- [Instructor] In our study of world history
we have looked at many different empires
and several of them are depicted
on this map right over here.
We spent a lot of time on the Roman Empire
and in the highlighted yellow you see the Roman Empire
at roughly its maximum extent.
And on this timeline you see the Roman Kingdom
and then the Roman Republic and then the Roman Empire
which ends in the fifth century
although the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire,
continues on for roughly another thousand years.
Now we also have depicted here
a significant Persian Empire.
You have the Parthian Empire
and they were preceded by the Seleucid Empire
and they were succeeded by the Sasanian Empire
but I have the Parthians depicted here
on the timeline and on the map.
I also show Han China,
both the Eastern and Western Han Dynasties
you can see on this timeline as well.
And in India, I show the Maurya Dynasty on the timeline
I don't depict it here on the map
but on the map I show the Kushan Empire
and I also show it on the timeline.
Now the reason why I wanna depict these empires
at this specific time in the world
is to highlight the fact that
they weren't operating in complete isolation.
In fact, as we get to the second and first century BCE,
especially as we get into the Common Era,
we start seeing a significant amount
of trade and interaction between these empires.
Not to say that there wasn't trade
and interaction before that time
but it started to get accelerated
and to a large degree it got accelerated
because you had these continuous empires
that at least within their borders
were able to provide some level of stability
for someone to travel across roads
or travel across borders.
And so you start to see the emergence
of these trading networks.
In red you see trading roads or paths in red
and in blue you see those paths by sea.
And this isn't even comprehensive.
And even what I show on the empires
are many other smaller kingdoms
that also existed in the world
that I just don't have depicted here.
But what this contiguous block of empires allowed
is for the trade of goods and ideas
and sometimes collectively
the routes that were used for this trade
is referred to as the Silk Road or the Silk Roads
or really you could say, the Silk Routes.
And so it's a collective number of paths
that people used to trade things.
Now why call it silk?
Well it all boils down to silk
being a major commodity of trade at this time period.
So if you wanna think about the different things
that were traded around the world
this is just a sample of it.
Silk which comes from cocoons of these silk worms
that eat mulberry leaves
was considered a sign of wealth.
It was considered the finest cloth
and China had a monopoly on how to make silk
for many hundreds of years
even after the period that we were talking about right here.
So you can imagine around the world
people were interested in getting access
to that Chinese silk.
But silk wasn't the only thing that was being traded.
In fact, in order to trade
you need to give something in exchange for even that silk.
One of the Chinese motivations for trading with others
is having access to horses.
Horses were valuable not just for transporting goods
but also in wars
especially fighting some of their northern enemies
who had access to horses.
They also were able to get gold from Europe,
be able to get cotton from India.
In Europe you also had other manufactured goods.
So you had this fairly vast trading enterprise
emerge between these different parts of the world.
And to be clear, some of the things that were traded
allowed or facilitated the trade itself.
I mentioned horses were a source of transportation
but camels in particular
were very powerful sources of transportation
especially across Central Asia
and as you get into the Middle East and Africa
because you have these large swaths of desert.
Camels can not only carry a lot
but they had a lot of stamina
and they did not have to stop for water as frequently.
In a lot of world history,
we focus on the large non-nomadic empires
like the Roman Empire and Han China
but as trade became more important
especially as you go through Central Asia,
you could imagine that many of the people
who were very good at trading
who were good at moving things
were people who were good at moving themselves,
in particular, the nomadic people in Central Asia.
Many of their cities along these trade routes
became more and more wealthy
and more and more powerful.
Now as I mentioned, goods were not the only thing
that were transported along these routes.
One of the not so good things was the spread of disease.
So in the historical record,
we have two major plagues in Rome during the Roman Empire
and we believe these plagues were small pox
although some people believe it might have been measles.
And it is believed that it came from traders.
It came from Asia, from the Middle East,
and these were significant plagues.
And the reason why we think that it was due to trade
is that there's some evidence in Han China
during this first plague
of similar symptoms of a similar plague.
But it really affected Rome.
In these plagues, it's estimated that
as much as 10% of the population might have died.
In certain cities
it might have been 25, 30% of the population.
Some historians even point to these plagues
as destabilizing the Roman Empire.
And this is a theme that you'll see often in world history
where if you have a population
that doesn't have exposure to something, say small pox,
and all of a sudden
they encounter a population that does have exposure
well that small pox might wreak havoc.
But it wasn't just disease,
you also have the spread of ideas
and technology and religion.
And the two religions that perhaps
benefited the most from the early trade
along the Silk Route or the Silk Roads
were Christianity and Buddhism.
And Buddhism, in particular was very appealing
to many of these Silk Road merchants.
The Kushan Empire, in particular
started to significantly spread Buddhism.
In previous videos we talk about Ashoka sending missionaries
but the Kushan Empire help spread Buddhism into China
and into the Far East.
So what we talked about in this video
was the very beginning of the Silk Road.
As we get into the first few centuries BCE
or the first few centuries of the Common Era.
But as we'll see, the Silk Road will continue on
for many hundreds or really over a thousand years.