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Home , Aurel Stein, Daqin, Far West (Taixi), Great Wall of China, Khodadad Rezakhani, Miran (Xinjiang)

The Road That Never Was: The Road and Trans-­Eurasian Exchange

Khodadad Rezakhani

he , or Silk Route, is a name used today to refer to a supposed route of ancient , its use bringing different images to mind. These are often of camel caravans on dusty roads, forbidding deserts, and exotic towns and “oases.” The con- cept as a whole tends to ignore realities such as and ecology, as well as political units, facts that become lost among the more potent romantic notions. While itineraries are presented at some length, actual places are forgotten, and it is supposed that a conventional “beginning” in and a vague “destination” somewhere along the Mediterranean are enough. On the way, places such as , the Pamirs, , and indeed the whole of the are simply brushed aside and not much discussed. The Silk Road has then be- come a grand narrative that serves mostly to obscure important details and sometimes even more. As one modern similarly opposed to the idea of the Silk Road has suggested, “‘The Silk road’ now has become both band wagon and gravy train, with endless stream of books, journals, conferences and international exhibitions devoted to it, reaching virtual mania proportions that is almost unstoppable.” 1 This is why I am suggesting not only that the concept of a continuous, purpose-­driven road or even “routes” is counterproductive in the study of world history but also that it has no basis in historical reality or records. Doing away with the whole concept of the “Silk Road”

of might do us, at least as , a world of good and actually let us study what in reality Studies was going on in the . Such a scheme would not be meant to deny or take away one of

and the useful concepts of world history.2 Indeed, the of Transoxiana, the Pamirs, and / are great crucibles for the study of world history, and their study is , quite central to understanding the progression of history and historical relations. However, South East Comparative it might be time to rethink the artificial and nostalgic concept of the Silk Road and bring out Middle the what this narrative tends to conceal.

2010 3, No. -2010-025 30, x The Idea of the “Silk Road” Vol. Press To start, we should briefly sketch out the history of the concept itself. The starting point 10.1215/1089201University of the “Silk Road” seems to have been the discoveries made by celebrated nineteenth-­ and doi Duke by twentieth-­century European scholar-­adventurers such as and Sir who 2011 ©

1. Warwick Ball, The of : History, Ar- 2. After all, world history is all about cultures and their interac- chaeology, and Architecture (: I. B. Tauris, 2007), 80. tion, and as the editor of the Journal of World History recently stated in a private conversation, the requirement for publish- ing an article in the journal is to somehow have it address a “cross-­cultural” theme, although it is open to debate what cross- 420 ­cultural really means.

Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/30/3/420/403408/CSA303_10_Rezakhani.pdf by DARTMOUTH COLLEGE user on 18 April 2018 found and described the great Buddhist in ated descriptions of the concept. The Encyclo- the caves of and various towns in paedia Britannica gives us this description: “Silk 421 Chinese Turkistan.3 These curious European Road, also called Silk Route: ancient scholar-­adventurers — for at the time the two that linking China with the West, carried goods professions were quite close and almost indistin- and ideas between the two great civilisations guishable — brought to the attention of the Eu- of China and . Silk came westward, while ropeans the rich artifacts of these regions and , gold, and silver went east. China also re- created a lot of curiosity about them. Of course, ceived Nestorian Christianity and

the discoveries were soon followed by attempts (from ) via the Route.” 7 Notice the almost Was: to protect these artifacts, mostly in Western exclusive insistence on China and Rome as the Exchange

museums, an action interpreted as robbery by “two great civilisations” linked by the Silk Road, Rezakhani

Never Chinese officials, who eventually banned exca- while what lies in between — , Iran, 4 That vations by Europeans. and / — is ignored. Whereas

It was about the same time that the Ger- Buddhism is clearly marked as an export of Khodadad Road man explorer and scholar Baron Ferdinand India (which, contrary to common definition, is Trans-Eurasian

von Richthofen gave the name “the Silk Road” not on the Silk Road), the source for Nestorian The and (die Seidenstraße) to the commercial route that Christianity is not mentioned, obviously suggest- Road

passed through the Tarim basin and into Tran- ing its origin to be in “Rome.” One could base 5

soxiana. Of course, historians are no strangers a whole case on this description alone, but let Silk

to names given to ancient concepts by mod- us proceed. The ern scholars. The Byzantine was never Another entry in the same encyclopaedia, called that by its inhabitants, nor did anybody this time in the “roads and highways” section, in the Middle Ages know that they were living in becomes a lot more descriptive, providing geo- such a period. As for the Silk Road, in a graphical and temporal limits: few Greeks might have heard of the Stone Fort The trade route from China to Asia Minor and in Central Asia and the Chinese had gathered India, known as the Silk Road, had been in some sketchy information on the lands that lay existence for 1,400 years at the time of Marco beyond the domain of the Da-­Yüeh-­zhi, but nei- ’s travels (c. AD 1270 – 90). It came into par- ther the Greco-­Romans nor the Chinese were tial existence about 300 BC, when it was used fully aware of the other’s existence.6 They, of to bring from Khotan (modern , course, knew of the existence of another entity China) to China.[8] By 200 BC it was linked to often neglected in the modern tales of the Silk the West, and by 100 BC it was carrying active Road, and this shall be discussed further below. trade between the two . At its zenith in AD 200 this road and its western connections What is amazing about the Silk Road, however, over the Roman system constituted the longest road is its pervasive influence and the continuous use on Earth. In Asia the road passed through Sa- of its manufactured boundaries and cultural markand to the region of , where, near markers in defining modern geographical and the of , a stone tower marked the sym- ethnopolitical concepts. bolic watershed between East and West. From But how is “Silk Road” defined? This might Fergana the road traversed the valley between be a case where scholarly and popular descrip- the Tien Shan and through tions of a historical subject are so intertwined , where it divided and skirted both sides that it is difficult to tell them apart. Popular of the Takla Makan Desert to join again at Yu- anquan. The road then wound eastward to Jia- sources provide the easiest and most unadulter-

3. For information on this art, see, e.g., Jian, The 5. , China: Ergebnisse eige- 8. Notice the objectification of the “it” (the Road?) Glory of the Silk Road: Art From Ancient China (Day- ner Reisen und darauf gegrundeter Studien, 5 vols., that is “used,” suggesting the existence of a (paved) ton, OH: Dayton Art Institute, 2003). 1877 – 1912 (China: The Results of My Travels and the road of some manner utilized for the purposes of Studies Based Thereon) (: D. Reimer, 1877). Von transportation. 4. For an excellent book on these details, see Peter Richthofen was incidentally Hedin’s teacher. Hopkirk, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia 6. Ball, Monuments of Afghanistan, 81. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980). 7. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Silk Road,” The book’s subtitle is quite telling of the attitude www.search.eb.com/ (accessed 20 October 2008). taken toward these discoveries by Chinese officials.

Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/30/3/420/403408/CSA303_10_Rezakhani.pdf by DARTMOUTH COLLEGE user on 18 April 2018 yuguan (Suzhou), where it passed through the ana to Iran and the rest of the Near East were 422 westernmost gateway (the Jade Gate, or Yumen) not much taken by these Chinese envoys, and, of the Great of China. It then went south- consequently, they are presented as what they east on the Imperial Highway to Xi’an and east- truly were: a series of trade routes connecting ward to on the . From various regions and not necessarily a single, uni- Kashgar, trade routes to the south passed over fied, and identifiable road. Some would argue the mountains to the great trading centre of and to northern .9 that, indeed, the Chinese interest in Central Asia was more diplomatic than commercial, and The use of the “West” as the at the thus Chinese envoys would have avoided some of other end of the Silk Road is quite significant, the most important “trade stations” on the so- of as it is obviously meant in its modern, “West- ­called Silk Road, another curious piece of infor-

Comparative ern” European sense, while the actual descrip- mation if we are to believe the traditional Silk Asia, tion concerns only Transoxiana. In general, 13 Studies Road narrative. As expected, the description the the “West” (capitalized or lowercased) in works and of the system from the Near East to the Mediter- South Africa relating to the “Silk Road” and to Chinese out- ranean would follow the same pattern as above. East side relations depends greatly on the audience Therefore in the standard narrative of the Silk Middle for which they are written. Thus in Zhang Xu- Road, the thousands of kilometers separating ­shan’s “China and the Byzantine” and similar the shores of the Mediterranean from works, the “West” is used in translations and ref- and are conveniently neglected. erences, implicitly creating the illusion that the The popularity of the concept of the Silk “west” of the Chinese sources such as the Shiji Road has also resulted in a proliferation of refers to the “West” as understood by the mod- output from all walks of scholarship and art. 10 ern reader. By comparison, Wang Tao’s “Par- A simple search for books about the Silk Road thia and China” seems more careful in using will bring up not only Life along the Silk Road by the “west,” realizing that many of the references Susan Whitfield and The Silk Road: Two Thou- are actually to Anxi and other lands in the Near sand Years in the Heart of Asia by Frances Wood East and Central Asia, indeed west of China, but but also Rebuilding the Silk Road: Encouraging 11 far to the east of the West. Economic Cooperation in Central Asia; the Role of The reference to the “symbolic” boundary the Asian Development Bank and even the newly of East and West also leaves one to wonder to published Pre-­history of the Silk Road by Elena whom this symbol would have appealed, as one Kuzmina and Victor H. Meir. Journals dedi- might ponder too whether the ancients under- cated to the Silk Road, including the Journal of stood these concepts in their modern sense. In Silk Road Art and Archaeology or Silk Road Studies, the descriptions, the Near East is left out com- have become quite popular. However, one sel- pletely, while even the rest of Transoxiana past dom finds works dedicated to the actual history Bukhara, including important locations such as of the region. Urban sites along the Silk Road Marv, is not mentioned. Historically this makes are commonly described as “oases,” whose main sense, since, as I argue, the itinerary described importance and raison d’être seem to have been in the Chinese sources is a description not of the Silk Road itself. This would then run coun- the “Silk Road” but simply of one of the many ter to the reality, the existence of ancient cities routes to Transoxiana, apparently preferred by and centers of civilization millennia before any 12 the Chinese envoys. The routes from Transoxi- supposed “opening of the Silk Road.” 1 4

9. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, s.v. “roads and 11. Wang Tao, “ and China: A Historical and Ar- 13. Ibid. Ball might be going too far in describing the highways,” www.search.eb.com/ (accessed 20 Octo- chaeological Investigation,” in Idea of Iran: The Age Chinese interest in trade as almost nonexistent, since ber 2008) (emphasis added). of the Parthians, ed. Vesta Sarkhosh-­Curtis and Sarah their interest in Central Asian horses is known. That Stewart (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007). this was itself a military purpose barely conceals the 10. Zhang Xu-­shan, “China and the Byzantine: Trade- diplomatic/foreign policy concerns of the Chinese ­Relations-­Knowledge, From the Beginning of the Sixth 12. One can speculate about the Chinese motivations . to the mid-­Seventh Century,” Ιστορικογεωγραφικα 6 to come to the East: “[Chinese] activities in Central (1998): 155 – 344. , Records of the Grand His- Asia were invariably diplomatic and military efforts 14. In fact, archaeology shows us the torian: Dynasty, trans. Burton Watson (New York: to out-­maneuver the nations.” Ball, Monu- of urbanization in the region. Pierre Leriche tells of the Columbia University Press, 1993). ments of Afghanistan, 81. high level of urbanization in the Oxus region before even the arrival of the Greeks. Pierre Leriche, “Bac-

Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/30/3/420/403408/CSA303_10_Rezakhani.pdf by DARTMOUTH COLLEGE user on 18 April 2018 The opening of the Silk Road itself is a others in the early decades of the twentieth cen- matter of much debate as well. Conventionally, tury, very little archaeology had been conducted 423 the arrival of the Chinese envoy of Emperor - in the region, and the information included in ­ti is given as the date of the opening of this trade Boulnois’s book is based on Greco-­Roman and route.15 However, efforts to stretch this date ear- medieval texts and early-­twentieth-­century dis- lier are constantly made, taking it even to the coveries.20 That little work has been done is due time of .16 Another issue, mainly to the ascendance of the Chinese Com- often central to the modern academic study of munist Party and its efforts in stopping Western

the Silk Road, is the effort by many scholars to access to the treasures of the Silk Road, some- Was: enter their own areas of interest and expertise thing also made obvious by the fact that Euro- Exchange

into the concept of the Silk Road, as if it is an pean in the region stopped in the Rezakhani

Never elite club whose membership would bring the early 1950s.21 Several reports of That neglected history some manner of prestige and and even a Japanese account of the Silk Road 17 22

exposure. Of course, this is directly related to were published in the 1960s and 1970s. It was Khodadad Road the shortcomings of Eurocentric historiogra- probably in anticipation of the coming craze, Trans-Eurasian

phy, which has for long pushed the history of but also in response to Chinese protectionism, The and non-­European lands into the shadows. that Peter Hopkirk wrote his Foreign Devils on Road

the Silk Road, about the cultural policies of the

Chinese government in limiting access to the Silk

Historiography of the Silk Road As mentioned above, the concept of the Silk country’s ancient sites. One could argue that The Road was introduced by nineteenth-­ and early- much of the early interest in the exploration of ­twentieth-­century European explorers, and the Central Asia was a desire to discover the “wild, name, in its German form, die Seidenstrasse, was unexplored lands” and an interest in finding coined by von Richthofen. However, the concept exotic animal and plant species. The explorers and even the name have gained a life of their of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth cen- own ever since, transformed by scholars to suit turies seem to have had an interest and insatia- their needs. The earliest use of the name as the ble desire to conquer Central Asia and take its title of an important book is Hedin’s own Silk trophies home, much as their brethren had in Road in 1936.18 Yet the name seems to have pro- discovering the North and South Poles or “un- liferated only in the 1960s, when Luce Boulnois discovered” African jungles.23 published his popular, and to date most com- However, the true fascination with the sub- plete, survey of the Silk Road.19 At this point, ject seems to have been the political events of apart from Stein’s original studies of the art of the late 1980s and the early 1990s. With the fall Dunhuang and Turfan, as well as some work of the Soviet Union and the independence and by and and by creation of the new political realities of Uzbeki-

tria, Land of a Thousand Cities,” in After Alexander: ,” Silk Road 6, no. 2 (2009): 3 – 14; and 1928); and Stein, Ancient Khotan: Detailed Report of Central Asia before , ed. Joe Cribb and Georgina Yang Fuquan, “The ‘Ancient Tea and Horse Caravan Archaeolgical Explorations in Chinese , 2 vols. Hermann (: , 2007), Road,’ the ‘Silk Road’ of ,” www.silk (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1907). See also Paul Pelliot, 121 – 48. The history of Bactria as a whole goes back at -road.com/newsletter/2004vol2num1/tea.htm. Study Carnets de Pékin, 1899 – 1901 (Notebooks of Peking, least to the early , with vast settled popu- of the Silk Road extends even to modern times. See 1 8 9 9 – 1 9 0 1 ) (Paris: Collège de France, 1976); and Fran- lations and widespread agriculture and irrigation. See Kirill Nourzhanov, “Politica of National Reconcilia- ces Wood, The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Pierre Leriche and Vincent Fourniau, eds., La Bactri- tion in : From Peace Talks to (Partial) Politi- Heart of Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, ane au carrefour des routes et des civilisations de l’Asie cal Settlement,” in Silk Road Studies, vol. 4, Realms of 2002), 212 – 22. Centrale (Paris: Maisonneuve and Larose, 2001); and the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern, ed. David Chris- 21. Wood, Silk Road, 243. Osmund Bopearachchi and Marie-­Francoise Bous- tian and Craig Benjamin (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, sac, eds., Afghanistan: Ancien carrefour entre l’Est et 2000), 161 – 80. 22. The most popular are Robert Collins, East to Ca- l’Ouest (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005). thay: The Silk Road (New York: McGraw-­Hill, 1968); 18. Sven Hedin, Die Seidenstrasse (Leipzig: F. A. Brock- Ryoichi Hayashi, The Silk Road and the Shoso-­in (New 15. Sima Qian, Historical Records, trans. Raymond haus, 1936); Hedin, The Silk Road, trans. F. H. (Lon- York: Weatherhill; Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1975); and Irene Dawson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). don: Routledge, 1938). M. Franck and David M. Brownstone, The Silk Road: A 16. Yang Juping, “Alexander the Great and the Emer- 19. Luce Boulnois, La route de la soie (The Silk Route) History (New York: Facts on File, 1986). gence of the Silk Road,” Silk Road 6, no. 2 (2009): (Paris: Arthaud, 1963). 23. See Wood, Silk Road, 165 – 79. Wood titles this 1 5 – 2 2 . 20. Most important, see Sir Aurel Stein, Innermost chapter “Asia Held Them Captive in Her Cold Em- 17. Of the many articles published in various issues Asia: Detailed Report of Explorations in Central Asia, brace: Explorers on the Silk Road.” of the Silk Road, see, e.g., Staffan Rose, “ and Kan-­su, and Eastern Iran (Oxford, UK: Clarendon,

Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/30/3/420/403408/CSA303_10_Rezakhani.pdf by DARTMOUTH COLLEGE user on 18 April 2018 stan, Tajikistan, and other Central Asian states, magically stay the same despite the different di- 424 a need for creating a history arose. This is when rections constantly attributed to it.28 Other ef- the Institute of Silk Road Studies was founded forts are to study the “civilizations” of the Silk in Japan and its journal was launched (1990). Road in a diachronic manner and using cues Much of the archaeology and textual analysis of from both comparative historiography and clas- the and Chinese Turke- sical literature.29 Of course, the romanticization stan that was done after this point was presented of the concept is always present and popular, in the context of the Silk Road. Many of the new even in huge undertakings of scholarship and works were done by native scholars of Central effort.30 Other scholars approach the concept of 24 Asia and occasionally China and Japan. the Silk Road from a decidedly Central Asian of This might be the point when even schol- point of view and present the Silk Road as the

Comparative ars noticed that the concept of the Silk “Road” unifying force of the region, while commenting Asia,

Studies and the image it resonates of a single, paved less on the issue of connections to the West and the and highway were problematic. So definitions of the even admitting that no one traveled the whole South Africa Silk Road and its description started changing. length of the “Route,” although its existence is East In some cases, the plural “Roads” was preferred not doubted at all.31 Scholarly works also pre­sent Middle to the singular “Road,” even as far as making an exact itinerary of the Silk Road, although von Richthofen’s singular Die Seidenstrasse into without much reference to how the exact sta- plural Die Seidenstrassen.25 The definitions are tions have been identified.32 also constantly tweaked and refined, from the From all the descriptions, academic or simple “bridge between Eastern and Western general, we learn several things about the Silk cultures” to the more sophisticated, but essen- Road: (1) it connected China and Europe; (2) it tially too broad to be useful, “long-­ and middle- facilitated the trading of silk; and (3) it passed ­distance land routes by which goods, ideas, and from China to Transoxiana and then somehow people were exchanged between major regions made it to the Mediterranean, its “final desti- of Afro-­Eurasia.” 2 6 One is reminded of the re- nation.” However, what we do not learn is how mark of Warwick Ball, when he says, “Now vir- it became connected from Transoxiana to Eu- tually all discussions of western trade with the rope and how exactly the goods traveled over all East revolves around it, with the ‘Silk Road’ these lands without being intercepted along the being the glib answer to all questions of trade way.33 We also do not hear of any good reasons and communication.” 2 7 why gold and silver went eastward, as if they were Directions have now also reached a point regular trading goods, and why Nestorian Chris- of saturation, forcing new historians to define tianity, itself a heresy under the late Roman and “northern,” “central,” “southern,” and “sea” Byzantine empires, should have gone to China routes of the “Silk Road,” which itself seems to from Rome.34 It is also quite confusing how India

24. Muqi Che, Silk Road: Past and Present (: New tion, a decision even he admits is arbitrary. See Chris- sented, while no reason or explanation is given for World, 1989); Y. F. Buryakov, The Cities and Routes of tian, “Silk Roads or Steppe Roads,” 69. See also Eliz- considering the route from the Gulf of Aqaba to east- the Great Silk Road (: Sharg, 1999). Even more abeth ten Grotenhuis, “Introduction: The Silk Road, ern as part of the same “highway” that starts technical issues are studied under the same umbrella. Ancient and Contemporary,” in Along the Silk Road, in Changan. Unfamiliarity with the geography of the See Katsumi Tanabe, Silk Road Coins (Kamakura, ed. Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis (Washington, DC: Smith- region is evident in most of these accounts, which I Japan: Institute of Silk Road Studies, 1993). sonian Institution; Seattle: University of Washington comment on later in this article. Press, 2002), 21. 25. David Christian, “Silk Roads or Steppe Roads,” in 33. An excellent list of “traded goods” is provided in Christian and Benjamin, Silk Road Studies, 4:67 – 94. 29. Susan Whitfield, Life along the Silk Road (Berkeley: Tucker, Silk Road, 16 – 17. Of course, it is basically a list University of California Press, 1999). of all the agricultural and manufactured goods ever 26. The first definition is used as the subtitle of the produced in Eurasia during the past three millennia. Silk Road, the newsletter of the Silk Road Foundation. 30. Jonathan Tucker has written a work that reads like On the second definition, see Christian, “Silk Roads or a love letter to China. See Jonathan Tucker, The Silk 34. The issue of the Silk Road as a road for exchang- Steppe Roads,” 69. Road: Art and History (London: Philip Wilson, 2003), ing ideas and religions has been the new trend, or especially 18 – 19. scapegoat, in the study of Central Asia. This is basi- 27. Ball, Monuments of Afghanistan, 81n4. cally the main promise of the following: Wood, Silk 31. On the issue of connections to the West, see Wood, 28. Michael Underwood, “The : Road; Whitfield, Life along the Silk Road; and Luce Silk Road. Ties between Turfan and Korea,” in Christian and Boulnois, Silk Road: Monks, Warriors, and Benjamin, Silk Road Studies, 4:95 – 104; Fuquan, “An- 32. Yang Juping, “Alexander the Great and the Emer- (: Odyssey, 2005). cient Tea and Horse Caravan Road.” David Christian gence of the Silk Road” Silk Road 6 (2009): 15 – 22. decided to exclude “ Road” from his descrip- Many other exact-­sounding itineraries are also pre-

Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/30/3/420/403408/CSA303_10_Rezakhani.pdf by DARTMOUTH COLLEGE user on 18 April 2018 fits into the whole picture, since it really is not tracting and directing the silk trade and its on the way between China and Europe.35 Why Road. The second, and even more obvious, 425 is it that the itinerary between China (Xi’an/ problem is that silk was commonly woven in Changan) and Transoxiana is described in , namely, in and Mosul, such detail, but the three thousand kilometers for years and even centuries before Justinian’s between Samarkand and the Mediterranean is supposed cunning plan. Silk threads, not origi- just brushed over? There is also a cultural com- nating from China, have been found in various ponent involved: oftentimes, efforts to connect sites in Transoxiana, and descriptions of their

the “great civilizations” of the Mediterranean production exist in Indian and Was: and China are so great that even chronologies sources from the third century: Exchange

are sacrificed in order to connect Alexander’s Rezakhani

The country of Ta-­ts’in (Syria) is also called Never

campaigns to the “opening” of the Silk Road Li-­chien (Li-­kin, Re-­kam, ) and, as being 36 That under Emperor Wu-­ti. More pronounced is situated on the western part of the sea, Hai-­hsi-

the total ignorance of another civilization lying ­kuo (country of the western part of the sea). Khodadad Road on the way from “China” to “Rome,” that of Its territory amounts to several thousand li; it Trans-Eurasian

Iran, which oftentimes controlled many parts contains over four hundred cities, and of depen- The and of Central Asia itself.37 Some of these questions dent states there are several times ten. . . . The country contains much gold, silver and rare pre- Road

should be explored. cious stones, . . . corals, , , . . . gold- Silk ­embroidered rugs and thin silk cloth of vari- Silk and Economy in Eurasia ous colors. They make gold-­colored cloth and The An essential issue in the study of the Silk Road cloth. They further have “fine cloth,” is the silk itself. The name “Silk Road” would also called “down of the water sheep”; it is made imply that the major trading item was silk, pro- from the cocoons of -­worms.40 duced in China, and that the main consumer, if it was Rome, was a great power and a great mar- The Chinese, whom we can trust in recognizing ket.38 It is supposed that silk appeared in Rome silk, casually relate that silk was known in the during the time of , and its secret was region and was woven in various styles, and they kept in China until two monk-­envoys of Em- make sure to mention the type of silkworm from peror Justinian managed to smuggle silk worms which the silk was taken. The evidence seems out of China in the sixth century.39 Meanwhile, conclusive enough. There are also no particular silk was held to be quite valuable, and the Per- signs of the rise of trade in AD 200, as is usu- sians, major enemies of Rome in all avenues of ally claimed. This would have been particularly life, appear to have profited greatly from this odd, since that date is almost the start of the fa- trade that merely passed through their lands. mous “crisis of the third century” in Rome, one There are major problems with these as- marked by inflation and economic downturn in sumptions. The first, mentioned before, is the particular, thus making it quite hard to believe supposed, but never really convincingly proven, that at the exact same time, Rome could have preeminence of Rome in the world economy afforded to send its gold and silver eastward 41 and the capacity or “pull” of its market in at- to buy silk. In fact, it seems that the Chinese

35. Of course, the “southwestern” route highlighted 38. Ten Grotenhuis, “Introduction: The Silk Road,” 16. 40. Friedrich Hirth, China and the Roman Orient: Re- by Fuquan might be the answer to this question. See Pliny’s estimate of 100 million sesterces per year for searches into their Ancient and Mediaeval Relations Fuquan, “Ancient Tea and Horse Caravan Road.” the purchase of silk is evoked to make this point even as Represented in Records (Chicago: Ares, stronger. One might wonder not only about the ac- [1885] 1975). This history was partly written during 36. Juping, “Alexander the Great.” curacy of the amount but also about its application: the fifth century AD and embraced the period 25 to 37. This is quite remarkable, particularly in many ac- was this spent only in the city of Rome or all around 220 AD. counts of non-­European scholars of the Silk Road. the Roman domains? 41. Mireille Corbier, “Coinage, Society, and Economy,” Juping manages to credit Alexander the Great, the 39. , The Wars, Volumes 1 and 2, trans. Henry in The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 12, ed. Ior­werth Macedonians of Bactria, the whole of the Hellenistic Bronson Dewing, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, E. S. Edwards (Cambridge: Cambridge University East, and the Chinese with the “opening” of the Silk MA: Harvard University Press, 1914 – 16). Press, 2005), 425. Road, all without bothering much with the Parthians, for example, who were the receivers of the supposed emissary of Wu-­ti and thus instrumental in opening the Silk Road. Juping, “Alexander the Great.”

Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/30/3/420/403408/CSA303_10_Rezakhani.pdf by DARTMOUTH COLLEGE user on 18 April 2018 emperors usually used their monopoly on silk of what Immanuel Wallerstein calls “the mod- 426 production to acquire enough silk to be given ern world-­system.” 4 4 A mere five hundred years away as gifts to foreign emissaries and kings. ago, Europe was not the major consumer in the Instead, Chinese and chinaware are the world market, nor was its economy the richest. items most commonly desired and mentioned Quite the contrary, Europe was actually one of in Western and Indian sources. Sogdians, the the poorest regions in the world, left well out of major traders between China and Transoxiana, the global economy.45 The world economy was were also very interested in Chinese glassware. actually dominated mostly by China, both as Farther to the west, trade items famously in- a consumer and as the major producer; other

clude spices, coming from India and the islands players were India and various powers of Cen- of beyond it.42 So silk, therefore, seems to be a low tral Asia and Iran, as the forces dominating

Comparative priority in the list of trade items. West Asia (the Near East).46 In short, the world Asia, economy was actually concentrated mostly in Studies the 47 and “Silk Road” and the Ancient Economy Asia. It was from Asia that traders went to Af- South Africa The first concern worthy of mention is the prob- rica and established colonies and extracted re- East lem of anachronism in the study of ancient his- sources. It was for the sake of getting goods to Middle tory, particularly when economy is concerned. southern and western Asia more quickly that In the past three hundred years, Europe (and the Chinese started their famed ocean expedi- here I mean Europe’s North American, African, tions.48 The world economy, whether producing and Australian extensions) has been the world’s or consuming, was mostly an Asian affair. What most significant economic player. Along with trickled down from this system often went to the Industrial Revolution has come an amazing Africa first, where a few strong, centralized pow- economic pull that has made Europe the main ers also played a role in this economy. Europe, purveyor of wealth around the globe.43 Today, in reality, was the last receiver of such benefits. much of the rest of the world produces cheap The reason was quite simple: Europe had very goods so Europe can consume. few resources, and the few that it had were used The prominence of the present situation to maintain its own population.49 Europe was has caused many to take the economic ascen- geographically isolated, surrounded by water dance of Europe for granted and consider it on three sides, and quite overpopulated as well. as a historical reality extending to the ancient So the first thing to keep in mind is that in the period. Thus it might sound incredible to sug- so-­called heyday of the Silk Road, when Marco gest that the situation was not so just a relatively Polo provided accounts of “the Silk Road” to short time ago, indeed before 1500 and the rise the Europeans, Europe itself was effectively an

42. Tucker gives a list of items traded out of China. Wallerstein, World-­Systems Analysis: An Introduction for the , see Janet L. Abu-­Lughod, See Tucker, Silk Road, 16; and also Michael Loewe, (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004). Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. “Spices and Silk: Aspects of World Trade in the First 1250 – 1350 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). 45. Many have commented on Europe’s position, in- Seven Centuries of the Christian Era,” Journal of the cluding John M. Hobson in his Eastern Origins of West- 47. Frank, ReOrient, 5 – 8. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 2 ern Civilisation (Cambridge: Cambridge University (1971): 166 – 79. 48. Hobson (Eastern Origins, 29 – 48) expresses this Press, 2004), 29 – 31 and part II, 99 – 159. An econom- position, if rather too forcefully. 43. The issue of the West’s rise is obviously an ever- ically oriented argument is Kenneth Pomeranz, The ­present question in modern historiography and in al- Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of 49. For the , see Richard Duncan- most any major work of European history, and even the Modern World Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton ­Jones, Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy some of those not concerned directly with European University Press, 2001). For a more militant discussion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), espe- history are written in response to it. This would ex- of Europe’s position in world history, or lack thereof, cially pt. 2. Sadly, there has been a general tendency, tend from Max Weber and his Protestant Ethics to before the modern period, see Andre Gunder Frank, part of a greater Eurocentric leaning in history, to David Landes’s Wealth and Poverty of Nations and ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: equate “ancient economy” with “Roman economy.” ’s wonderment about the Western University of California Press, 1998). See, e.g., the famous work of Moses Finley, The An- capability for . It also gives one Eric Jones, The cient Economy, 2nd ed. (London: Hogarth, 1985). This 46. A study of the Indian economy beyond colonial- European Miracle, (Cambridge: Cambridge University has in turn hindered our understanding of the econ- ism is still lacking, despite some attempts limited Press, 2003). At the same time, it is the main reason omy in the ancient world as a whole, resulting in a mostly to the period immediately before the arrival for the existence of the fields of global history and lack of comparative models for the real ancient world of the Europeans. See Gyan Prakash, “Writing Post- world history. economy. ­orientalist Histories of the Third World: Perspectives 44. It is fair to point out that even Elizabeth ten Gro- from Indian Historiography,” Comparative Studies in tenhuis mentions this fact. See ten Grotenhuis, “In- Society and History 32 (1990): 383 – 408. For another troduction: The Silk Road,” 18. See also Immanuel version, arguing still within Wallerstein’s model but

Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/30/3/420/403408/CSA303_10_Rezakhani.pdf by DARTMOUTH COLLEGE user on 18 April 2018 economic backwater, not the powerhouse we are at the issue from a European, and regrettably so used to thinking of today.50 a Eurocentric, point of view. Indeed, Rome was 427 Second is the issue of the G r e c o - ­R o m a n the greatest power in ancient Europe and even world. While modern and postmodern criticism the Mediterranean. However, our automatic of Eurocentric historiography might have made equation of ancient Europe with “the World” it easier for some to accept the above suggestion, gives us a myopic vision of Rome. Being the it is much less common for experts of classical greatest power in Europe was indeed important, civilization to accept a similar status for their and Rome was certainly a great power operating

beloved subject of study.51 After all, we grow up in a limited geographical expanse. Factually, it Was: hearing of the Greek city-­states, the Athenian was operating in the resource-­poor lands of Eu- Exchange

Empire, Rome, Julius , Augustus, Marcus rope with limited access to the rest of the world, Rezakhani

Never Aurelius, Constantine, and Justinian. Greece is where the most convenient way of contacting That the center of democracy, and Rome is commonly the rest of the world was effectively blocked by 55

thought of as the most significant of ancient em- Rome’s major enemy to the east. So we have Khodadad Road pires.52 We think of Roman hegemony as world to realize that despite its hegemony of the Medi- Trans-Eurasian

hegemony and consider Rome to have been “the terranean world, Rome was also not the greatest The and World.” 5 3 We consider Cicero to have been the player in the whole of the ancient world.56 Con- Road

greatest orator of the ancient world and Homer sidering both of the above points, we might then

and to be its greatest poets. Greco-­Roman allege that the effort to extend the “Silk Road” Silk

cities are “classical cities,” and their collapse is to reach the Mediterranean world itself serves The considered to have triggered the Dark Ages.54 In to further aggrandize the position of the clas- short, few dare not to think that Rome was the sical Greco-­Roman world, as the predecessor of greatest, or at least one of the greatest, civiliza- Europe, in world history.57 In noticing the geo- tions of the ancient world. graphical problems of the Silk Road, we can fur- But the facts are against such a perspec- ther emphasize this point and understand part tive. Again, the problem is that we are looking of the modern fascination with the concept.

50. Ten Grotenhuis, “Introduction: The Silk Road,” dels’s famous Engineering in the Ancient World is con- 150 years is not much. Besides, gold coinage, even in 18. Whatever its value, at least some suspicion has cerned exclusively with Rome and Greece as well, not , was a hindrance to trade and commerce been raised about ’s travel, which, in my even mentioning the Egyptians, the Babylonians, or because of its high value. Cécile Morrisson, “Byzan- opinion, is often the source of much inspiration for the Chinese. Wallace Everett Caldwell, Ancient World tine Money: Its Production and Circulation,” in The the whole concept of the Silk Road. See, e.g., Fran- (New York: Reinhart, 1957); John G. Landels, Engi- of Byzantium, ed. Angeliki E. Laiou ces Wood, Did Marco Polo Go to China? (Boulder, CO: neering in the Ancient World (Berkeley: University of (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library Westview, 1998). California Press, 2000). The “world” was Rome, and and Collection, 2002). For the situation of money supposedly all roads (including the Silk Road) led to in eastern Central Asia before the advent of Islam 51. On Eurocentric historiography, see Jack Goody, Rome. in the region and for a discussion of the “Western” The Theft of History (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- coins found in the region, see Helen Wang, “Money sity Press, 2007); but also see Eric Wolf, Europe and 54. An alternative take on this is of course emerg- in Eastern Central Asia, before AD 800” in After Al- the People without History (Berkeley: University of ing, best detailed and exemplified in Hugh Kennedy, exander: Central Asia Before Islam, eds. Joe Crib and California Press, 1982). “From Polis to Madina: Urban Change in Late Antique Georgina Hermann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, and Early Islamic Syria,” Past and Present, no. 106 52. Of course, there has been some space given as 2007), 399–412. (1985): 3 – 27. of late to China. See, e.g., Jialing Xu, “Narratives of 57. That the whole field of late antique/medieval his- the Roman-­Byzantine World in Ancient Chinese 55. The study of Roman conflict with the various Ira- tory seems to thrive on the question of how “Rome” Sources,” in Byzantine Narrative: in Honour nian powers has been a most productive field of an- became “Europe” and the Mediterranean is central in of Roger Scott, ed. John Burke with Ursula Betka, Pe- cient history. See Engelbert Winter and Beate Digna, this discussion. See Michael McCormick, Origins of the nelope Buckley, Kathleen Hay, Roger Scott, Andrew Rom und das Perserreich: Zwei Weltmächte zwischen European Economy: Communications and Commerce, Stephenson, Australiensia 6 (Melbourne: Australian Konfrontation und Koexistenz (Berlin: Akademie, A.D. 300 – 900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Association for , 2006), 497. After 2001); and Geoffrey Greatrex and Sam N. C. Lieu, Press, 2001); Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle all, it is hard to forsake the greatness of an empire The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, pt. Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400 – 800 (New whose commerce Rome was so eager to receive, not 2, AD 363 – 630: A Narrative Sourcebook (New York: York: Oxford University Press, 2005). Of course, the to mention the culture of one out of every five per- Routledge, 2002). Since the concern of the Romans discussion started with Henri Pirenne. Henri Pirenne, sons in the world today. was often their Eastern adversaries, it has automati- Mohammed and Charlemagne (London: Allen and cally been assumed that the opposite was also true, 53. Apart from the aforementioned “ancient econ- Unwin, 1958). although one could argue against this assumption. omy” to refer to Rome exclusively, it is quite common to hear of the term ancient world to refer to Rome, 56. Even if the coin finds in the region are considered, and maybe Greece. For example, again Finley’s Politics the amount of Roman/ (the basis in the Ancient World is wholly concerned with Rome. for many claims) is quite negligible. Many of the coins Wallace Caldwell’s The Ancient World is confined to date from the time of Theodosius II (408 – 50) and Europe, save Babylon and Carthage. John Gray Lan- Heraclius (610 – 41). Fifty-­six gold coins in more than

Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/30/3/420/403408/CSA303_10_Rezakhani.pdf by DARTMOUTH COLLEGE user on 18 April 2018 Geography and the Silk Road Persian-­Roman points (Callinicum, 428 Most general descriptions presuppose that Dara, etc.) and reach or Caesarea, or the Silk Road started in China (from various even end up directly in or the points, but mostly Changan) and continued to city of Rome itself. Instead, most descriptions “Rome.” 5 8 Many sources go through a rather de- stop somewhere to the east of the tailed itinerary of the route. A general descrip- in Transoxiana, merely mentioning its continu- tion usually goes like this: ation to Rome without designating any final destination. In some cases, Ephesus is given as The routes all started from the capital in Changan, headed up the corridor, and a final destination, while others simply mention reached Dunhuang on the edge of the Taklima- the route passing over the Iranian plateau (as of kan. The northern route then passed through if it is just another oasis), ending in the Medi-

Comparative Yumen Guan (Jade Gate Pass) and crossed the terranean cities of Antioch, Tyre, Sidon, and Asia, neck of the to Hami (Kumul), be- .61 Studies the fore following the Tianshan Mountains round and To explore the history of the Silk Road, South Africa the northern fringes of the Taklimakan. It scholars go back to the textual sources that talk East passed through the major oases of Turfan and about contacts between China and Europe in Kuqa before arriving at Kashgar, at the foot of Middle premodern times. A basic point of departure the Pamirs. The southern route branched off at is the body of Chinese sources describing the Dunhuang, passing through the Yang Guan and 62 skirting the southern edges of the desert, via West. To start with the travels of , , Hetian (Khotan) and Shache (Yarkand), he is sent by Wu-­ti to conclude an alliance with finally turning north again to meet the other the Yüeh-­zhi against the , sometime route at Kashgar. Numerous other routes were between 138 and 116 BCE.63 In his description, also used to a lesser extent; one branched off he tells of the following places: “The Son of from the southern route and headed through Heaven on hearing all this reasoned thus: Fer- the Eastern end of the Taklimakan to the city ghana () and the possessions of Bactria of Loulan, before joining the northern route at () and Parthia (Anxi) are large countries, . Kashgar became the new crossroads of full of rare things, with a population living in Asia; from here the routes again divided, head- ing across the Pamirs to Samarkand and to the fixed homes and given to occupations somewhat south of the Caspian Sea, or to the south, over identical with those of the Chinese people, but the into India; a further route split with weak , and placing great value on the from the northern route after Kuqa and headed rich produce of China.” 6 4 So this first mission across the Tianshan range to eventually reach actually reached as far “west” as Anxi, the Chi- the shores of the Caspian Sea, via Tashkent.59 nese name for Parthia and brought back certain “blood-­sweating horses,” along with some infor- Curiously enough, almost no source really mation about the region.65 These expeditions gives a full itinerary, namely, one farther west apparently made the Chinese familiar with the than the Caspian Sea or at most Mesopotamia.60 Takla Makan desert and the Tarim basin, the One would expect that the route connecting areas they soon came to . In the first China to Rome would pass through Mesopota- century CE, led an expedition and mia, probably or one of the designated

58. Wood, Silk Road, 36 – 47. 62. All translations of Chinese sources are from Hirth, 65. An-­xi is usually associated with Parthia. See the China and the Roman Orient. Occasionally, I also use discussion in Étienne de la Vaissière, Sogdian Trad- 59. This itinerary can be found in various sources, in- other commentaries or corrections. ers: A History, trans. James Ward (Leiden: Brill, 2005), cluding Whitfield, Life along the Silk Road, 22 – 25. 25 – 28. It is not known whether this refers to the sa- 63. As Ball (Monuments of Afghanistan, 81) points 60. Juping, “Alexander the Great,” 16, is an exception. trapy of Parthia (northeastern Iran) or it is the general out, the purpose of even this important event, which His description of the Road thus crosses chronologi- name for the . Given that Parthia is served to “open” the Silk Road, was mostly diplomatic cal boundaries by hundreds of years. Tucker also pro- mentioned right after Fergana and Bactria, its imme- rather than commercial. vides a full map (Silk Road, 12 – 13), although he does diate neighbors, it is safe to assume that the satrapy not elaborate. 64. Taishan Yu, “A History of the Relationships be- was meant. This point has a great relevance to the tween the Western and Eastern Han, , Jin, North- issue at hand, as the assumption that it refers to the 61. On Ephesus as a final destination, see Juping, “Al- ern and Southern Dynasties, and the Western Re- empire of the Parthians (in fact the Arsacids) might exander the Great,” 17. Ten Grotenhuis (“Introduc- gions,” Sino-­Platonic Papers 131 (Department of East have caused much later confusion. tion: The Silk Road,” 18) gives no explanation, besides Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of the obvious “exotic” overtone, for ending a route in a Pennsylvania, 2004), 264. landlocked city like Aleppo.

Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/30/3/420/403408/CSA303_10_Rezakhani.pdf by DARTMOUTH COLLEGE user on 18 April 2018 invasion of the of China that between. In a recent example, the author of an guaranteed the Chinese control of the Tarim article goes through the Chinese sources (men- 429 basin. He also sent envoys to the West (?), tioned above) to argue for the Chinese knowl- which never reached their destination. edge of the West and the importance of that knowledge for trade relations between China In the 9th year of Yung-­yüan of Ho-­ti [97 CE] 69 the tu-­hu [governor] Pan Ch’ao sent Kan-­ying as and Rome/Byzantium. Beginning with a gen- an ambassador to Ta-­ts’in [], who eral introduction to the Roman and Chinese empires, the author proceeds to provide quite

arrived in T’iao-­chih [], on the coast of the great sea []. When about to modern information about the two empires for Was: take his passage across the sea, the sailors of the the whole of the article’s first half, based on the

western frontier of An-­hsi told Kan-­ying: “The Exchange

classical sources widely available, and not from Rezakhani

Never sea [] is vast and great; with favor- a comparative point of view. Among these is able winds it is possible to cross within three That the previously mentioned idealized view of the months — -­but if you meet slow winds, it may also

Silk Road, presented as such: “People traveled Khodadad Road

take you two years. It is for this reason that those peacefully on the Silk Road and preached their Trans-Eurasian

who go to sea take on board a supply of three 7 0 The years’ provisions. There is something in the sea beliefs in different religions.” Ignoring non- and

which is apt to make man home-­sick, and several ­Chinese and Roman sources is very common in Road

have thus lost their lives.” When Kan-­ying heard this article and in similar ones, as are factually 66

this, he stopped. incorrect assertions such as dating the rise of Silk

Buddhism and in Transoxiana to The same sources mention more Chinese em- The the first two centuries of Islam.71 However, most bassies, and a few from the king of Anxi and of the article is dedicated to quotations from from Daqin, bringing tributes and asking for an the Chinese chronicles, in an attempt to assign opening up of commercial relations. However, various Chinese names to the real geographi- none of the Chinese sources mentions any lands cal places. For example, the “Li- beyond Daqin. This, based on the modern Chi- ­Kan” is argued to be a form taken from “Seleu- nese interpretation, has been treated as Rome. cid,” the name of the Hellenistic dynasty that Yet as early as the late nineteenth century, ruled Syria, , and Iran after Alexander. The Friedrich Hirth was suggesting that this is actu- problem is that in 14 BC (when the name first ally Roman Syria, indeed one of the few sites on occurs in the Chinese sources), the Seleucid the .67 Empire no longer existed, and thus it would Quite a few modern works of scholar- have been quite unusual for the source that has ship have been published presenting surveys just become familiar with the area to use an ex- of Chinese sources that mention Rome or By­ pired name.72 The author argues that another zantium.68 The issue most of these works face Chinese term for Rome, -­lin, is from “Syriac is that, in many cases, they seem to confuse or Persian Ephraim,” which is supposed to be the the ancient Chinese idea, and knowledge, of Syriac or Persian name for Rome.73 Apart from the “West” with what one knows today about the fact that Syriac and Persian are unrelated the West, or Europe to be exact. This seems to languages, one should notice that Ephraim is a stem, at least partially, from a lack of familiar- personal name, and in neither Syriac nor Per- ity with the geography of the lands that lie in

66. For 25 – 220 CE, see Hirth, China and the Roman 69. Xu, “Narratives of the Roman-­Byzantine World,” 72. The last Seleucid king of Syria, Philip II Philorho- Orient, chaps. 86, 88. 4 9 7 – 5 0 4 . maeus, was killed by the Romans in 63 BCE. Cassius Dio, Dio’s Roman History, trans. Earnest Carey (Cam- 67. Hirth, China and the Roman Orient, 151 – 57. 70. Ibid., 498. bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960 – 69), 68. For a survey of the sources, see Chen Zhi-­Qiang, 71. The presence of from 36.17. “Narrative Materials about the Byzantines in Chinese the time of the Kushans is a well-­known fact, sup- 73. Xu, “Narratives of the Roman-­Byzantine World,” Sources,” in Burke et al., Byzantine Narrative, 505 – 21. ported by archaeology. See Andre Godard and Joseph 503. Examples of articles trying to extract descriptions Hackin, Les Antiquités bouddhiques de Bâmiyân (Paris: of “Rome” or “Byzantium” are discussed later, but G. van Oest, 1928). one can look at Zhang Xu-­shan, “China and the By­ zantine: Trade-­Relations-­Knowledge, from the Be- ginning of the Sixth to the Mid-­Seventh Century,” Ιστορικογεωγραφικα 6 (1998): 155 – 344.

Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/30/3/420/403408/CSA303_10_Rezakhani.pdf by DARTMOUTH COLLEGE user on 18 April 2018 sian is it used to refer to Rome. Quite possibly, subsequent references to Daqin or Fu-­lin are 430 the author was aiming to derive the name from taken to refer to Rome, without critical evalua- Middle Persian Hrōm (Rome) and confused it tion of the sources. In the above example of the with Ephraim in the process. Such works sim- war with Fu-­lin, one easily realizes that the Chi- ply add to the total number of writings “dem- nese could not have been engaged in a border onstrating” the Chinese knowledge of Rome/ war with the Romans, farther to the west. In- Byzantium. stead, this seems to be a direct reference to the In another article, evidence from the Wei- Chinese contacts along their western , ­S h u , a chronicle of the northern dynasty with a power that is most likely none other than

(386 – 549 CE), is used to describe Daqin, the Iran. However, the desire to brush over the en- of usual name for Rome. The capital of the coun- emies of the Romans has led modern scholars

Comparative try is defined in this way: “The royal capital of to conveniently ignore the presence of the large Asia, the country is divided into five cities. . . . the landmass between China and Rome and instead Studies the 78 and king resides in the central city. In the king’s aim for the forging of a direct connection. South Africa city, there are eight ministers established for In W e i - ­l o , written about 430 CE, another East governing the eastern, western, northern, and description of the western regions is given: 7 4 Middle southern quarters of the country.” Anyone fa- “From the city of Ar-­ku [Uruku, modern Warka], miliar with the history of the ancient and late on the boundary of An-­hsi one takes passage in antique world, beyond China and Rome, will a ship and, traversing the west of the sea, with be amazed by this description of the capital of favorable winds arrives [at Aelana, modern Elat, Daqin. The supposed usual capital of Daqin on the Gulf of Aqaba] in two months.” 7 9 Argu- (in Hirth’s opinion, Roman Syria) is supposed ments have prevailed for many decades regard- to be Antioch-­on-­the-­Orontes in the extreme ing the rendition of various geographical terms northeastern corner of the Mediterranean. in the Chinese sources, usually by referring to Yet the capital city mentioned by the chronicle the possible pronunciations does not border any seas, as Antioch does, nor of the modern .80 But here, was Antioch divided into five cities.75 However, without needing to understand much Middle (Syriac Mahoza and Mada’in, Chinese, one can see the oddity in the interpre- both meaning “the Cities”) was indeed divided tation of the geographical description provided into five cities. Also, it is a well-­known fact that above. This also serves to demonstrate the ar- the Sassanian administration had divided the gument that the identification of Anxi with the country into four kusts (quarters), each with a Arsacid Empire instead of the satrapy of Parthia general and an administrator.76 So it simply is at the root of many of the misunderstandings seems that Daqin is actually referring to an area present in analyzing Chinese geographical evi- a little farther east than Roman Syria, actually dence. By identifying Ar-­ku with the ancient city non-­Roman Syria and Mesopotamia, and its of , at the edge of Anxi (here seen as the capital in Ctesiphon. Arsacid Empire), the modern interpretation has In the J i u - ­T a g - ­S h u (The History of the Tang arrived at the Gulf of Aqaba on the . Dynasty), a mention is made of the defeat of the Now, even with ancient navigation systems, it Fu-­lin by the Chinese general Xian-­Zhi.77 The would never have taken anyone two months to Chinese in turn were later defeated, and some pass the Gulf of Aqaba. However, if we consider of their prisoners were taken into western Asia. that the Chinese toponym Anxi referred to the Normally, because of modern assumptions, all province of Parthia, as is the most plausible ex-

74. W e i - ­S h u , vol. 102, quoted in Chen Zhi-­Qiang, “Nar- 77. Quoted in Chen Zhi-­Qiang, “Narrative Materials later — evidence, surely, of a lack of direct trade.” Ball, rative Materials about the Byzantines,” 506. about the Byzantines,” 508. Monuments of Afghanistan, 81.

75. George Elderkin and Richard Stillwell, A n t i o c h - ­o n - 78. Ball correctly points out that the Chinese and the 79. Quoted in Chen Zhi-­Qiang, “Narrative Materials ­t h e - ­O r o n t e s , 3 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer- Greeks (or Romans) would have known about each about the Byzantines,” 510 (commentaries are Chen sity Press, 1934 – 38). other sparsely and through many intermediaries. In Zhi-­Qiang’s). his words: “Despite technology existing in ancient 76. Rika Gyselen, Four Generals of the Sasanian Em- 80. See the interesting, but as usual inconclusive, ar- China far in advance of anything in the West, most of pire (Rome: Istituto italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, guments in Wang, “Money in Eastern Central Asia,” it did not reach the West until up to a thousand years 2001). 9 0 – 1 0 1 .

Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/30/3/420/403408/CSA303_10_Rezakhani.pdf by DARTMOUTH COLLEGE user on 18 April 2018 planation when compared to similar geographi- ) to “Rome,” show that they knew of a great cal terms such as Dayuan, one can argue that power, similar to their own, in Rome. Again, the 431 Ar-­ku is a city to the west of Parthia, possibly interpretations both curiously ignore the pres- Gurgan (Hyrcania, Parthian Wurkan). Now, ence of a power — and, even more important, with Gurgan being situated at the southeastern the large geographical unit that is the Near corner of the Caspian Sea, one can easily imag- East and Iran — in between the two “empires” ine that crossing over to , at the oppo- of their concern. site end of the Caspian, might have taken the Another Greco-­Roman source, the Peri­

ancient navigators the alleged two months. plus of the Erytrean Sea (Periplous tes Erythras Was: The unfamiliarity with the geography of Thalasses), dates to the first century AD and Exchange

Transoxiana, the Iranian plateau, and Meso- describes the navigation routes in the Red Sea Rezakhani

Never potamia has led scholars to easily accept the and the sea trade to India.83 Scattered men- That identification of the “western countries” (in the tions of trade with the East are also found in

Chinese sense) with the modern western lands, the works of Roman and Byzantine historians, Khodadad Road meaning Europe. This is made further appar- the most famous of which is a statement by the Trans-Eurasian

ent by considering that the descriptions of the sixth-­century Byzantine historian Procopius. The and West, which start by giving the distances from He notes that it was “impossible for the Ethio- Road

An-­xi, are assuming that the term A n - ­x i refers pians to buy silk from the Indians, for the Per-

to the whole empire of Parthia, instead of the sian merchants always locate themselves at the Silk

satrapy of Parthia, in northeastern Iran. Con- very harbors where the Indian ships first put in, The sequently, all distances, given in relation to the (since they inhabit the adjoining country) and western borders of An-­xi in Chinese sources, are are accustomed to buy the whole cargoes.” 8 4 counted from the western borders of the empire Considering this and similar statements, in Mesopotamia, instead of the western borders one can see the problem with the image of a of Parthia proper. If we consider that Anxi refers trade route that connected Rome with China to the province of Parthia and that the terms and back. In bringing evidence of trade, scholars Daquin and Fulin, and others for areas to the quote page after page from the Chinese chron- west of it, actually refer to the various other sa- icles about trade with the West, and then they trapies of the Iranian Empire, then we might bring evidence from the Roman sources about have a much better sense of the information trade with the East. In the process, what they that the Chinese sources provide. ignore is that the West and the East in question Turning to Greco-­Roman sources, there differ from the cultural terms assigned by mod- is a famous description of the route to Seres ern scholarship to denote Western and Eastern by Pliny. In it, the Roman historian describes civilizations. The Chinese sources, in fact, are a route from Scythia (the Roman term for talking about trade, and , with Tran- Caucasia) that passes a range bordering a sea soxiana and Iran, and the Roman sources are (either the or the Elburz concerned with trying to enter into some of this Mountains).81 Full of fanciful details such as trade. The problem is thus: the proverbial buck cannibals, Pliny’s account is similar to those stops in western and southern Asia, and it never of and , all essentially describ- really reaches the West, the , West- ing the easternmost region of which they were ern civilization, or Europe. However, there still re- aware, namely, Central Asia. However, this has mains the question of the “Near East,” the three not stopped modern scholars from consider- thousand kilometers of land lying in between ing these descriptions to be of China.82 Nor has Transoxiana and the Mediterranean. When one there been any doubt in suggesting that the looks at the sources closely, it is easy to see that Chinese, by giving the title of Daqin (the Great they don’t “talk” to each other. The Chinese

81. On the Roman term for Caucasia, see Wood, Silk 83. The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, 2 vols., trans. Road, 43. William Vincent (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1 8 0 0 – 1 8 0 5 ) . 82. Ibid. 84. Procopius, 1.xx.12.

Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/30/3/420/403408/CSA303_10_Rezakhani.pdf by DARTMOUTH COLLEGE user on 18 April 2018 source materials, and the modern scholars who fancied the and their empire as the 432 use them to show China’s western relations, talk rise of the kingdom of “Prester John.” 8 8 about the “West,” while the actual descriptions But nostalgia aside, one should notice end in Transoxiana and occasionally at the Cas- that the Christianity in question was Nestorian- pian Sea or, rarely, the Persian Gulf. The Roman ism, a sect that was expelled from Roman Syria sources also refer to the Chinese and Indian and found a home in no less a place than Cte- trade, while Mesopotamia and the Iranian pla- siphon, the capital of the Sassanian Empire.89 teau lie in between, blocking the way. Indeed, It was indeed from here that patriarchs like when one looks at it, the Road or the Route or Mar Ishoyyabh III sent missions of conversion 90 even the routes never lead to Rome. They either to Transoxiana and India. Such missions do of lead down to India via Bactria or just end up in not seem to have been part of any conscious ef-

Comparative the Iranian plateau. Even Mesopotamia is too fort of the Roman emperor or the Roman/By­ Asia, far to go, and Chinese envoys are discouraged zantine Church to spread the Christian faith in Studies the 85 and by crafty fishermen from reaching it. Transoxiana. Instead, among the few fragments South Africa This then brings us to a famous romantic of a Bible found in Turfan is a translation of the East idea about the Silk Road, and that is its utility psalms into Middle Persian, and various biblical 91 Middle as a main route of transport for ideas and re- fragments translated into Sogdian. Of course, ligions.86 Of course, the discovery that ignited there were some isolated efforts, mostly by the the idea of the Silk Road, the paintings of the Vatican, to make contacts with the unknown Dunhuang caves, had a religious, specifically powers beyond the Islamic world to create alli- Buddhist, nature. Further discovery of Man- ances against the , but they never really ichaean and Nestorian manuscripts in the caves succeeded.92 Indeed, even as far as the time of and towers of Turfan, Kashgar, and Khotan also the Mongol i l - ­k h a n s Gaykhatu and , the strengthened the idea of the Silk Road as the Christianity adopted by the rulers is Nestorian- main avenue for the exchange of ideas and re- ism. Of course, also took refuge in ligions.87 The notion was, and continues to be, Transoxiana, away from the persecution of the quite romantic. After all, we like to think of Sassanians, and its spread was greatly curbed by premodern times as a period of religious big- the rising power of Buddhism in the region. otry and conflict, and a “route” through which The connections between Central Asia religions freely traveled and interacted is quite and China are of course undeniable, as are the attractive. It is also quite curious, and spiritually connections between this region, Central Asia, fulfilling, for the European reader to learn that and the Iranian plateau and the powers that a “European” religion like Christianity not only came to dominate it. The Bactrians, who origi- survived but also thrived in the lands beyond nally dominated Central Asia, were culturally the dominion of the Saracens and heathens. under the influence of Iran, as becomes quite This indeed was an incentive for many medieval obvious even under foreign powers such as the European missions, like those to the Mongol Kushan kings.93 The Sogdians, who later came court by various popes, who might even have to dominate Central Asian trade, also were

85. For 25 – 220 CE, see H o u - ­H a n - ­s h u , chaps. 86, 88. Curzon, 2003). On the Sassanian Empire, see Scott Anna Hercus, F. B. J. Kuiper, T. Rahapatirana, and E. R. McDonough, “A Second Constantine? The Sasanian Skrzypczak (Canberra: Faculty of Asian Studies of Aus- 86. A good example of the view that the Silk Road King Yazdgard in Christian History and Historiogra- tralian National University, 1982), 11 – 29. was a way of exchanging ideas is Richard Foltz, Reli- phy,” Journal of 1 (2008): 127 – 41. gions of the Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Ex- 92. Igor de Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great change from Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century (New 90. Foltz, Religions of the Silk Road, 64 – 65. Khans (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1971). York: St. Martin’s, 1999). 91. Friedrich Carl Andreas, “Bruchstücke einer Pehlevi- 93. Sassanians, for example, politically controlled 87. Hans-­Joachim Klimkeit, Gnosis on the Silk Road: ­Übersetzung der Psalmen aus der Sassanidenzeit,” Bactria for much of late antiquity. See Nicholas Sims- Gnostic Texts from Central Asia (San Francisco: Harper­ Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie der Wissen- ­Williams, “The Sasanians in the East: A Bactrian Ar- SanFrancisco, 1993). schaften (Berlin: Berliner Akademie der Wissen- chive from Northern Afghanistan,” in The Idea of Iran, schaften, 1910): 869 – 72. Jes Asmussen, “The Sogdian vol. 3, The Sasanian Era, ed. Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis and 88. Foltz, Religions of the Silk Road, 111. and Uighur-­Turkish Christian Literature in Central Asia Sarah Stewart (London: I. B. Tauris, 2008), 88 – 102. 89. On Nestorianism, see Wilhelm Baum and Diet­ before the Real Rise of Islam: A Survey,” in Indolog­ Their artistic and cultural influence can also be - mar W. Winkler, The : A Concise His- ical and Buddhist Studies: Volume in Honour of Pro- served in many reliefs. See Frantz Grenet, Jonathan tory, trans. Miranda G. Henry (London: Routledge- fessor J. W. de Jong on His Sixtieth Birthday, ed. Luise Lee, Philippe Martinez, and François Ory, “The Sasa-

Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/30/3/420/403408/CSA303_10_Rezakhani.pdf by DARTMOUTH COLLEGE user on 18 April 2018 great vehicles for contact between China and becomes more concentrated and regionalized, Central Asia, well into Islamic times.94 In the re- even in its earliest stages, the lumping together 433 markable correspondence remaining from the of “Central Asia” and indeed the rest of Eurasia last king of Sogdiana, who in the eighth century east of Rome has caused the creation of a vague, was trying to resist the Islamic invasion, there all-­purpose concept, convenient for holding un- are interesting references to the presence of a familiar details of history, but at the same time Chinese general in the region, apparently sent detrimental to the study of history, or world his- to help King Dewašticˇ.95 Thus Central Asia was tory, as a whole.96 By undoing the Silk Road, we

quite closely tied to its neighbors and enjoyed might then be able to better study the histories, Was: a special position as a center of artistic produc- cultures, languages, and religions of Eurasia in Exchange

tion and economic activities. However, it was not a deeper manner and with the same scholarly Rezakhani

Never merely a collection of oasis stations along a “Silk scrutiny that European history has thus far en- That Road” that served to connect the great civiliza- joyed.

tions at the opposite ends of Eurasia. Khodadad Road

Trans-Eurasian

Conclusion The and This article has argued that the notion of the Road

Silk Road (even Roads, land bound or seaborne)

as an identifiable route of commercial contact Silk

between China and Rome/Byzantium/Europe The is an unsupportable one. Chinese sources, apart from a few possible references to Rome, never indicate an effort by the Chinese to connect to the modern “West” as we know it. Europe (or the Greco-­Roman world), despite its desire to be connected to the Chinese market, never man- ages to do so. More significantly, it has been argued that the characterization of the Central Asian population and domain, as well as Iran and Mesopotamia, as mere means of transit of goods from China to Rome is an anachronistic and largely Eurocentric view of world history. By making these regions mere transit stations for connecting the two “greatest empires of the ancient world,” the popular concept of the Silk Road has essentially deprived the scholarship of the opportunity to study each of these regions in its own context. While the study of Europe

nian Relief at Rag-­i Bibi,” in Cribb and Hermann, After 94. For the best account to date of the Sogdians’ ac- Alexander, 243 – 67. Great improvements in the study tivities from the earliest period to medieval times, of Bactrian have been made recently, some of which see de la Vaissière, Sogdian Traders. is summarized in Étienne de la Vaissière, “Merchandes 95. Frantz Grenet and Étienne de la Vaissière, “The Bactrienne?” (unpublished manuscript). Many thanks Last Days of Panjikent,” Silk Road Art and Archaeol- to de la Vaissiere for his study. The publication of ogy 8 (2002): 155 – 96. the Bactrian documents (BD) by Sims-­Williams is of course primary in our present understanding of the 96. For a completely new way of imagining early Eu- Bactrian society in late antiquity. See Nicholas Sims- ropean history, see Wickham, Framing the Early Mid- ­Williams, Bactrian Documents from Northern Afghan- dle Ages. istan, I. Legal and Economic Documents (Oxford: Ox- ford University Press, 2001) and Bactrian Documents from Northern Afghanistan II: Letters and Buddhist Texts, Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum, vol. 2, pt. 4 (London, 2007).

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