Week 7 Assignment Week 7 Assignment The Silk The silk played a special role in adorning western civilization. Silk was first manufactured in china using silkworm cocoons as early as 6,000BC. Written records of Ancient Chinese show that rearing to worms and silk reeling was encouraged by the wife of the famous Hun Dynasty Emperor in 2,640BC. The production of silk, termed as sericulture, was highly guarded by the Chinese Emperors for too long to maintain the monopoly of production. This effort produced an epic story of great economic success for the Han Dynasty. Sericulture reached South Korea by 200BC and to Europe through Byzantium Empire by 550 A.D. When silk spread to Europe, it became a popular fabric across different political and social settings. Image 1: A man and his wife reeling and weighing silk in Ancient China (Hildebrandt, 2017) Week 7 Assignment Silk in Ancient Rome About 2,000 years ago, the Silk Road connected the most diverse superpowers of the time. Two of those were the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty. The two stood from the West and East of Eurasia, respectively. Surrounding the Mediterranean was the Roman Empire, which controls trade. The two kingdoms were separated from any military conflict, which helped trade to thrive. The silk was a highly valued product in Europe while the Han People valued Europe’s glass and metalworking. The Ancient Romans first set their eyes on the fabric silk during a battle with Syrians. When Roman Soldiers saw the brightness of the silken banner worn by the Syrian Governor, they fled in panic. During the set of the 1st century, the Chinese Governor sent an ambassador to contact the Roman Empire, although the two kingdoms did not know much about each other. The Governor had first decided to sail to Rome, but he was misled by the Parthians. The Parthians believed that any contact with Rome would interfere with their profitable business as middlemen (McLaughlin, 2016). However, Marcus Aurelius’ defeated the Parthians in AD 166 and arrived in China via the Persian Gulf. According to Hildebrandt (2017), the Eastern Roman Empire was mighty because of its capability to access the Silk Road. The Empire took charge of all the goods that came from China and India. Since China maintained a monopoly over silk, this meant that the Roman Empire became rich since China exported the silk to the Empire. However, since the Persian Sassanid Empire took charge of many trade routes across India, Roman Empire incurred a lot of taxes when using the Silk Road. It, therefore, had to find a way of entirely taking over the silk road. The following image is a map showing the operations of the Silk Road. Week 7 Assignment Image 2: The Silk Road (Thorley, 1971) Silk for the Noble Within a few decades after the arrival of Emperor Aurelius in the Han Dynasty, the silk became a product the noble families and the rich in the Roman Empire. By AD 222, Heliogabalus, the Roman Emperor, wore silk from head to toe. The demand for silk continued to rise steeply across Europe from the kingdom. This raised the price of the fabric immensely. Single silk cost about 300 Denarii, approximately a Roman soldier’s annual salary. By 408AD, the product would also be exchanged for 3,000 pounds pepper or 5,000 pounds of gold. The Impact of Silk in the Roman Empire As the demand for silk continued to increase, the Chinese also increased the price of the product. By 408AD, when silk was being exchanged for 3,000 pounds pepper or 5,000 pounds of gold, the Roman Empire was already experiencing an economic crisis caused by an enormous drain of gold in the kingdom. Any Roman Merchant who returned from china with silk cargo Week 7 Assignment would earn 100 times profit of the investment. The Emperor of Rome, Justinian, was worried about the kingdom’s economic situation. He thus sent two monks to smuggle silkworm eggs from China. The two monks successfully hid the eggs in their walking sticks and fled through the Byzantium Kingdom (Yates, 2012). However, the trade of silk connected the European and Ancient Culture. Features of modern culture such as education, medicine, and religion spread across the region and beyond. Again, proceeds of silk sales were used to finance empires as tax revenues. This is why silk business was highly regulated, and any manufacturer was highly protected from monopolizing the business. For instance, according to Brooks (2019), it was illegal to compete with silk manufactures in the French and English Imperial Government, where all silk profits were deposited to the Royal Treasury directly. This enabled kingdoms to run their entities comfortably. The lucrative sericulture business was good for industrial espionage, and its role in shaping western civilization cannot be underestimated. Week 7 Assignment References Brooks, C. (2019). Western Civilization: A Concise History - Volume 1. Retrieved 8 June 2020, from; https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vistafiles/cusersusernamedocumentsfile-folder-name-refers-to/9e70e0ed-0bea-40bd-88f32fb16f00ca0a. Hildebrandt, B. (2017). Silk: trade & exchange along the silk roads between Rome and China in antiquity. Oxbow Books Limited. McLaughlin, R. (2016). The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes: The Ancient World Economy & the Empires of Parthia, Central Asia & Han China. Pen and Sword. Thorley, J. (1971). The silk trade between China and the Roman Empire at Its height,'circa'AD 90-130. Greece & Rome, 18(1), 71-80. Yates, J. (2012). LacusCurtius • Silk in Ancient Rome (Smith's Dictionary, 1875). Penelope.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 8 June 2020, from; http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Sericum.html 
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