The Silk Road was a vast trade network connecting Eurasia and North Africa via land and sea routes.
The Silk Road earned its name from Chinese silk, a highly valued commodity that merchants transported along these trade networks.
Advances in technology and increased political stability caused an increase in trade. The opening of more trade routes caused travelers to exchange many things: animals, spices, ideas, and diseases.
In the first century CE, during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, silk had become a big problem. The luxury fabric, imported at great cost from China, had become a symbol of decadence and excess among Romans. In order to make their supply of silk last longer, merchants unraveled and re-wove their fabric into thinner, sheer garments. This practice had a side-effect of making the garments nearly transparent.
Seneca the Younger, a writer and imperial advisor, complained of people wearing silk:
“I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one's decency, can be called clothes. ... Wretched flocks of maids labor so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife's body.”
In the year 14 CE, the Roman historian Tacitus reported that the Imperial Senate made it illegal for men to wear silk, resolving that "Oriental [Eastern] silks should no longer degrade the male sex. "
This prohibition on silk did not last. The demand for silk continued to drive trade between the Roman Empire, China, India, and many places in between. To understand what caused this trade in silk, we need to look at how Chinese silk got to Rome.
Let's find out.
State power and the Silk Road
One cause of expanded trade was the growth of imperial power. Near the end of the second century BCE, Emperor Wu of Han mounted many campaigns against the nomadic Xiongnu people. Xiongnu horsemen had raided Chinese settlements along the northern border for many years. Emperor Wu looked for a new source of horses for his cavalry in order to deal with the threat of the Xiongnu.
Emperor Wu sent an emissary named Zhang Qian to find allies in the fight against the Xiongnu. Zhang returned to China, eager to discuss the wonders he had seen in Ferghana—modern-day Uzbekistan. Along with rice, wheat, and grapes, the region produced hardy, "heavenly" horses.
