Rome wanted silk, China had the goods. Here's how the Silk Roads got their start.

National Geographic

02-05-2025

Two merchants show fabric to potential buyers in this Roman bas-relief from the second century A.D.
In A.D. 166, Chinese chroniclers recorded that ambassadors from the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius presented themselves at the imperial court of Luoyang in east-central China—and were given an unusual welcome. The travelers had come via Malaysia, followed the coasts of Thailand and Vietnam, and docked at a Chinese port at the mouth of the Red River in the Gulf of Tonkin. Then, escorted by Chinese military authorities, they traveled overland for another 1,200 miles or so, passing numerous fortresses and walled cities. Anticipation at the Chinese court mounted as the travelers grew closer. The Chinese had long been aware that the Roman Empire existed; they knew it as Da Qin, 'the Great China' and considered it to be equal in power to their own empire. But this was the first time direct contact had been established. A marble bust of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius from circa A.D. 170.
However, when the ambassadors arrived, it was noted with some disapproval that they had only brought with them mere 'trinkets' picked up in Southeast Asia: ivory, rhinoceros horns, and turtle shells, but nothing that evoked the glory of Rome. The Chinese emperor and his courtiers wondered if they might be Western merchants living in Asia and not really emissaries of the Roman emperor at all. The Chinese were also confused about why these Western travelers had come via Vietnam. The normal route between East and West was through the Gansu Corridor, which connected the Yellow River Basin with Central Asia. Chinese explorer and diplomat Zhang Qian had traveled to Central Asia via the Gansu Corridor in the second century B.C., and the fertile strip of land would later become a significant section of the Silk Roads.
In the West, interest in the great route through Asia had begun centuries earlier. The Western presence in Central Asia dates back to the time of Alexander the Great, who led his troops as far as the Indus River and founded several cities in the region. But the first trading contacts with the Far East were established by sea, following a route from the Egyptian port of Alexandria, during the Ptolemaic dynasty. The ambassadors' pathway was more evidence of the growing number of routes along the Silk Roads. The Great Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an, central China, was first built in the seventh century in honor of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang. Seized with a desire to visit India, birthplace of his faith, Xuanzang journeyed west along the Silk Roads, later returning to Xi'an (then known as Chang'an), bearing many Buddhist texts.
The discovery of a maritime route to the Far East came out of a chance encounter. The crew of a patrol vessel in the Red Sea found a ship adrift with a half-dead man on board. As no one spoke his language, they couldn't establish where he was from and decided to take him back with them to Alexandria. When the man had learned sufficient Greek, he explained to them that he was an Indian sailor and that his ship had drifted off course. Grateful for the treatment he received in Alexandria, he offered to navigate for any Greek vessel that would return him to his homeland. Tabula Peutingeriana This parchment shows the network of Roman roads that ran through the empire in the fourth century A.D. The easternmost section is reproduced here. A 'Temple of Augustus' is clearly indicated (bottom right) next to the city of Muziris in India, just to the left of the oval-shaped lake.
The king of Egypt (Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II) entrusted the command of an Indian expedition to the explorer Eudoxus of Cyzicus, a Greek who had entered the court of Alexandria as ambassador of his native city, Cyzicus, on the shores of the Sea of Marmara. At court, Eudoxus heard about navigation routes up the Nile and of the exotic wonders that could be found along the shores of the Red Sea. He was an astute man of the world and soon picked the Indian sailor's brain about how best to cross the Indian Ocean. The vital information needed was how to take advantage of changing seasonal conditions: The monsoon winds blow from the southwest toward India from March to September, and from the northeast toward Egypt from October to February. By following the sailor's advice and harnessing the monsoon winds, Eudoxus managed to get all the way from Egypt to India in a matter of weeks. Then, after exchanging gifts with local rajas (chiefs or kings), he returned to Alexandria laden with spices and precious stones. Eudoxus's pioneering voyage revealed a fascinating new world to his contemporaries. Merchants from both East and West were soon taking advantage of the opportunities to trade across the Indian Ocean. Cosmopolitan Alexandria A clay figurine in the form of a camel loaded with goods. The camel became an essential resource in overland transportation.
After the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 B.C., Alexandria became the main port of entry for goods arriving from the East. Having reached the Red Sea coast, these goods were transported inland by camel to the Nile and shipped to Alexandria, from where they were distributed throughout the Mediterranean. People from the Middle East and India became a common presence in the streets of Alexandria. Syrians, Arabs, Persians, and Indians rubbed shoulders with Greeks and Romans in the audiences at lectures and recitals. A tattered papyrus discovered at Oxyrhynchus, a city south of Cairo, contains the script for a comic play actually set in India. The play, called Charition, features a drunken and lustful raja, a ship's captain anxiously awaiting a favorable monsoon wind, a farting fool, and Indians who speak in a fake tongue intended to evoke a 'barbarian language.' It seems that stereotypes about the East were rife in Greco-Roman Egypt. Get a bonus issue with all magazines EXPLORE SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS
All the goods and people had to pass through the city of Koptos (also known as Qift), a center for trade on the banks of the Nile. From here, several caravan routes departed through the Eastern Desert of Egypt in the direction of the Red Sea. An inscription discovered at Koptos records that those passing through in caravans had to pay tolls at varying rates depending on the traveler's profession. For example, skilled artisans paid eight drachmas; sailors, five; soldiers' wives, 20. Prostitutes, meanwhile, had to pay a hefty 108 drachmas. The journey through the desert was made at night to avoid the intense heat. The route passed military garrisons stationed along the way, where the caravans could stock up on water and food before continuing their trek. This illustration shows the Roman-era Egyptian city of Alexandria, one of the largest ports in the ancient Mediterranean and a trading hub for the East. Jean-Claude Golvin. Musée départemental Arles antique © Jean-Claude Golvin / Éditions Errance
The busiest Red Sea ports were Myos Hormos (Quseir al-Qadim), just over 100 miles (five or six days' journey) east of Koptos, and Berenice, which was 250 miles (12 days' journey) south. Caravans of traders from Greece, Egypt, and Arabia congregated in these ports to receive shipments from India of ivory, pearls, ebony, sandalwood, Chinese silk, and spices. They sent the ships back to India laden with wine and other Western goods. During Roman rule, the traffic was intense: Up to 120 ships sailed every year to India from Myos Hormos alone. This was a huge increase from the situation under the Ptolemies' reign, when only a few intrepid explorers, like Eudoxus of Cyzicus, had dared to make the crossing. During the reign of Augustus, a fondness for silk had taken hold of the Roman upper classes. First-century poet Martial likened a lover's kiss to the beautiful scent 'of silken robes of the Empress from her Palatine wardrobe.' The term siricaria found on a Roman tablet from the first century A.D. is thought to refer to an enslaved person specialized in taking care of the costly silk garments in a household. Men also started to wear silk, a practice Roman moralists regarded as unmanly. According to the author Tacitus, in the early first century the Roman Senate decreed that 'oriental silks should no longer degrade the male sex.' In truth, the demand for silk created a trade imbalance with China while draining the Roman Empire of gold. According to historian Suetonius, Caligula (emperor from A.D. 37–41) paid no heed to the ruling and 'did not follow the usage of his country and his fellow citizens,' but appeared in public 'sometimes in silk and in a woman's robe.' Red Sea to Indian Ocean
A merchants' handbook of the Indian Ocean dating to the mid-first century A.D., known as the Periplus Maris Erythraei, mentions the main Indian ports where these ships arrived. They were Barygaza (modern-day Bharuch) in Gujarat; Muziris, believed by many scholars to be on the site of modern-day Pattanam in Kerala; and Poduke (modern-day Arikamedu) in Puducherry. The rajas had attracted a good number of travelers to these ports, as well as merchants, musicians, concubines, intellectuals, and priests who thronged the streets. In Muziris, for example, there were so many foreigners that they even erected a temple dedicated to the first Roman emperor, Augustus. A young student from Alexandria could now decide to embark on an adventurous trip across the Indian Ocean instead of the typical cruise on the Nile. A first century A.D. ivory stauette depicting an Indian goddess or princess was discovered in Pompeii.
However, few travelers ventured beyond India. The Periplus Maris Erythraei confirms that silk came from China and was brought over land through the Himalaya to the Indian port of Barygaza. The Chinese were known as the Seres (silk men), but very few travelers had seen a Chinese person. Some even thought of the Chinese as blue-eyed and blond-haired. They may have confused them with the Caucasian-featured middlemen who traded with the Chinese in Afghanistan. Many Romans, knowing nothing of the silkworm, believed that Chinese silk was a kind of plant fiber. The poet Virgil writes in The Georgics about silk being harvested as if it were fluff produced by a tree: 'The Seres comb from off the leaves / Their silky fleece.' In the West, many people were aware that a distant country existed where a fine cloth was produced and brought back to be woven with gold thread in Alexandria or dyed with the imperial purple of Tyre. But the exact location of this marvelous place was a mystery to most.
Having arrived in India, the merchants did not usually travel on to China directly. They would first stop on the island of Taprobane (Sri Lanka) and then, crossing the Strait of Malacca, continue to Cattigara (Óc-Eo), in the delta of the Mekong River in Vietnam. Precious stones carved with Roman-inspired motifs and medals bearing the effigies of the Roman emperors Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius have been found here, along with Chinese and Indian objects. The finds suggest that Cattigara was a bustling trading center, and this raises the possibility that the supposed Roman ambassadors in China, who presented themselves at the court of Luoyang on behalf of Marcus Aurelius, were in fact merchants from Cattigara. A classical funerary stela from the first century B.C. shows a deceased Roman woman (seated) examining her objects of wealth and luxury. Hou-Han-Shu, a book chronicling events that took place in the first and second centuries during China's Han dynasty, marvels at imperial Rome's wealth. Although written in the fifth century by Chinese historian Fan Ye, the accounts were taken from merchants who transmitted the information along the Silk Roads and sea routes. It explains that in the city of Rome there are five crystal palaces. The 'king' hears cases each day in a palace, and a man with a bag follows the king's carriage: 'Those who have some matter to submit, throw a petition into the bag. The king ... examines into the rights and wrongs of the matter. The official documents are under the control of thirty six chiang [generals] who discuss government affairs.' The treacherous overland route
Merchants also had the option of traveling eastward over land by camel across the steppes and deserts of Central Asia. These overland routes had been established for centuries; the Nabataeans from Arabia brought incense in caravans from Yemen to Petra in modern-day Jordan, and then on to the Mediterranean via the ports of Al-'Arish (Egypt) and Gaza. The merchants of Palmyra, the legendary 'Venice of the Sands,' imported silks, pearls, and all kinds of spices from Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. But the Roman emperors always wanted to trade with China directly, cutting out any intermediaries. Yet trying to do this over land routes was fraught with difficulty and danger. Rome's enemy, the Parthians, who controlled a powerful empire in what is today Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, would divert the Roman caravans to the ports and markets under their control. Camels rest at the Great Colonnade at Palmyra, on the western end of the Silk Roads. Much of the site, today in Syria, was intentionally destroyed by the terrorist group Islamic State between 2015 and 2017. Niels Van Gijn/AWL Images
The Romans made numerous attempts to open new overland routes to the East. Geographer Isidore of Charax, thought to be in the service of Emperor Augustus, described the routes from Roman Syria to the Arachosia region of Afghanistan in a first-century B.C. pamphlet, 'Parthian Stations.' It details the distances between towns and mentions where there are strongholds and royal treasures. It even specifies the points at which a Roman contingent could replenish its supplies or ford a river.
The geographers Ptolemy and Marinus of Tyre writing in the second century A.D. both mention Maes Titianus, a traveler described as being of Macedonian origin. Maes Titianus paid for a commercial expedition to China, hiring traders who started their journey at Hierapolis (today Manbij in Syria). Then they went south through Mesopotamia and crossed the Tigris River to continue their journey to Bactria (Balkh in Afghanistan). At that point they were still only halfway to China. Ahead of them lay a journey of several weeks to reach Tashkurgan and the upper reaches of the Yarkant River. It would take another 10 days to reach Kashgar, in the western Tarim Basin, and then cross the Pamirs to enter Chinese territory. Mountains and monuments The 14th-century ruins of a fortress near Tashkurgan in western China lie near one of the key Silk Roads. This route passed through the Pamirs, across modern-day Tajikistan, and to the monumental city of Balkh in Afghanistan, sacred to Buddhists, Zoroastrians, and Muslims.
It is not known if the traders hired by Maes Titianus ever reached the capital of the Han Empire. The Chinese sources specify that the first contact with the West was that of the merchants who traveled from Malaysia in A.D. 166. But Maes' party would have spent almost two years on their trek across Eurasia. Compared with the few weeks needed to cross the Indian Ocean from the ports of the Red Sea, it's understandable that a mission like that of Maes Titianus would have been exceptional. The closest most Westerners got to the East was through buying silk fabrics in the markets of Greece and Rome. There, no doubt, wily merchants would tell wondrous tales of their journeys to the East as they tried to extract the highest price possible for their precious goods. Pleasures of the Han Court Around A.D. 101, the Macedonian merchant Maes Titianus set out to reach the Han capital, Luoyang. This Han-era relief (first and second centuries A.D.) shows musicians entertaining courtiers.
Over time, mathematics, languages, enslaved people, inventions, and the Black Death have traveled the routes. Although the use of the Silk Roads would rise and fall, Rome and Han China experienced two additional periods of intense trade. During China's Tang dynasty, from A.D. 618 to 907, multidirectional trade boomed. A final revival occurred under Mongol control in the 13th and 14th centuries. The Silk Roads dwindled when the Ottoman Empire prevented Europe's direct overland trade with the East and imposed high taxes, causing increased use of maritime routes. As merchants began searching for new paths to Asia, one Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus, would sail to the Americas. The gates of China At an altitude of over 15,000 feet, the Khunjerab Pass, whose name means 'blood waterfall' in Wakhi, links western China with northern Pakistan. It is traversed by the modern Karkoram Highway, linking China with Islamabad, and follows sections of the ancient Silk Roads. This story was originally published on December 1, 2017. It has been updated.
This story appeared in the March/April 2025 issue of National Geographic History magazine.