due nomi poco conosciuti che possono essere testimoni della tradizione dell’antica Via della seta: Giovani da Montecorvino Rovella e Matteo Ripa(fondatore del Collegio dei Cinesi a Napoli,nucleo iniziale dell’Istituto Orientale di Napoli).Nella lingua napoletana ci sono anche parole cinesi e tibetane.
google translate … mod
Always very interesting articles.Please point me out two little-known names that may be witnesses to the tradition of the ancient Silk Road: Giovani da Montecorvino Rovella and Matteo Ripa (founder of the Collegio dei Cinesi in Naples, initial nucleus of the Oriental Institute of Naples). Neapolitan there are also Chinese and Tibetan words.
Speaking of China, I strongly reccomend the book “Twilight’s Last Gleaming” by John Michael Greer. Unlike the military p_o_r_n, written by Tom Clansey, Dale Brown, Brad Thor and the likes, this one describes more plausibe, if presented as fiction, outcome of USA vs China action.