Chapter 4: Interaction and Retrenchment

Part I: Migrations and Invasions

 

In this chapter, we shall step back and will look at the Earth beginning to shrink as humans increase contact and interaction. The Classical world will end, but daughter cultures will continue and adapt; or retrench. These cultures will become firmly linked by trading networks and continue to lay the foundations of modern cultures not only by conflict and migration but also by exchanges of merchandise, ideas (especially religions), and pathogens (diseases).

• Oceania and Australia

 

Human migration dates to Homo Erectus moving from Africa to Eurasia. Around 13,000 BCE, the Ice Age created a land bridge between East Asia and Alaska and Homo-Sapiens crossed to the Americas – and established communities in the Americas. Even before the migration to North America (as early as forty to fifty thousand years ago), Homo Sapiens reached Australia and New Guinea. Australia and the New Guinea interior remained aboriginal (Stone Age), but coastal New Guinea the Pacific Islands were colonized by a people called the Austronesians.

Austronesians (like Semites and Indo Europeans) were a population/culture group who may or may not have shared racial characteristics, but shared a common language and a common culture. Their point of origin was Southern China and by 4000 B.C.E. they had migrated to Taiwan. Later, using their famous outrigger canoes – they began to sail out into Pacific: Vanuatu or New Hebrides (2000 BCE), New Caledonia (1500 BCE), Samoa (1000 BCE), Hawaii (100 BCE), Easter Island (400 CE) and New Zealand (700 CE). It is important to note that they were NOT the only people inhabiting the Pacific islands, just the most sophisticated; and like the Greeks, their migrations was driven by population pressure.

The Austronesians who settled the Pacific Ocean Basin were called Polynesians and are mostly found in the area called the Polynesian Triangle. Note that the Austronesians also migrated to Southeast Asia and even to the island of Madagascar off the east coast of Africa. As they expanded out into the Pacific, trade groups formed, especially where several clusters of islands were relatively close to each other; and soon regional trade networks were established. Islands further apart were more isolated, but still participated in regular trading patterns; trade across the Pacific was steady and constant, especially with China.

Polynesians built their societies in relative isolation from the rest of the world. They cultivated taro, yams, sweet potatoes, bananas, breadfruit, and coconuts. They took pigs, chickens and dogs with them; and fed on abundant fish. They constructed artificial fishponds that allowed small fish to go out to sea and kept large ones from escaping by using narrow gates. By the 18th century C.E., their population was 500,000 (1/2 million) and social classes had developed as occupations became more specialized. Tribes were ruled by chiefs who allocated lands (how much land went to each family), organized men into military forces, and had the right to eat certain foods that were kapu (taboo), forbidden to commoners.

Polynesian religion was animistic (from the Latin word “animus” meaning soul or spirit). Animism is the belief that souls inhabit all or most objects found in nature, such as rocks or bodies of water, even natural phenomena such as lightening, rain or storms. Animistic priests served as intermediaries (go-betweens) between the gods and humans. Gods of war and agriculture were most common. The Polynesians built Marae or large ceremonial precincts. Marae were sacred places, which served both religious and social purposes. Most of them were destroyed by Christian missionaries, but in some places, most notably among the Maori of New Zealand, Marae still play a vital (living) part of everyday life. 

The Aborigines of Australia learned how to exploit the resources of that dry continent, but did not turn to agriculture, but maintained nomadic, foraging (Paleolithic) societies. As a result, they frequently met and traded with peoples of neighboring societies, mostly when they exchanged surplus food and small items of trading value of which pearly oyster shells were the most popular. Peoples of the North Coast carried on much trade with New Guinea. Their religion was animistic as well, but reflected a uniquely deep concern with their environment. Rocks, mountains, forests, mineral deposits, bodies of water were crucial for their survival and played a role in their religious thought and rituals, reflected in their stories and myths that survive to modern times.

We won’t come back to the Polynesians or the Aborigines until the 18th century, because they continue to develop in isolation and, as such, would be the last major isolated culture to encounter and be forcefully integrated into the larger world by European explorers.

• The Indo Europeans

 

Indo Europeans are arguably the most successful of all language/culture groups in history; that means that there were many groups of Indo Europeans. They began their migrations around 3000 B.C.E. - and continued for almost three and half millennia. Scholars place their origin as far south as Iran, to the Caucasus or even to Southern Russia and Central Asia. Some Indo Europeans migrated as far east as the Tarim Basin in Xingjian (Sinkang) province of China, surviving until at least 1000 C.E. and perhaps later.

We know little about these people except that they were fair skinned and spoke an Indo-European language called Tocharian. Archeologists have recently translated Tocharian and found their well-preserved mummies (which are genetically mixed Asian-Caucasian) around the oases on the eastern and southern edge of the Tarim Basin. The Roman historian Pliny the Elder reported that traders from Ceylon (modern Shi Lanka) told of a people beyond the Emodian (Himalayan) Mountains who were called Seres and who were described as taller than ordinary humans with flaxen (blond/yellow) hair, and blue eyes and who spoke in an incommunicable language. From this data, a few scholars have concluded that Xingjian, not the Caucuses or Southern Russia, was the original homeland of the Indo Europeans.

Of course, we will never know the exact location of the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans, but have witnessed their migrations. We saw in India how Indo-Europeans called Aryans gradually displaced and dominated the native Dravidians, mixing and creating the race and culture of modern India. And we saw that the last of the Indo European invaders of India were the Kushans who helped displace the Mauryan Dynasty. We saw to the west how Cyrus the Great united the Medes and the Persians and built the Achaemenid Empire – and how a grandson, Darius the Great, pushed that empire as far India.

In Asia Minor, we saw that the Hittites established a powerful kingdom. They traded with the Babylonians and Assyrians and adapted their Indo European language to Cuneiform. They conquered the Babylonian Empire and dominated South West Asia until the 1200s. They were inventors of two important technologies: swift, deadly lightweight chariots and Iron Metallurgy as they in the Iron Age.

We saw how the Greeks came to the Mediterranean Basin in successive waves of migration/invasion (Achaeans and Dorians, etc.) and how the Romans turned a small agricultural society on the banks of the Tiber River into an empire that embraced the Mediterranean Basin and beyond.

But now we encounter two more Indo-European groups who play a crucial role in the foundations of European culture: the Celts and the Germans.
The Celts were closely related to the Greeks and the Romans. They originated in modern West Germany and around 500 B.C.E. began to spread throughout western and southwestern Europe, even as far as Galatia in Asia Minor. The Celts had no unified state and like many nomadic peoples, they often moved into settled societies as migrants, not conquerors. The Greeks and Romans have handed down vivid descriptions of Celts and their society. They were burly in size with red hair often made stiff by applying a cement solution of lime. They had shaggy mustaches and loud, deep voices; they wore pants (not tunics) and twisted gold collars around their necks.  Like other Aryans they glorified war and were noted for working themselves up into “blood frenzy”, before going into battle naked and screaming.

The Romans considered them courageous, childishly impulsive and emotional, boastful and given to exaggeration, but yet quick-witted and eager to learn. One group of these Celts invaded Italy and sacked Rome in 390 B.C.E. When Julius Caesar invaded Gaul in 58 BCE, he invaded a Celtic homeland and by 49 had made it part of the Roman State. Caesar also invaded Celtic Britain but did not stay; rather, it remained for the Emperor Claudius and his generals to subdue the British Celts in 50 C.E.

Celtic society was divided into four classes. First, was an elite class of warriors, who were the incipient aristocrats. Like the Indian (Aryan) Warrior Caste, they would raid one another’s territory, revel in drunken banquets, engage in impromptu contests of wit or strength, and even fight to the death to claim the best food at a banquet. Note the strong comparison to Vedic society! Second, there was a professional class of priests and bards. Bards are wandering poets, like Homer, and the priests were called Druids, who supplied religious, educational and judicial functions. The Romans despised the Druids because of their emotional hold on the people and tried to exterminate them. The third class was the common people who were small farmers, shepherds and craftsmen and the fourth class was slaves.

Celtic Art was fantastic, ornamental, avoiding straight lines and only occasionally using symmetry or balance. Unlike Classical Art which strove to imitate nature or ideal of beauty, Celtic art was noted for interlacing weaving patterns and complex symbolism.

The Celts also had large trading networks because they were skilled at using the extensive European river systems and by building their famous plank roads. Plank Roads were first excavated and then wood was used to provide a road surface. Most are gone, many covered over by Roman Roads. The oldest discovered plank road found is the Sweet Track in Somerset County in England, which constructed by the Celts about 3,807 B.C.E. (i.e., we know from the tree rings)

There is some evidence to suggest that the Iberian (in Spain) Celts traveled regularly to North America. Although Celtic society was patriarchal and women engaged mostly in child rearing, goods and craft production, and light farming, nevertheless women seem to have had a status in many respects almost the equal of men. In Irish literature women are portrayed as self-assured and sitting at banquets with their men, engaging in witty and intelligent conversation and even giving wise advice. Marriage was considered a partnership to which both parties contributed property and Celtic women had greater sexual freedom compared to almost any other women before modern times. Tribal marriages between children were common and strong queens were an accepted and common phenomenon.

Celtic Religion was a Fertility religion (remember, no food = no people). We know that they believed in an afterlife and a form of rebirth by which the soul entered a new body – very much unlike many peoples in Europe and Western Asia who believed that the barrier between life and death could not be re-crossed. They had few, if any permanent worship structures (although they appear to have used Stonehenge), but under guidance of the Druids, they worshipped in thickets (groves), springs and hilltops, much like Greek and Roman cults, before they were sophisticated enough to build their temples.

For the Celts, November 1 marked the beginning of a new year. The night before, they celebrated the festival of Samhain, Lord of the Dead. The Celts believed that the souls of the dead—including ghosts, goblins and witches—returned to mingle with the living. In order to scare them away, people would wear masks and light bonfires. The Romans added their own touches, such as bobbing for apples, drinking cider, and making centerpieces out of apples and nuts. In 835 C.E., Pope Gregory IV, eager to counteract the hold of Druids and these old beliefs on newly converted Christians, moved the celebration for all Christian Saints from May 13 to November 1. The night before then became known as All Hallows Even. Eventually the name was slurred to the current Halloween.

Celtic Christianity really means Irish Christianity, which was founded by Patricius or St. Patrick in the mid 5th century. Patrick was raised in Roman Britain and kidnapped by pirates as a child. He was taken to Ireland, sold to a shepherd and forced to tend sheep. He eventually escaped and made his way back to England where he converted to Christianity. After many years, he went back to Ireland and worked for the rest of his life to convert the pagan Irish Celts. The Irish church he founded soon flourished and it wasn’t long before there was a flowering of great monasteries (communities of monks) which fueled a mini golden age of learning and scholarship at the western fringe of Europe from the mid 5th century to the mid 8th century when the Viking invasions brought this Irish Renaissance to an end.

Irish monasteries made two important enormous contributions to Western culture: (1) they successfully sent  missionaries to convert the pagans of Northern Europe and (2) Irish monks copied Greek and Roman manuscripts, thus helping to preserve, along with the Byzantines and Muslims, much of Classical Culture that would have otherwise been lost.

The long term fate of the Celts, however, was less successful. First the Romans occupied most of the Celtic world and second, Germanic invaders from the third century to the ninth (culminating in the devastating raids of the Vikings) destroyed most Celtic states and assimilated them into Germanic kingdoms. Today, only on the fringes of Europe do the Celts retain any identity: in Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, which is the only independent Celtic nation in the world today.

The Germans: It must be understood that the Germanic peoples, who absorbed so much of the Celtic world, were closely related to the Celts – as well as the Greeks and the Romans. All four cultures are sister cultures descended from a common Indo European ancestry. The Celtic homeland was most likely in what today is Western Germany; whereas the Germanic homeland seems to have been in Eastern Germany and Scandinavia. Like the Celts, (perhaps more than the Celts because they were closer to primitive customs) the Germans were ferocious warriors. Around 101 B.C.E., two German tribes, the Cimbri and Teutoni, invaded and ravaged Italy itself. Caesar wrote about how tough the Germans were compared to the Celts as he fought German tribes to protect Italy. In 9 C.E., German tribes (obliterated) destroyed three Roman legions in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Although the Romans retaliated brutally, they were never able to conquer the Germans; and for over two hundred years the Rhine River marked the division between barbarian Germania and the civilized Roman Empire. The Romans used up extensive man power and money to keep the Germans at bay, but when they were no longer able to defend the Rhine, the Germans poured over the river and the end of the Western Empire was but a short time away.

This struggle with the Germans re-teaches a fundamental rule of World History: that migratory-foraging-non-sedentary people look with envy on more prosperous sedentary and complex cultures. Therefore, when the German tribes were driven by population pressures and nomads like the Huns, they began to migrate to the borders of the Roman Empire. Almost always their intention was not to invade but to settle, become Roman citizens and farmers and enjoy the benefits of Classical Civilization. The Romans resisted and, until the 300s, were able to keep most of the Germans beyond the Rhine.

 

There were three main branches of the Germans: The Scandinavian (Norwegian, Danish and Swedish), West German (modern English, modern German and Dutch) and East German (pretty much defunct). Their religion paralleled Aryan, Greek, Celtic and Roman; social structure was almost identical to the Celtic: a ruling class (chiefs/warriors who exalted fighting and war, banqueted and competed in feats of martial or mental skill), a priestly class (who like the Druids influenced Law and religion), a free class (farmers and later artisans and merchants) and slaves. Women had a similar but slightly lesser degree of freedom compared to Celtic women, but still had tremendous freedom compared to other Eurasian cultures, including the Greeks and the Romans. Like the Celts, their art was anticlassical.Turks, Mongols, Xiongnu, Huns, Tartars (Taters)

 

All of these peoples, like Semites, Indo-Europeans, the Austronesians and Bantu whom we will soon meet form a cultural-linguistic group. They were all a product of the geographical features of Central Asia: vast steppes, treacherous deserts and forbidding mountains. They were nomads organized into families, clans and tribes. The two major divisions were the Mongols and the Turks. The point of origin for the Turkish tribes was probably located in modern Mongolia, south of Lake Baikal. The point of origin for the Mongols, on the other hand, was probably farther north and east, closer to Lake Baikal and Siberia. Keep in mind that although Turkish and Mongolian are different languages, they come from the same linguistic/culture group and that it is important to understand that in some cases it is impossible to know if a nomadic tribe (linguistically or culturally) was actually more Turkish or more Mongolian. The Tartars are a perfect example. Their name is Mongolian but their language is Turkish. 

Both Turkish and Mongolian scholars claim the Huns and the Xiongnu. Many scholars feel they are the same. We know that the Xiongnu originated in present day Mongolia and that from the 3rd century B.C.E., they controlled a vast steppe empire extending to the west as far as the Caucasus. Sima Qian, the Chinese historian, said that the Xiongnu were descended from the last emperor of the Xia dynasty. Sima Qian also tells the story of Maodun (210-174 B.C.E.), the Xiongnu’s most successful leader, and how he attained power. The story goes that Maodun trained his soldiers to shoot their arrows at whatever target he selected, even his father’s horse and one of his father’s wives. Soldiers who disobeyed were instantly killed. When the soldiers where sufficiently obedient, he ordered them to shoot at his father and Maodun became the Xiongnu chief.

We have already seen how Liu Bang was not able to subdue Maodun and had to pay tribute, but that Han Wudi conquered the Xiongnu and added their territory westward to the Aral Sea into his empire. This is where scholars put for the theory that after these defeats by Han Wudi the Xiongnu turned westward and eventually (after a few hundred years of rebuilding and reorganization) became the Huns. The Huns then pushed westward and put pressure on the Visigoths, who in turn put pressure on the Romans. Perhaps it happened that way (it makes a lot of sense), and we do know for sure that the Huns were a confederation of Eurasian tribes of mostly Turkic-speaking background, who appeared in Europe in the 4th century C.E. and played a major role in the downfall of the Western Roman Empire.

In subsequent chapters, we will meet many of these related peoples. The Avars harassed Byzantium in the 6th century. The Uighurs who helped put down the An Lushan rebellion in Tang China in the mid 750s, The Magyars invaded Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries and were defeated in 955 by the German king Otto I at the Battle of Lechfeld after which they settled in Hungary. In the 11th century, the Ghaznavid Turks, led by Mahmud of Ghazni, plundered in Northern India and his descendents founded the Sultanate of Delhi. The Seljuk Turks dominated the last 200 years of the Abbasid Empire and seized Anatolia from Byzantium; and finally the Ottoman Turks, who destroyed Constantinople in 1453.

 

• The Bantu

The Bantu are a language/culture group of between three and four hundred related languages in Sub-Saharan Africa, that is, all of Africa below the Sahara Desert. The migrations of the Bantu are crucial in understanding the development of Sub-Saharan Africa especially when we consider the geography with which they had to deal and is today still diverse and challenging. The Bantu had to adapt from the Sahara Desert in the north to the Sahel (the arid steppe land which borders the dessert) to broad Savannas (with long grasses and scattered forests) and finally to tropical rainforests and jungles.

The Bantu can be compared to the Indo-Europeans, Semites, Austronesians or the Mongolian-Turkish nomads of Central Asia: they were an expanding, migrating family of peoples and languages. In fact, 90% of Sub-Saharan languages are Bantu languages. Their probable place of origin was Modern Day Nigeria between Lake Chad and the Gulf of Guinea. It is important to understand that the Bantu expansion was not so much a physical migration/invasion (as have seen) as it was a natural spread of language and knowledge throughout different populations, and societal groups (usually through inter-marriage or by small groups moving to new areas). The Bantu were crucial to the development sub-Saharan culture because they were the first to form agricultural societies and many scholars believe that the spread of agriculture throughout Africa is evidence of the continent’s ancient link to the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Basins.

The Bantu agricultural system (including livestock imported from Asia) enabled the Bantu to increase in population more rapidly than the hunter/gatherer - forager cultures that occupied most of sub Saharan Africa. Moreover, around 500 B.C.E., the Bantu – perhaps with Nubian assistance - began to acquire and then produce iron tools and weapons, which dramatically increased their ability of produce more food and led to more population. This population increase caused a migratory pattern or population pressure. As the Bantu migrated, they dominated the hunter/gatherer peoples whose lands they occupied and farmed. The foragers did one of three things: (1) they fought (and always lost) or (2) they became isolated or (3) they were absorbed into Bantu culture.

And when that absorption took place the Bantu not only maintained their dominance, but they also fused their culture with that of those they dominated. We call this the phenomenon Transmission of Culture or the adoption of foods and agricultural methods; of cattle herding or even building canoes to use river systems effectively. And when the Bantu moved on, they took what they had learned with them. The result was called Cultural Commonality, which the Bantu spread wherever they went.

In the 300s CE, Malaysian Austronesians (the same group that settled in the Pacific as Polynesians) sailed across the Indian Ocean Basin and settled Madagascar where they introduced their culture and language (to this day), but more importantly, they introduced the banana, which did two things:

• It added variety and nutrition to the Bantu diet
• More importantly, it increased the zone of agriculture, because bananas could be grown in tropical areas where yams and millet could not; thus increasing the food supply.

 

Therefore, development of agriculture, iron technology, transmission of culture and the introduction of bananas all dramatically increased the range of Bantu population in Sub-Saharan Africa:

500 BCE	3.5 million	At the point where Iron Technology is introduced
BCE/CE	11 million	Shows the result of Iron Technology’s effect on Agriculture
800 CE	17 million	Shows the effect of Banana Culture on the Bantu Population
1,000 CE	22 million	The Bantu are now the dominant Sub Saharan Population

Bantu Society

1,000 CE is a dividing point in Sub Saharan development and history. Before 1,000 CE, there mostly existed Stateless Societies, small groups where there was little or no formal government with no hierarchy or bureaucracy. These Stateless Societies kept order by family ties and kinship; they lived in villages of around one hundred people. The eldest males formed village councils and made all the important decisions (allocation of land, settlement of disputes, etc.). Sometimes villages close to each other would form a district council which would work cooperatively to prevent or solve common challenges.

 FH 1     FH 2     FH 3            FH 4    FH 5    FH 6           FH 7    FH 7    FH 7

               Village                          Village                                  Village

FH = was the male head of family
Village decisions were made by council         District (had no chief, but village councils made decisions
of Family heads. Village = about 100 people.                         at this level.)

After the year 1,000 C.E. however, more and more Bantu Stateless Societies began to breakdown for three interconnected reasons: (1) too many people; (2) less available land; and (3) increasing conflicts. The result was that at the district level chiefs began to emerge, who formed rudimentary military units and bureaucracies. What was happening was that elementary civilization was forming. Soon territorial areas - incorporating many districts - began to emerge under powerful chiefs and finally small kingdoms began to appear; first around Ife and Benin in modern Nigeria, the original Bantu homeland.

Now don’t get confused in a few chapters we will talk about West Africa. The peoples there were not Bantu but Mande which is another cultural/ethnic group. The Mande were a conservative society and because of their proximity to Egypt and the Mediterranean, break down their stateless societies earlier than 1,000 C.E. and form complex states such Ghana and Mali.

The most important of these emerging Bantu Kingdoms south of the Sahara was the Kingdom of Kongo, which developed around 1,200 C.E.; it was located modern day Congo and Angola. Kongo evolved a kingship with military, political and judicial bureaucracies. It was divided into six provinces and would be the most effective Bantu State until the arrival of the Portuguese in the 1600s.

It is important to understand two facts; (1) the emergence of Bantu kingdoms is way of understanding how almost all civilizations developed and (2) Some areas of Sub Saharan Africa remained Stateless until European frenzy of colonial intrusion in the LATE 1800s.

The Bantu also settled the East Coast of Africa and engaged in agriculture, livestock production and iron technology. But unlike West and South Africa, they established small city states which participated in a great trading route, which stretched up the entire east coast of Africa, linking up with the Mediterranean Basin via Nubia and Egypt and Asia via the Indian Ocean.

Part II: Interaction and the Silk Road

Archeologists tell us that Paleolithic and Neolithic societies traded across vast distances. Many modern European roads were built on Roman roads, which were built on Celtic plank roads, which were built over footpaths used by prehistoric peoples. We have seen how trading networks and entrepreneurial ventures were active in Hellenistic and Roman times linking the Mediterranean Basin with Persia, Bactria, India, China and Africa. We have also seen how Hellenistic rulers encouraged this trade and became wealthy taxing the goods that passed through their kingdoms.

The term Silk Road refers to those land and water routes that linked the three classical centers of Civilization and stretched into Africa and Southeast Asia. After the fall of the Classical World, the Silk Roads would continue to grow until the nomadic disruptions of the 10th century. Then, in the 13th century (thanks to the Pax Mongolica), there would be a revival in overland trade on the Silk Roads, which would last until the seventeenth century when European advances maritime technology eclipsed the Silk Roads. (Simply put, Europeans could sail around Africa and India.)

The key to opening the Silk Roads was that the classical societies of China and Mediterranean Basin built transportation systems (especially roads) and increased their land holdings to a point where trading networks were both tangible (profitable) and feasible (possible).

As a result, Eastern and Western Eurasia began to discover what the other had to offer and the Silk Roads were the mechanism that made commercial trading and cultural contacts possible. Although India had no strong centralized state (expect for the Mauryan kingdom to a small degree), India still benefited because of her geographical location that lay between East Asia and the Mediterranean. Thus, India became nothing less than a gigantic emporium, passing commodities from west to east or east to west. Finally, the pastoral peoples of Central Asia, who lived along the Silk Road, built great caravan cities, transported commodities and played a vital and profitable role in the Silk Road trade.

The land portion of the Silk Road extended from Luoyang and Chang’an (Xian), in China west through Xingjian Province, skirting the edges of the Tarim Basin (including oasis town of Dunhuang) and the dangerous Taklamakan Desert (whose name means He who enters does not come out); then over the Tien Shan Mountains to the steppes of West Turkistan, then over the Hindu Kush Mountains south to India or west through Bactria, Persia and Mesopotamia to the western terminus points at Damascus, Tyre and Antioch. It is interesting to note that the Silk Road led to breeding hybrid camels that could survive hostile deserts and rugged mountains. Winter trips became the norm because of the deadly summer heat and so special “shaggy” camels were bred for the cold journeys of wintertime.

The water route portion of the Silk Road was pioneered by Arab and Indian sailors who learned the rhythms of the Monsoon System in the Indian Ocean Basin. (From April to September winds blow from SW to NE; from November to February winds reverse and blow from NE to SW.) Ocean trade took place in three distinctive regions: (1) from Guangzhou (Canton) in China south to the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra in Southeast Asia; (2) from Southeast Asia to the east coast of India; and (3) from the west coast of India to either Mesopotamia (via Persian Gulf), or Egypt (via the Red Sea) or the east coast of Africa where a link was made with the great trading “super-highway.”

The most important function of the Silk Road was to transport commodities, especially lightweight, valuable silk which gave its name to trade route. From China merchants carried not just silk, but laquerware,  jewelry and spices; from India, they carried cotton textiles, perfume, pearls, coral, ivory, and black pepper; from Southeast Asia, spices including cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and cardamon; from Arabia, fast, sturdy horses, dates and sesame oil; from Central Asia, large war-horses and jade; from the Mediterranean: glassware, jewelry, perfume, bronze goods, wool and linen textiles, pottery, iron goods, olive oil, wine, silver and gold; and from Africa: slaves, ivory, gold and ebony.

It is also important to understand that more than just commodities were carried along the Silk Roads. Diplomats, travelers, soldiers and missionaries spread culture, ideas and even diseases. Zhang Qian was a Chinese explorer and envoy for Han Wudi, who was sent in 139 B.C.E. to central Asia to search for allies against the Xiongnu. Although the Xiongnu twice captured him, he finally managed to escape, return to China and become a national hero for his unwavering loyalty to the emperor. More importantly, his travels greatly helped to open the land portions of the Silk Road.

In 97 C.E. the Chinese general Ban Chao (the brother of Ban Zhao, who wrote Admonitions for Women) went as far west as the Caspian Sea with 70,000 men and established direct military contacts with the Parthians. He also dispatched a military envoy, Gan Ying, to reconnoiter and gather information about the Romans. Ying wrote about the enormous size of the Roman Empire and the great extent of its well kept roads with postal stations and fortified towns. Ying also stated that the Roman emperor had long wished to send ambassadors to China, but was blocked by the Persians.

In 117 CE, the emperor Trajan led a Roman army to within one day’s march of Chinese controlled territory. Soon thereafter, the Romans made direct sea contact with India and established a number of trading settlements in towns along the west coast of India. We have already noted the large numbers of Roman coins used to buy pepper and other spices found in these towns. In 166 C.E., Roman diplomats, using Chinese or Indian ships, reached China and brought presents from Antoninus Pius to the Chinese emperor, including rhinoceros horns, ivory, tortoise shell and a Roman produced treatise on Astronomy. Roman coins have even been found in coastal towns of Vietnam.

The Spread of Buddhism and Hinduism

 

Buddhism used the Silk Roads to extend a missionary presence into Bactria, Iran, Central Asia and finally into China. It is important to understand that Buddhism was not introduced by missionaries, but merchants who established small communities in oasis towns such as Merv, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Dunhuang. These towns allowed the merchants to bring monks with them who built monasteries and by 200 B.C.E. many of these towns had adopted Buddhism. By the start of the Common Era, Buddhism had spread into Central Asia and was establishing monasteries in China. By the end of the first century C. E., Buddhism had become firmly established in China. As in Central Asia, Chinese Buddhism was imported by merchants, but it only took root among the population by the patient work of the monks who, by 500 C.E., had made Buddhism the most popular religion in East Asia, including Japan and Korea.

Indian merchants used the water routes of the Silk Road to expand into Southeast Asia where, by the 1st century C.E., Indian culture was beginning to shape emerging indigenous cultures. Just like Central Asia and China they introduced Buddhism and (here in S E Asia) Hinduism and well.  Indian culture in general would continue to exercise a profound influence in South East Asia: kings would call themselves rajas; they would build cities and temples in the Indian style and adopt Hinduism or Buddhism or both, using Sanskrit as their literary medium. 

The Spread of Christianity
 
As Buddhism and Hinduism grew in the East along the Silk Roads, Christianity grew in West and East using both the Silk Roads and the magnificent Roman Roads. In the early years of the Common Era, many Roman leaders tried to stamp out Christianity, but failed. They considered Christianity a danger to the established religions of the empire because the monotheistic Christians refused to adhere to the state religions or worship the emperors as gods which the Romans took as a sign of disloyalty.

Nevertheless, in spite of scattered periods – and they were scattered - of persecution and official disfavor, Christian missionaries - following the example of Paul of Tarsus - used both Roman Roads and the Silk Roads to spread their message throughout the empire and beyond. One famous example of a ceaseless missionary traveler was Gregory the Wonderworker who had a reputation for performing miracles and popularizing Christianity in central Anatolia during the mid-third century C.E.

 

What is stunning is that, by the middle of the third century, the Christian religion had become the most powerful and influential religious force in the Roman Empire. Paganism, on the other hand, had become impotent for all practical purposes - even though the official cults were still maintained. The Emperor Diocletian (very much afraid of supposed Christian disloyalty) ordered the last great persecution of Christians and it too failed. But in 313, as we shall see, his successor Constantine gave legal recognition to the Christians. He himself became a de-facto Christian, guided the growing Church and was baptized on his deathbed. By 380, the emperor Theodosius made Christianity the Roman State Religion.

Nestorianism was perhaps the most famous form of Christianity to travel by the Silk roads. Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, taught that Christ was one person in two natures, as opposed to the orthodox position that Christ had one nature of two persons. Nestorius was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, but now we know he meant that same thing as the orthodox. BUT many of Nestorius’ followers began to adopt the idea that Christ had two independent natures, which caused problems with the theology of salvation (i.e., if Christ was not 100% man, he could not have represented humanity in the act of salvation; if he were not 100% God, he could not have been the high priest who saved humans. By dividing Christ into two, independent persons, this balance was upset.) Although Nestorianism died out in the Roman Empire, Nestorians spread along the Silk Road reaching Chinese capital of Chang’an (Xian) by 635 and even Korea and Mongolia.

Manichaeism, a syncretic sect of Christianity, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism, also spread along the Silk Road. It was founded by Mani in the mid 3rd century and was characterized by ascetic lifestyle and high moral values while promising eternal life for the followers of the good god. Because it challenged Zoroastrianism in Iran, it was exterminated by the Sasanids, but survived in Central Asia.

In the early Fourth Century, Armenia, long an important center of Silk Road trade and influenced by Christian missionaries, became the first nation in the world to make Christianity its state religion. 

The Spread of Epidemic Disease

Travelers over the Silk Roads also took with them pathogens (bacteria and viruses that cause disease) that had dramatic effects. Many times people who had built up immunities to a local pathogen would then take that pathogen via merchants and travelers to another area thousands of miles away where the inhabitants had not built up immunities to that pathogen, often with catastrophic results. This phenomenon is called a Pandemic from the Greek meaning all people. In modern history we think of the European pathogens which almost wiped out the Native American and Siberian populations or the world wide influenza outbreak (the Spanish Flu) after World War I that killed 5% of the world’s population or the Asian Flu of the 1950s and the Hong Kong Flu of the 1960s. But these pandemics are nothing new and the Silk Road was one of the first great transmitters of Pandemics.

Athens (a trading city) was hit with typhoid fever in the second year of the Peloponnesian War which may have cost her victory over Sparta. A devastating outbreak of smallpox, the Antoine Plague brought back to Italy by soldiers returning home from Asia Minor, ravaged Italy from 165 to 180 and killed the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. At the height of the Antoine Plague, 5,000 people a day died in Rome alone. In China we have less accurate records but we know that outbreaks of disease reduced the population by five million between 400 and 600. The Plague of Justinian began in Egypt and spread to Constantinople in 541, was probably the Bubonic Plague which would return in the 14th century, when it would flare up in China, then use the Silk Roads to cross Eurasia and become the infamous Black Death in Europe.

 

 

Part III: The End of the Classical Period

The fall of the Han in China (220), Rome in the West (476) and (to a lesser degree) the breakup of the Gupta in India (550) had strong similarities. Although there were differences, all three:

• felt pressure from invading nomads (Germans, Huns and White Huns, Xiongnu) who pushed other barbarians before them;

 

• were weakened by political corruption and ineffectual rulers; moreover, Rome and Han China particularly struggled with moral decay in the years just prior to collapse;

• found it increasingly impossible to defend their borders, be it the Rhine River between Gaul and Germany, Hadrian’s Wall in Scotland or the Great Wall in China.

 

• had population losses due to plagues and epidemics.

The Collapse and Cultural Legacy of Han China

 

Simply put, the fall of the Han Dynasty came about because of the greediness of the elites (the aristocrats). The government was torn into factions as eunuchs and elite families quarreled and struggled for power. During the reign of the emperor Hedi (88-106) the court was dominated by hundreds of his consorts and concubines with even more eunuchs to guard them – and they were all struggling for the emperor’s ear. During the last 100 years of the Han Dynasty, almost all of the emperors were minor children used as puppets as powerful families and eunuchs chose the emperors and vied for power.

Large landowners either stole the peasants’ land or shifted the tax burden onto the peasants, both of which drained the tax base.  This inequitable distribution of land and wealth caused much suffering and peasant unrest. In 9 C.E., the reforming emperor Wang Mang, also called the Socialist Emperor, tried - like the Gracchi Brothers in Rome - to institute an extensive program of land reform including monetary and economic reforms. These programs, however, were undermined by the greedy elites and Wang Mang was assissinated. Peasant rebellions followed, especially the Yellow Turban Rebellion of 184 C.E.

This allowed governors and administrators to form a warlord mentality; that is they kept back taxes that should have gone to the imperial government and began to build their own armies. Central authority crumbled and by 190 C.E. the emperor was a mere puppet and in 220 C.E. the elites overthrew the last emperor. To add to the chaos, hundreds of thousands of nomads poured into China from the west and the period that followed (from 220 to 580) is called China’s Dark Ages.

At one point there were sixteen separate warlord kingdoms, but most of the time three war lord kingdoms dominated: the Wei in North China; the Wu in Southeast China and the Shu in South West China. Finally in 580, the Sui Dynasty restored centralized authority. It is very important to understand that, although China was in chaos, she still had the ability to absorb these newcomers. This process was called Sinicization. The nomadic newcomers, like legal and illegal migrants all throughout history, were simply looking for a better life. As they settled down, they began to farm and adopt Chinese culture. And so Sinicization provided a crucial unity that eventually allowed the Sui to regain centralized control.

The biggest loser in China’s Dark Ages was Confucianism because it appeared to have failed. The basic premise of Confucianism was the proper ordering of relationships and maintenance of order and when this didn’t happen, more and more, people turned to Daoism and Buddhism. Daoism promised a way to find peace in a violent world and salvation to those who observed its rituals. Daoists also tried to improve life in the here and now as they continued to experiment in herbology and holistic medicines. As we have seen, Buddhism, which also promised salvation, was carried into China by merchants and monks, so that by the 6th century, it had become firmly established in China and the most popular religion in the Far East.

The Collapse of the Roman Empire

When we talk about the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476 C. E., we mean the Western portion of the Empire. This collapse did not happen suddenly but was brought on by a combination of internal and external problems during the Third Century Crisis. There are four main reasons for this crisis and Rome’s collapse:  

 

Overextension: By the early third century, the Roman Empire had reached the limits of its resources. Germanic tribes put pressure on the empire in a twofold manner. It cost huge sums of money to maintain armies to protect the frontiers and when the migrants arrived, they used up resources rather than contributing to the tax base. 

 

Economic Destabilization: Emperors were desperate for cash, so they debased their coinage (cutting the amount of gold in each coin) making money worth less. This in turn created barter economies and hindered long distance trade. Thus, Rome, Italy and Gaul began to experience an economic slowdown as industries and money began to move away to the East, leading to what we would call Hyperinflation (which was called Stagflation in the 1970s, or inflation that is "out of control", that is, when prices increase rapidly and currency loses its value.)

 

The Municipal civil servants and the bureaucracy came under terrible financial strain. Tax collectors, for example, had to pay the government the full amount of the assessed taxes from a shrinking tax base. The decline in trade further decreased their wealth, so they literally went into hiding and populations began to shift from cities to the countryside.

Political chaos and corruption destabilized the government. This was the political core of the crisis and is best illustrated by the Barracks Emperors (235-285 CE). During this fifty year period there were twenty-six emperors, most of whom died violent deaths in one coup after another. They may aptly be compared to the Han warlord-generals struggling for power. However, when things looked bleakest, two emperors reestablished stability in the West.

 

Diocletian, emperor from 284 – 305, ended the Crisis of the Third Century. He re-established autocratic government and laid the groundwork for the second phase of the Roman Empire, in which he divided the empire into two administrative districts: one in the East and one in the West. Diocletian believed that the empire was too big for one man to handle so he introduced the Co-emperor model. He began by drawing a line straight down the middle of the map with the axis just east of Rome. He then created a second emperor called an Augustus. He too was an Augustus and each of them chose a junior emperor to succeed them, called a Caesar. He called this the" Tetrarchy", or "rule of four", and hoped that it would solve both the problem of the empire being too large for one emperor to manage and the problem of succession.

When Diocletian retired, the Tetrarchy model broke down and there was civil war. Legend has it that one of the contenders  – Constantine, on the eve of a major battle - saw what he believed to be an omen of Christ telling him that in the cross (In hoc signo, vinces) he would be victorious in battle.  Constantine immediately ordered his soldiers to put the cross on their shields, banners, helmets and anything they could. Constantine won the battle and gave credit to the Christian God. He soon recognized and legalized Christianity by the Edict of Milanin 313. He became a de facto Christian and supported the fledgling Christian church, even leading their first General Council of Nicaea in 325. In 330, he transferred his capital from Rome to Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople, and turned it into a magnificent city with palaces, wide streets, churches and a magnificent Hippodrome. Even though Constantine had reunited the empire, nevertheless, after his death, the Empire was effectively split into east and west.

By the late Fourth century the Roman West was so weak that it could no longer stave off the Germanic Migrations. The Germans wanted a better life and struggled to come into the empire. All they wanted was to settle down, farm and become good Romans. They were driven on by the twin pressures of population growth and the nomadic Huns. In the early 370s, the Visigoths under their king, Alaric, asked permission to enter the empire as friends and allies and were perfectly willing to submit and become Romans. But when Roman officials mistreated the Visigoths, they rebelled and in 378, destroyed a Roman army at the Battle of Adrianople, and killed the emperor Valens. The new emperor, Theodosius (the same one who made Christianity the state religion) tried to resettle them in the west, but they wandered through Eastern Europe and finally into Italy looking for cash and in 410 they sacked Rome. Interestingly, when Alaric was besieging Rome, he demanded three things: a place to live, gold and Indian black pepper (the last item showing the effect of the Silk Roads).  After the Visigoths, the Vandals, Ostrogoths, Franks and Burgundians poured in.

Finally, the Huns under Attila invaded in the late 440s and put tremendous pressure on the empire. It is important to understand that Attila was no country bumpkin or savage barbarian! He was a wise, skillful and courageous warrior and diplomat who ruled an empire that stretched from Northern Gaul to the Danube River. He was also an Arian Christian (we will study what Arian means later on). He forced the eastern emperor to pay tribute and, in 452, he managed to get engaged to the sister of the Roman emperor and demanded the Western Empire as her dowry, but when the emperor reneged, he set out to exact revenge and to sack Rome.

What followed was no less than historical high drama. Attila and his troops were in the outskirts of Rome and the city was paralyzed with fear. All of a sudden the Bishop of Rome, and old, frail man named Leo (Pope Leo I), rode out to meet Attila. What was said between them will never be known, but Attila turned back and spared the city. He died the next year (453) and his empire collapsed. Finally in 476, Odoacer, a German general and also an Arian Christian forced the teenage emperor, Romulus Agustulus, to abdicate, thus marking the formal end of the Roman Empire in the West.

The Triumph of Christianity

Out of the chaos, two things happened: first, barbarian kingdoms began to coalesce in Spain, Gaul, Britain and Italy, while in Constantinople, imperial authority survived and would continue for almost a millennium. Secondly, Christianity triumphed. The last pagan emperor was Julian, who was killed fighting the Sassanids in 363. But because of the gradual political separation of east and west, the Church itself quickly developed eastern and western traditions even though both had an Episcopal Form of Government, which meant that they were run by bishops, assisted by priests and deacons. The Eastern Church revolved around four Patriarchates (cities with senior bishops): Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch. Historically, they are referred to as the Orthodox Church. In the West there was one Patriarchate, Rome, headed by the Pope or the bishop of Rome. Serious decisions were made at Ecumenical Councils, which were assemblies of Christian bishops from all over the empire.

We have seen how Constantine called the first council at Nicaea in 325 and dealt the problem of Arianism. Arianism taught that there was only one God and that Jesus, although divine, was created like any other human.  That made him slightly more human than divine. The Council disagreed and countered by decreeing that Jesus Christ was equally human and equally divine. In the 381 the Second Council at Constantinople affirmed this decision and issued the Nicene Creed (as we know it) used as a statement of Faith by many churches to this day. In 431, we saw how the third Council at Ephesus condemned Nestorianism and in the next chapter we shall see how the Council at Chalcedon in 451 condemned Monophysitism. But it is also important to note that these Councils used the rigorous rules of Aristotelian logic to come to their decisions and issue the teachings (or doctrine) of the early Christian Church.

St. Augustine (354-430) was the leading theologian of Western Christianity in the late Empire. In his writings he harmonized Christianity with Platonic thought so that Christianity spread rapidly among the intellectual classes. In his book, The City of God (De Civitate Dei), he sought to explain the meaning of history and the world from a Christian point of view. His theory of predestination would later influence many leaders of the Protestant Reformation, especially John Calvin. Augustine’s most famous quote (which ironically flies in the face of Calvin’s interpretation) was, "Love the sinner and hate the sin” (literally, Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum - With love for mankind and hatred of sins)

It is important to understand that in the West, as political authority crumbled, the Church – centered around the Bishop of Rome - was the only stable institution that survived. These early popes and many bishops in the West were the only ones to organize local government, to defend against enemies and to help the poor and needy. The Popes also made a successful concerted to convert both the Arian and Pagan Barbarians to Roman Catholic Christianity. So, in a way through the Bishop of Rome, Rome was still looked to as a center of authority and leadership in the West.

Rome’s Cultural Legacy

 

• Rome admired and therefore preserved Greek philosophy, literature and science;
• The Romans were master builders and engineers (yes they inherited these skills from Etruscans): aqueducts, the Pantheon, the Coliseum, the Basilica, etc.;
• The idea of imperial unity in the name of ROME remained a political concept that kings and emperors would struggle to attain until the early twentieth century
• Roman political thinking guided the formation of many emerging European states and deeply influenced the American Founding Fathers. (Why do we have a Senate and not a Parliament?);
• Roman Law remains one of the keystones of Western Law
• The Roman Empire was the soil in which Christianity grew and flourished; then was recognized and became the state religion
• The language of the Romans, Latin, is still the official language of the Roman Catholic Church and is still taught in high schools and universities the world over.

 

The Post-Classical World

The years after 500 CE thus marked a time of major readjustment or retrenchment for China, India, Southwest Asia, the Mediterranean Basin and Europe. Four empires perished, but their rich cultural legacies shaped political institutions, cultural traditions and religious thought for centuries to come. The greatest challenge was to restore political order. The Eastern Roman Empire stood alone in this accomplishment, but major changes such as the arrival of Islam on the world scene and continued nomadic incursions from Central Asia were in the making. And yet, during this time of retrenchment, civilization would spread to Northern Europe (remember the Irish Golden Age), across sub-Saharan Africa and more fully in Japan. Trading and cultural interaction would increase along the Silk Roads the East Coast of Africa and all across sub-Saharan Africa. More commonly, this period of readjustment and retrenchment is called the Middle Ages.