An old map showing the silk road
Source: History.com
I am sure that many of us have heard about the famous silk route. A spider’s web of various paths and roads that ancient travelers and traders took to traverse from the east to the west. Be it from the finest wines to the cheapest of wool, everything was traded through this route, which had become the lifeline of trade and commerce in the ancient world.
But what if I told you that this route wasn’t the only one that was used by traders around the world? There were hundreds of other such trade routes that were crucial to world trade. For example, did you know that Romans had small trade colonies on the western coast of India? And that India was blamed for draining gold from the Roman Empire? Or which trade route was it from which the famous metaphor, “worth his salt” comes from?
We will be looking into some of these obscure and sidelined trade routes that still have a huge impact on the world.
Roman Trade Routes
Rome wasn’t built in a day. This statement cannot be truer as it takes years to build an empire. But one thing did definitely help speed this process along- a large collection of trade routes. These helped fulfill the demand of Romans for even the most exotic of goods. While they did rely on the Silk Road, Rome did have many other trade routes that helped their economy prosper and grow, helping the empire consolidate itself.
A carving showing how romans used to trade.
Source: historyonthenet.com
Salt to taste
Salt is something we use everyday to flavor our food. It is one of the most essential commodities in cooking. But a few centuries ago, it was as precious as gold and silver. Salt, naturally takes days if not weeks to produce and this made its supply comparatively less. Therefore, towns where salt naturally occurred became huge trading centers and centers of commerce. The romans loved this magic crystal powder so much that they had built large trading roads from towns such as Ostia where salt was abundantly available and the rest of the empire. The Via Salaria is one such example of a salt road where only salt was transported and traded.
In Rome, salt was so precious that it actually made up a portion of payment for the soldiers or legionnaires. The phrase “worth his salt” comes from here, since if a soldier was slacking off in his line of duty, he was not given his payment of salt as he was not worth it. Interestingly, the word salary actually comes from the Latin word for salt (sal). Quite a tasty fact isn’t it?
Another important salt route across Europe was the Old Salt Road. This path ran 62 miles from Lüneburg in northern Germany, which was one of the most plentiful salt sources in northern Europe, to Lübeck on the north German coast. During the Middle Ages, this route became vital for providing salt for the fishing fleets that left Germany for Scandinavia, as the crews used salt to preserve the precious herring catch. It would take a cart delivering salt some 20 days to traverse the Old Salt Road, and many towns along the way grew wealthy by levying taxes and duties on wagons as they passed through.
When India drained an empire of its gold
We all know how the British Empire drained the Indian subcontinent of its wealth and gold. But did you know that India was responsible for a huge drain of gold from the Roman Empire? So much so that Ptolemy actually commented that trade with India was hurting the roman coffers.
In the comic Asterix and Obelix and the Magic Carpet, we see the Gaulish heroes take a magic carpet to visit India. While magic carpets may not have existed in real life, a trip from Rome to India was very much possible. As a matter of fact, it happened very regularly. Large ships left the ports of Italy and made their way south to Alexandria in Egypt. From there, caravans on camel and horseback set out down the red sea coast and met up with ships in the ports. From here, these ships sailed out and days later arrived on the western coast of India, to trade in their gold and precious metals and cloth, for spices, ivory, pepper and silk from the Indians.
Towns and Roman trading colonies were setup along the Indian coast such as the towns of Muziris and Arikamedu in Kerala. Roman architecture and roman coins have been found here. What’s interesting is that we Indians may have forged Roman coins and tried to cheat the traders coming in, quite the “juggad” right? At one point in time, due to the high demand for exotic Indian goods, so much gold was coming from Rome that it was starting to drain the coffers of the Roman Empire as stated by Ptolemy. Ironic!
The ruins of Arikamedu, once a town that catered to roman traders.
Source: pondicherry.tourismindia.co.in
When Spice made the world go round
Today, over 90% of the world’s oil is controlled by the Arab states. They are instrumental is deciding oil prices and influence the world economy greatly. Now a few centuries ago, we didn’t have the need for oil. But the Arabs still controlled much of the world economy. How is that? Well, perhaps because they were sitting bang in the middle of the spice route, or the large trading route from the east to the west, trading the one thing that has enamored the west for centuries, spice.
Spices from India and the rest of the east were bought by Arab traders who then took these to Europe to trade with the Europeans. For a better part of the 13th to 15th centuries, the Arabs had essentially a monopoly over the trade of spices and controlled the prices based on their whims.
This was one of the reasons that the Europeans invested so heavily in sending out expeditions such as those under Christopher Columbus and other explorers to find new routes to the east so as to gain access to the spices, without having to deal with Arab middlemen. Therefore, it is really ironic that some of the greatest discoveries such as those of the Americas and other lands happened just because the people in Europe wanted their food to be tastier. Spice really did make the world go round at that time and maybe at some level still does today.
But these routes did not just trade spices. Other goods such as ivory, silk, etc. were also transported and traded through these mostly maritime trade routes.
Ancient Spice routes
Source: researchgate.net
Trade has always been at the center of economies all over the world. It has shaped world history and politics. And the routes responsible for this were crucial for not only the trade itself, but also the spread of ideas and technology. Those nations and empires that sat on the trade routes grew great in prominence such as the Persian Empire and China. We here just covered a few of the important trade routes that flourished alongside the Silk route, but there are so many more that still played a vital role in world history. Sometimes just tracing these routes really shows the flow of history across the world and the advancement we did as a species.
Ameya Sanzgiri
References:
1. COCK-STARKEY, C. (2016). 8 Trade Routes That Shaped World History. Retrieved 17 January 2021, from https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/86338/8-trade-routes-shaped-world-history
2. M. Hills, J. (2021). Salt Route | Roman road. Retrieved 17 January 2021, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Salt-Route
3. Roman trade with India. (2019). Retrieved 17 January 2021, from https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Roman_trade_with_India
4. What are the Spice Routes? | Silk Roads Programme. (2021). Retrieved 17 January 2021, from https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/content/what-are-spice-routes
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