Opening Question

Opening Question How many explorations over the years have occurred for the sake of exploration alone?

Missionaries, Merchants, and Military: Traveling the Silk Road 500 B.C.E. to 500 C.E.

Developments Improve Travel:Let’s Revisit • Rulers invested in the construction of roads and bridges for administrative and military reasons. • Roads encouraged trade within societies and between different societies.

Developments Improve Travel • The tempo of trade increased along land routes maintained by the Seleucids (suh-loo-kuds) and the Ptolemies (tol-uh-mees).

Let’s Revisit: Who were the Seleucids and the Ptolemies? • After Alexander the Great's death, Persia fell to Seleucus I. Seleucus (suh – loo-kus) and his successors, the Seleucids (suh – loo-kuds). They were responsible for the mixing of Greek with Persian elements. • An Egyptian dynasty of Macedonian kings (323-30 B.C.). The Ptolemies included Ptolemy I (Tol – uh – me) , a general in Alexander the Great's army who followed him as ruler of Egypt and Ptolemy XV (47-30), who ruled as coregent (44-30) with his mother, Cleopatra. Ptolemy I (pictured here in this bust) was a friend and biographer of Macedonian leader, Alexander the Great.

The most important and prosperous of the trade routes were the silk roads that linked Eurasia and northern Africa. From the eastern terminus at the Han capital of Chang ‘an, the trade routes ran to the Mediterranean ports of Antioch and Tyre.

Sea routes connected Guangzhou (Gwahng – joh) in southern China with southeast Asia, Ceylon, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea.

Products Traded Along the Silk Road and the Indian Ocean Trade Routes

Religions on the Silk Road:Buddhism • Buddhism was the most prominent religion of silk road merchants from 200 B.C.E. to 700 C.E. • Ashoka Maurya spread Buddhism to Bactria and Ceylon during his reign. (273 B.C.E. to 232 B.C.E.)

Religions on the Silk Road: Buddhism • Indian merchants spread Buddhism to Ceylon, Bactria, Iran, southeast Asia, and China. • Buddhism remained a merchant faith and did not appeal to the native Chinese until Buddhist monks and missionaries capitalized on unrest in China during the fifth century C.E. to spread their faith. • After that, Buddhism spread quickly through China and into Japan and Korea.

Let’s Revisit: Christianity in the Roman Empire Early persecution of Christians by the Roman government was based on: • the Christian refusal to observe state cults or to participate in state-sponsored religious ceremonies • and on the behavior of Christian missionaries, which the Roman government saw as disruptive and occasionally violent.

Missionaries Spread Christianity • During the 2nd and 3rd centuries C.E., missionaries followed Paul of Tarsus’s example and worked to attract converts. • Gregory the Wonderworker, who had a reputation for performing miracles, popularized Christianity in Anatolia during the 3rd century C.E.

Christianity on the Silk Road • Around 300 .C.E. Christianity flourished throughout the Gaul, Spain, Italy, Greece, Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, north Africa, and into southwest Asia. • Christian communities flourished throughout Mesopotamia and Iran, and a few Christian church appeared in India. • Christians did not dominate eastern lands, but they attracted many converts in southwest Asia.

Indian Influences on Christianity • Christian communities in Mesopotamia and Iran influenced Christian practices in the Roman Empire. • Inspired by Indian traditions, Christians in southwest Asia followed strict ascetic practices abstaining from comforts. • By the third century C.E. some Mediterranean Christians withdrew from society altogether and lived as hermits.

Disease on the Silk Road The Han and Roman empires suffered tremendous losses during the 2nd and 3rd centuries C.E. through the outbreak of epidemic diseases such as smallpox, measles, and bubonic plague.

The Bubonic Plague on the Silk Road • The bacterium, Yersinia pestis, is the agent for the bubonic plague. • The bacteria in its disease form first appeared in the east India/China border. • Fleas carried the disease, and their mechanism of transmittance were probably rats, dogs, or the central Asian horses. • The fleas were carried westward along the silk roads on the caravans, horses, camels, and dogs of the central Asian nomadic traders, and the humans themselves. • Many of the people who survived the plague probably passed on the resistance to their offspring, who would get a cold but not die from the bacterium.

Disease on the Silk Road • The population of the Roman empire dropped from 60 million during the time of Augustus (63 B.C.E. to 14 C.E.) down to around forty million by 400 C.E. • China’s population decreased from 60 million in 200 C.E. to 45 million in 600 C.E. • As a result, trade decreased dramatically and the economies in both empires contracted and moved toward regional self-sufficiency.

Let’s Revisit our Question Do explorations occur for the sake of exploration alone?

Opening Question