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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2015
The main routes of commerce into Asia beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire are now well charted, thanks to many vindications of the reliability of Ptolemy, and to the archaeological work of Sir Aurel Stein in the deserts of Central Asia and North Arabia. However, little is still known about the administration of this commerce. The classical geographers give very few hints on such questions as who organized and who travelled with the caravans; where were the stages on the route, and how the goods were handed over at each stage; whether currency or barter was used; and what arrangements were made for the security of the traffic.
What follows is an attempt to collect the scanty information on these questions in classical sources, and to compare it with what is known about the organization of caravan trade in Asia in medieval and later times. Commerce along three main routes will be considered, the overland trade route from the Aegean to India, outlined by Strabo (after Arternidorus) and Isidore of Charax, the Arabian spice road, and the silk road to China.
1 Vidal de la Blache : ‘Voies de communication dans la Géographie de Ptolémie’, Acad. des Inscr. et Belles-Lettres, 1896, p. 456.
2 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks, London, 1933. ‘The ancient trade-route past Hatra and its Roman posts’, Journ. Roy. Asiatic Soc., 1941, p. 299.
3 XIV, 11, 29.
4 Mansiones Parthicae, in C. Mullerus, Geogr. Graec. Minores, Paris, 1855, 1, pp. 244-56.
5 Hdt. V, 52.
6 La Lydie et le Monde Grec . . . (Écoles franc. d’Athènes et de Rome, no. 63, 1893).
7 W. M. Ramsay : Hist. Geogr. of Asia Minor, London, 1890, pp. 409-11.
8 Travels, Chap, XI (Transl. S. Lee, 1829; H. A. R. Gibb, 1939).
9 H. A. R. Gibb and H. Bowen : Islamic Society and the West, 1, Oxf., 1950, pp. 281-95.
10 Les Six Voyages de J-B. Tavernier . . ., Paris, 1681 ; Bk. 1, Chap. 10, ‘Des caravanserais et de la police des caravanes’.
11 Tavernier, op. cit., Bk. 1, Chap. VII.
12 F. B. Bradley-Birt : Through Persia, London, 1909, p. 56.
13 Pitton de Tournefort : Relation d’un voyage au Levant, Amst., 1718.
14 J. P. Ferrier : Caravan journeys and wanderings . . ., London, 1856.
15 Narrative of the embassy of Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo . . ., transl, by C. R. Markham, London (Hakluyt Soc), 1859, pp. 65-6.
16 Col. Sir Henry Yule : Cathay and the Way Thither, IV, London (Hakl. Soc., N.S. XLI), 1916.
17 XVI, IV, 19.
18 XII, 30-2.
19 ‘Hadramaut’, Geog. Journ., 88 (1936), p. 524.
20 ‘The Arabian rafîk, often an enemy, is a paid brother-of-the-road, that for a modest fee takes upon him to quit the convoy from all hostile question and encounter of his own tribesmen. Thus Arabian wayfarers may ride with little dread through hostile marches, and be received even to their enemies’ hospitality’. C. M. Doughty : Wanderings in Arabia, London, 1926, p. 86.
21 The Desert Route to India, 1745-51, ed. D. Carruthers, London (Hakl. Soc.), 1929, p. 13.
22 op. cit., p. 530.
23 Wanderings in Arabia, p. 121.
24 op. cit., pp. 122-3.
25 op. cit., p. 10.
26 Balducci Pegolotti : La pratica della mercatura, Lisbon and Lucca, 1766. (Quoted in part in Yule’s Cathay and the Way Thither, III, London (Hakl. Soc.), 1914.
27 XXIII, 6, 68.
28 XXIII, 6, 60.
29 1, 11, 6.
30 H. Yule : Cathay and the Way Thither, 1 (1913), §19.
31 Kondakof-Tolstoï-Reinach : Antiquités de la Russe méridionale, Paris, 1891, p. 327.
32 Menander Protector, in Müller’s Fragmenta Histor. Graec, IV, p. 235. (Quoted in part in Yule’s Cathay and the Way Thither, 1, suppl. note VIII).
33 VI, 20.
34 XXIII, 6, 68.
35 Bk. 11, Chap. XXII.
36 Travels of Josafa Barbaro, ed. Lord Stanley of Alderley, London (Hakl. Soc.), 1873, p. 75.
37 A. Vámbéry, Travels in Central Asia, London, 1864, p. 429.
38 ‘Caravan routes of Inner Asia’, Geog. Journ., 72 (1928), pp. 501-4.
39 Marco Polo, Bk. 1, Chap, XXXIX.
40 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks, p. 189.
41 The Journal of Friar Odoric (1330) (in R. Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations, etc., London, 1598-1600), Chap. XIII.
42 The Voyage of Johannes de Plano Carpini (1246), (in Hakluyt, op. cit.), Chap. XIV.
43 Markham’s Clavijo, op. cit., p. 90.
44 op. cit., Chaps, XXI-XXII.
45 The Journal of Friar William de Rubruquis (1253) (in Hakluyt, op. cit.), Chap. 1.
46 The History of the World-Conqueror, by ‘Ala ad-Din ‘Ata Malik Juvayni, translated from the text of Mirza Muhammad Qazvini by Dr J. A. Boyle, typescript p. 35. Compare Marco Polo’s account (Bk. II, Chap, XXVI) of the upkeep of the imperial post-roads of China.
47 Hdt. III, 102-5.
48 Marco Polo, Bk. III, Chap. XIX.
49 III, 106.