H. A. Manandian

The Trade and Cities of Armenia
in Relation to Ancient World Trade*

* This material is presented solely for non-commercial educational/research purposes.

19. The Unfavorable Buffer State Position of Armenia:

After the Roman conquest of Syria and Pontus, Armenia found herself between the hammer and the anvil, between the might of Rome and the empire of the Parthians, which had again become powerful after the downfall of Greater Armenia. This position of Armenia between the great rival empires of East and West which was to continue in the Byzantine-Sasanid and the Byzantine-Arab periods was one of the chief factors which shook her prosperity and had a most unfortunate effect on her political and internal development.

At the bottom of the strife between the rival world empires lay not military considerations but deep economic causes. Armenia often became the battlefield in this fierce struggle. The control of this battlefield was of the utmost importance for the warring empires not only because one of the side branches of the transit highway lay in Armenian territory but also, to an even greater degree, because of the strategical importance of this territory.

"Owing to physical geographical circumstances," writes Gurko-Kriazhin, "Armenia has always appeared as a sort of gigantic natural citadel dominating the surrounding territories. Without mentioning the height of its separate summits (Ararat, Alagoz, Bingol Dag, Karabagh etc...), even its lowlands lie many thousand feet above sea level. Moreover, this enormous plateau, similarly to the neighbouring Iranian one, is surrounded on all sides as though by a fortification consisting of the huge masses of the Armenian and Pontic Taurus, and the already mentioned Caucasian 'horseshoe'.

[68] As a result of this, Armenia really appears as a natural fortress surrounded on all sides by impregnable walls. This at all times gave to the country a first class strategical importance since her possessor ruled over the valley of the Kura, the steppes of Azerbaidjan, the lowlands of Mesopotamia and finally over the plains and low plateaus of Anatolia" (1).

"This same factor", as Gurko-Kriazhin correctly indicates, "always paralyzed and distorted the course of historical development in Armenia by subordinating her to the political and economic interests of her more powerful neighbours."

The wars of the Graeco-Roman West with the Iranian East, begun in the first century of our era, continued with interruptions for almost seven centuries. These wars became more frequent and took on an unusually fierce character in the VIth and the beginning of the Vllth century. They exhausted both sides to such a degree that neither Byzantium nor the Persians could oppose a new military and political power, that of the [69] Arab caliphate. During these wars, Armenia, which was in the very midst of these events, was showered with the hardest blows. The armies of the warring empires wfiich invaded her borders left frightful traces behind them. During the course of seven centuries, Armenia was periodically pillaged, burned and devastated, her inhabitants were driven into captivity, killed and raped. After such invasions the cities of Armenia were frequently a mass of ruins, entire provinces were emptied and every time, with persistent labour, it wras necessary to rebuild once more and to reconstruct the devastated cities.

These periodic catastrophies had the most deleterious effect on the internal and economic life of Ancient Armenia. They hindered the development of prosperity, brought about long periods of stagnation, and occasionally, after a particularly heavy blow, the economic development of the country had to begin again at a lower level. Having reached a comparatively high level of economic relations and a considerable expansion of her urban commercial centres, the economic life of Armenia was repeatedly set back and the bases of a natural economy acquired a dominant place.

For example, we observe a sharp change for the worse in the conditions of economic development in Ancient Armenia in the second half of the IV century wrhen she was mercilessly plundered by Sapuh II after Jovian's shameful peace with the Persians (A. D. 363). A certain stagnation in the economic life of Armenia is probable at the time of the revolt of the Armenian feudal nobles and of the Church in Marzban Armenia in the second half of the Vth century as well as during the lasting wars of Justinian in the VIth century, also in the VIth and VIIth centuries, during the twenty years' war waged by Byzantium against the Persians (572-591), which was particularly lethal for Armenia, and most of all, at the time of the devastating storm which broke over Armenia at the time of the Arab invasions of the middle of the VII century.

20. Feudal Relations in Post-Arsacid Armenia:

This upper class of the nobility, which corresponded to the lords of medieval Europe, is designated in ancient Armenian sources by the term naxarar (--pehl. nafadara = "head of a clan, tribal leader"), while the great estates of the naxarars possessing administrative rights (= "seigneurie, manor, Grundherrschaft") are called naxarardoms in these sources. Armenia under the Arsacids was morselled into several dozen large and small naxarardoms or principalities which were the vassals of the Arsacid dynasty or the sub-vassals of the powerful border principalities. Among the large principalities, the most independent were those entrusted with the protection of the southern and northern borders, that is to say the four so-called bdeshx. The naxarar or princely houses, hereditary owners of great estates and supreme lords of their domains, held certain hereditary and honorary offices in the realm as vassals of the Arsacid kings. The principal honourary offices were: to crown the monarch, to superintend the royal treasury and domains, to be in supreme command of the naxarar and royal troops, to control the civil and financial administration, to administer justice, and others.

The second social group, within the feudal order of Arsacid Armenia, consisted of a broad layer of small landowners and minor nobility called azats, wrho were the vassals of either the Arsacid kings or of the lords, the great and small naxarars. The estate of the azats corresponded in social and economic rank to the "honourable warriors" or knights of feudal medieval Europe. They were obliged to serve in the royal or naxarar cavalry. For this reason there is no doubt that service in the cavalry was a privilege of the nobility not only in medieval feudal Europe, but also in Armenia under the Arsacids.

For an understanding of the true vassal relation of the azats, the most interesting problem is unquestionably that of the existence of the fief in naxarar Armenia. This problem was first studied by me in the second fascicule of "Materials for the History of the Economic Life of Ancient Armenia" (4). By means of a careful analysis of the ancient Armenian sources, it has been possible to determine that in naxarar Armenia, as in Western Europe, there existed a system of conditional landholding. The fief was designated by the term xostak and the holder of the fief (the feodatus or Lehnträger) was called "xostakdar" ["giver of a pledge"]. The holders of a xostak were free from taxation but were obligated to perform certain services, for the most part military. We know from the canons of the Council of Shahapivan [71] that azats could not be subjected to corporal punishments but only to monetary fines. We also learn from the Armenian historian Lazar P'arpeci that azats were easily distinguishable from the peasants, or shinakans, by their outward appearance (5).

The Church and the clergy occupied a particular place in the socio-hierarchical scale of feudal Armenia. As is well known, the peculiar characteristic of the ancient Armenian Church was its naxararization or feudalization, due for the most part to the fact that the organization of the Church in Ancient Armenia took place almost exclusively under the influence of the naxarar-teudal system. According to its rights, the clergy occupied a privileged position similar to that of the azats and like the azats it was free from taxation. The most interesting point, however, is that in naxarar Armenia are found ecclesiastical xostaks which were granted, in return for services, to the clerical-official personnel for its use and administration (dominium utile), while the right of absolute ownership (dominium directum) was reserved for the Church. Ecclesiastical xostaks had the same characteristics of hereditary transmission and conditional holding as the fiefs received by the azats. Hereditary transmission of ecclesiastical fiefs was possible in ancient Armenia since the priesthood, itself, and sacerdotal status were hereditary there in certain houses. These lands were taken from the clergy for a serious offense, or in cases of negligence or unsuitability for spiritual calling.

Lower in social position stood the peasants bound to the soil, the shinakans, who were personally free, as I have shown in detail in one of my previous studies, and resembled in many ways the Byzantine coloni (6). This was the basic taxable population of the country which paid rent and was subject to the corvées. According to the canon of Shahapivan, for certain offenses the Sinakans were obliged to pay to the Church monetary fines which were half as great as the comparable fines paid by the azats and correspondingly the fines received by the shinakans for violations of their rights were also half as great (7). Judging from this evidence, by the time of the Council of Shahapivan (A.D. 443) a noble azat was worth twice the value of a shinakan and the same relationship was presumed in their wealth.

A question of the utmost importance, which throwrs light on the internal life of Ancient Armenia, is the problem of the existence in Armenia of communal landholding. The existence of communities in Arsacid and Bagratid Armenia is not open to doubt, since their characteristic traits, the village community or mir, and the communal use of land with the redistribution of lands, have successfully been identified in the sources (8). This evidence, found in the original sources, allows us to suppose that in Ancient Armenia the free community was gradually transformed into a dependent or servile one as a result of the process of feudalization and the growth of great landed estates. It apparently was not destroyed but was [72] subordinated to the power of the great landlords, and the peasants were obliged to pay rent for their own land or perform the corvées.

A careful investigation of ancient Armenian sources has also shown that slavery likewise played an important part in Ancient Armenia but that it was mainly restricted to the household. In Arsacid Armenia, slaves were owned by the naxarars and the azats as well as by churches, monasteries, and even individual clerics. In its extent, however, this institution can in no way be compared with the slavery of ancient Rome or of Greece. The basis of production here was not slave labour but that of the peasants or sinakans.

Trade developed in medieval Armenia. It was predominently of transit type and to a large degree conditioned by the appearance in Armenia of cities lying on the northern route of world trade running from China and Central Asia to the southern and eastern ports of the Black Sea.

The fundamental material for the solution of the problem concerning the ancient cities of naxarar Armenia under the Arsacids must of necessity be archaeological in the main. Unfortunately, however, the excavations which could effectively clarify the character of the cities of the period have only been started recently. At present we have only scarce and insufficient data concerning ancient Vagharshapat which, as has already been shown, was at that time a trade and craft center "with a mixed ethnic composition of the urban population". In the Arsacid period this city was surrounded by a wall and possessed an inner citadel. It evidently served as a fortified place of refuge for the surrounding population in case of an enemy raid. As we shall see below, the sources do not contain sufficient information on the internal life of the Arsacid cities and on the legal rights of the urban population.

21. World Trade between West and East:

Already at the time of Augustus, firm and regular relations with the East had been established. According to the testimony of Pliny the Elder (1st century A. D.) Rome paid for oriental goods imported into Italy one hundred million sesterces (9) a year to India, Arabia and Seres! "So expensive", he adds, "were our luxuries and our wives" (10).

[73] The most important products brought at that time from India to the West were rice, cotton fabrics and thread, pepper, cinnamon, spices, precious stones and pearls, various perfumes and aromas, ivory, ebony and dyes. From China were received silk and silken fabrics. In exchange the empire exported to the East, lead, copper, pewter, the gold and embroidered textiles from Egyptian and Syrian factories, glass vessels from Alexandria, glassware from Syria, and so forth. These exports were, however, considerably inferior to the imports so that the difference had to be paid in cash. In the opinion of scholars, the sum mentioned by Pliny does not represent the total value of the imports but rather the sum which the Empire had to add every year in cash (11).

The flourishing period of Roman foreign trade with the East belongs to the 1st and IInd centuries of our era. We must note that after the consolidation of Trdat I on the throne of Armenia and his solemn coronation at Rome (in 66 A. D.), the peace between Rome and the Parthians was not broken for almost fifty years. This lasting peace and the friendly relations between Rome and Parthia naturally had the most beneficient effect on the development of world trade relations. We must also bear in mind that under the emperor Nero (54-68 A. D.) and the Flavian dynasty (69-96 A. D.), the Romans became the absolute masters of the northern as well as of the eastern coast of the Black Sea and thus were able to establish their control on the transit routes for world trade wilich ran from Tanais through Armenia and Media to Babylonia and Central Asia. The generally held opinion as to the predominant importance of the caravan trade route through the Pass of Derbent cannot be accepted as correct, as was shown before. In reality the predominant importance belonged not to that route but to the Maeotid-Colchidian highway which ran from Southern Russia along the eastern shore of the Black Sea through Colchis and Artaxata-Artashat to Media and thence to the East.

The domination of Rome over the indicated highway, as well as the establishment of a continuous Roman ring around the Black Sea, which became an inland Roman sea, undoubtedly had an exceptional commercial and economic importance for the Roman empire. It is also entirely understandable that thanks to the systematic economic policy practiced under Nero and the three Flavians at the end of the first century of our era, international trade and the international relations of the ancient wrorld reached their highest development.

After this period, as we know, the internal disorders of the IIIrd century and particularly the financial crisis of the second half of the IIIrd century struck a heavy blow at the domestic life of the Empire and also disorganized its commerce. This was, however, but a temporary setback. Soon international trade relations flourished again in the Eastern Roman empire and reached a new climax, as we know, in the Byzantino-Sasanid period.

[74] Judging from the evidence of the sources, the trade with the East in the first two centuries of our era was more important than in the period of the development of the Hellenistic monarchies of the Ptolemies and of the Seleucids. According to Strabo, in his time, one hundred and twenty ships sailed to India from the port of Mios-Hormos alone, whereas under the Ptolemies barely twenty ships dared to put out from Egyptian ports across the Arabian gulf and the Straits (12). We see from other accounts that sea trade after Strabo was considerably reinforced and extended since the discoveries of the following periods greatly facilitated relations with India. Pliny the Elder tells us that "a merchant discovered a shorter route, and the desire for gain brought India nearer" (13). We also know that under the emperor Vespasian (69-79 A. D.), the sailing to India was reduced through the discovery of the wind shifts or monsoons in the Indian Ocean by the Greek navigator Hippalus. With the establishment of direct and constant relations through the Indian Ocean, the island of Ceylon gradually began to play an important part in international trade. Eastern and western goods were brought there by sea and merchants gathered there from all sides to exchange their wares.

On the whole the land routes from the Far East remained the same. They ran to Asia Minor, or to the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, through the Iranian junction points: Seleucia or Ecbatana. Consequently Iran, thanks to its geographical position, always served as a bridge in the overland trade with India and China. This is the explanation for the continuous part of middleman played by Iran and for the dependence of Roman and later Byzantine trade upon the Parthians and the Sasanids. From this too stems the great influence of economic factors on the political history of the Near East which is overshadowed by bloody struggles between ancient empires.

Of the greatest importance for the development of international overland relations was undoubtedly the commercial contact between Western Asia and China which took place in Central Asia in the second century B. C. It is owing to this contact and to the development of caravan trade with China under the Arsacids, and particularly under the Sasanids, that Iran's role as intermediary increased significantly.

Among the goods exported from China the trade in silk and silk textiles grew steadily in importance. The demand for silk fabrics, which were valued in the Roman empire almost at their weight in gold, increased continuously. The increased demand was undoubtedly caused by the luxurious mode of life of the ruling classes. By the overland route, Chinese silk and Chinese wares inevitably had to pass through the intervening provinces of Iran. It is therefore understandable that the monopoly of the overland silk trade was wholly in the hands of the Parthians and that they protected [75] in all possible ways their rights to this monopoly which brought them colossal gains as middlemen.

After the fall of the Roman empire and the foundation of the Byzantine state, international trade relations again reached a considerable level of development, as was said before, thanks to the favourable position of Byzantium. The capital of Constantinople, founded on the shores of the Bosphorus, played an exceptional part in the commercial and economic life of Byzantium. "Constantinople", as was noted by Marx, "is the golden bridge between the East and the West" (14). And indeed the city was situated at the meeting point of Europe and Asia while through the Bosphorus lay the passage from the Black Sea into the Sea of Marmora and the Mediterranean. The other great cities of the Empire also lay on the great commercial routes running from the East to the West. To Alexandria, across the Red Sea were brought goods from Arabia and Ceylon. The cities of Syria, Antioch, Damascus, Tyre, Berytus and others, carried on a brisk trade writh both India and Central Asia. Edessa in Osrohene and Trebizond in Pontus sold the goods received from Persia and Armenia to the whole world.

Byzantium received from Oriental countries silk, spices, aromatic products, ivory, precious stones, gold, pearls etc... and in its turn it exported to the East, Syrian and Egyptian glassware, linen and purple fabrics, rare wines and so forth. Proof of the role and significance of Byzantium in world trade is shown by the stability and wide spread of the Byzantine gold currency, the nomisma, which is found almost everywhere in excavations and was evidently considered as a reliable standard of exchange both in Europe and in Western Asia (15).

The Sasanids kept their profitable position as middlemen in the overland trade and gradually also came to control the trade to India by sea. In the opinion of the academician Barthold, the Sasanids were considered universal rulers in the East as were the Roman emperors in Europe.

In battles, says Barthold, victory was usually on the side of the Sasanids, the influence of their empire spread much farther, politically if not economically. The trade with India and China both by land and sea was entirely in their hands (16).

In the last analysis, the same lack of success was also experienced by the emperor Justin II (565-578) who in the sixth century, also, entered into [76] direct relations with the Turks of Central Asia, hoping to obtain silk through the Caucasus and the northern regions of the Caspian with their help. We must also note in passing that, at the end of the sixth century, the problem of the importation of silk no longer had its former importance for Byzantium. At the end of the reign of Justinian the secret of silk production was known at Byzantium. In 552 missionaries had succeeded in carrying away the secret from the East and in bringing to Constantinople a number of cocoons in an empty bamboo rod. After this, beginning with the second half of the sixth century, the Byzantine empire developed its own silk industry and the monopoly of Iran as intermediary was gradually brought to nought.

World trade between the West and the Near East which continued under the Arsacids and the Sasanids for about seven centuries had a profound influence not only on the economic and cultural development of Iran but also on that of the adjacent countries which lay along the routes of international exchange. Unfortunately, the economic history of the East has hardly been studied and the problem of the significance of the transit route in the internal life of the East is still quite unclear. Nevertheless, even a superficial study of the sources allows us to see that, in the history of Western Asia, many cultural, economic and even political factors are found in close relation with ancient international trade. The appearance of a whole series of new cities in Parthia, Media, Armenia and Mesopotamia, the prosperity or decline of these centres, the co-ordination of eastern and western systems of weights, measures, and currency, the material prosperity of Sasanid Persia, and even the shifts in the social structure of Persia are explained to a great degree by the development of extensive international trade relations.

From all that has been said, wre can also see the important part played in the domestic life of the Near East by the international trade routes. As we know, the Far Eastern routes came from China, Central Asia and northwestern India through Bactria and Khorasan. Sources of the utmost importance as to the direction of these routes still exist, namely:

1) The detailed itinerary made by Isidore of Charax which leads from the banks of the Euphrates to Alexandria and Arachosia (now Kandahar).

2) The description of the trade route from Bactria to Seres borrowed by Ptolemy from the geographer of the end of the 1st and beginning of the Ilnd century, Marinus of Tyre.

3) The geographical map attributed to the IVth century Roman geographer Castorius and known as the Tabula Peutingeriana.

[77] The sea route from Egypt to India is described in detail in a small work in Greek called the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea or Navigation around the Erythrean Sea (18). The anonymous author of the Periplus gives us interesting information not only about the harbours and commercial settlements of the shores of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean but also about the goods found in them. It is now presumed that this compilation of the experiences of a merchant, which is such an admirable source for the history of trade, was written at the end of the first century A. D. apparently in the reign of the emperor Domitian (81-96) (19).

A careful study of these sources makes it, in my opinion, easy to come to the conclusion that the main and shortest highway for Central Asiatic overland trade ran westward not through the southern commercial centre of Seleucia but through Ecbatana. One of the most important junction points toward which led the central Asiatic trade routes was the Parthian capital, Hekatompylos. The very name Hekatompylos, which means "Hundred gated", serves as an indication that the city was an important centre where roads from all directions intersected. An even more important junction point for trade routes from the East was Ecbatana to which came caravans not only along the northern highway through Hekatompylos but also along the southern parallel routes running from Merv and Samarkand through Zereh and from India through Kandahar. From Ecbatana the caravans went north to Artaxata or otherwise, by-passing Seleucia, they went by the shortest route through Kengaver, Kerind and Hulvan to Nisibis. From Hulvan, Chinese and Central Asiatic wares were also brought to Seleucia on the Tigris which was the greatest commercial centre of the East. This latter city, however, played the predominant part not in the overland trade with China but in the trade with India whence Chinese and Indian goods were brought to Seleucia from the south, primarily through the Persian Gulf. For the products of northern Central Asiatic trade the main emporia were Nisibis and Artaxata. In these cities, as we shall see, were located the customs posts for the collection of duties.

Interesting information concerning the international trade of the Later Roman empire and the Byzantine period is given by geographical works in Latin and in Greek the most important of which are:

1) The description of the world, known under the name of Expositio totius mundi, which was composed in the East in the middle of the IVth century (20), and

2) The Christian Topography of the Antiochene merchant and later monk Cosmas Indicopleustes or "the Indian Navigator", whose real name was Constantine of Antioch, as has been shown by professor Patkanov (21). In the first of the works mentioned we find detailed information as to the natural resources, industries and exports of the provinces and cities of the Eastern Roman empire, while in the second, written between 547 and 549, [78] the great interest lies in the accurate and valuable accounts of caravan trade in the distant lands of the East and in the description of the island of Ceylon, the main center of international trade (22).

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