ANABASIS VOLUMES 12-13

Anabasis. Studia Classica et Orientalia 12-13

To be published in September/October 2024

Cities, Trade, and Routes

 Anabasis 12-13 is going to be a special double volume dedicated to "Cities, Trade, and Routes." Ancient cities were craft, market (commercial hubs and ports), cultic and political-administrative centers. Additionally, many of them served as military bases. Scholars exploring such nodes or hubs in the Persian and Parthian Empires, in the Greek world, and in the Hellenistic-period states, can learn a great deal about aspects of trade, economy, infrastructure, logistics, and geopolitics. Thus, the ancient administrative and trade centers are integral to research and discussion.

The archaeological discoveries in Hatra, Palmyra, Sousa, Ai Khanoum, Kampyrtepa, Marakanda, Artaxata, Petra, Sardis, Pantikapaion, to name a few centers, have vastly expanded evidence to give rise to radical reassessments of the development of urban culture and the role played by cities in Western and Central Asia, Caucasia, the Black Sea region, and the eastern Mediterranean as well. Cities were centers of manufacture and were forced to acquire, usually by trade, materials used in the production (like wool and skins). In turn, the artifacts (like textiles, jewelry, and leather items) were sold as trading goods. Thus, manufacture and trade were closely interconnected. Trade involved both locally produced basic necessities (pottery, agricultural products) and imported luxury goods (prestige items, jewelry, weapons, etc.). Urban centers played a large role in the exchange of both types of goods. Cities were places that were engaged with their countryside, i.e. a territory that feeded them, and which they protected.

Local and long-distance trade engaged states, cities, rural communities, and ethnic groups thus making possible an exchange of goods, technology, and cultural-religious ideas. Trade in Western and Central Asia included not only local markets but also the movement of goods from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, Iran, Central Asia, and the steppe regions via land routes, seas, and rivers. However, the extent of international trade in this early period is disputed among historians who often focus on luxury goods (like precious artifacts of metal), but in what quantities transactions involved money, barter, or gift-exchange is only partly discernible.

In the Achaemenid, Hellenistic, and Parthian periods, trade connections linked the Aegean, Asia Minor, and the Levant with Babylonia, Iran proper, and the countries of Central Asia.  Trade relations became more complex between states, cities, local centers, steppe ethnic groups, with middlemen and agents added to the mix.

Beyond the world of urban civilizations there were steppe statehoods and trading centers of the Sarmatian peoples, Sakai, Xiongnu, Yuezhi, and Skythians. Some of these peoples succeeded in creating what must be called state-like structures. The steppe ethnic groups played a vital role in the trade relations in the South Ural region (Filippovka and Prokhorovka horizons), Lower Volga region, northern Pontic area, and northern Caucasus, to name a few. Noteworthy are the commercial and cultural aspects of the history of the peoples of Arabia, combining sedentary and urban life.

In the Parthian period, a clearer picture of international trade in Western Asia begins to emerge. The Parthians via their vassal kingdom of Mesene/Charakene, began to take over the trade networks in the Persian Gulf and participate in the long-distance trade involving the commerce between Roman Egypt, Nabataea, Syria and India. Goods traded between the Mediterranean, Arabia, Iran, Caucasia and India and China included luxury textiles, spices, perfumes, jewels, leather artifacts, and animal skins. There developed important inland trading centers like Seleukeia on the Tigris, Petra, Hatra, Merv, Palmyra, Nisibis, Apologos in Mesene, Tylos, and Artaxata. Also, the trade connections across the Caspian, Caucasia, and the Black Sea are evidenced in written and archaeological sources. International commerce was booming as many cities established trading posts in which foreign merchants we allowed to live.

Based on the literary, epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological evidence, the contributions to the planned special volume of Anabasis. Studia Classica et Orientalia, will discuss the economic and commercial relevance and strategic location of cities in the Persian, Seleukid, and Parthian Empires, in the Eastern Mediterranean region, and in Central Asia. Moreover, they  will highlight the importance of trade routes and road systems, bringing to light economic networks (including monetary evidence), and touching the subject of cultural and religious exchange.

Marek Jan Olbrycht (Poland)

Sabine Müller (Germany)