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Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Before its fall Roman traders ventured as far as the Malay peninsula, as testified by Roman artifacts found in Thai cities.
Before its fall Roman traders ventured as far as the Malay peninsula, as testified by Roman artifacts found in Thai cities.
The Chinese had imported Roman glassware (from Syria) and Roman coral jewellery (from Egypt) and wine (reserved for the Chinese aristocracy). The Iranians and others usually acted as the middlemen in this process, adding to the costs incurred by the Romans who would gladly have circumvented the Parthian Empire if they could.
Some Roman traders did frequent Sri Lanka and the west coast of India, and as far south as Malindi in East Africa, but these were isolated trading posts amongst a sea of trade carried on by Indians, Malays, Chinese and Arabs.
Never the less trade between Europe and India came under control of the Muslims by 800 AD.
Jews could charge interest to Muslims and Christians, or act as brokers- thus circumventing the prohibitions on usury in Islam and Christianity.
Even when wars were occurring, trade still continued, even between the Venetian Republic and the Ottoman Empire.
The Byzantine approach to pure scientific research can pretty much be summed up in Justinian's closure of the Academy in Athens.
The disaffected and unwanted scholars moved to the Sassanid Empire and were 'inherited' by the Muslims, who put them to good use in Nisibis and Jundishapur and later at the Beit al Hikmah in Baghdad.
I think it was a Nestorian bishop in Syria who first mentions the 'new' Arabic numerals in the 9th Century, but any information from such a source would undoubtedly be tainted by its heretical origins in orthodox eyes.
It took another century and a half for the Western Christian world to first become acquainted with them in northern Spain, but they still weren't popularized here until Fibonacci started writing about them.
And he of course was employed in trade in Muslim North Africa...
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