The resurgence of the Sassanid Empire, in the latter decades of the 6th century CE, soon threatened to unravel to fragile order in the East established by the emperor Justinian. Although it had made great strides in bringing back the western half of the Mediterranean under imperial control, this was only made possible through a network of allies and long-Romanized populations. In the near East, Byzantium could only count on a handful of Arabic tribal confederations to shield the blows of the Sassanid King of Kings. However, there was an empire on the rise that the offered a glimmer of hope against the unconquerable Persians: the Turks.
The Gokturk Empire had formed in the middle of the 6th century after a revolt in the central Asian steppe by a aristocratic clan, the Blue or Ashina Turks, against the reigning Rouran Khaganate. A fierce civil war was followed by a speedy exit of the Rouran dynastic elite, who called themselves the Avars and, as recently confirmed by genetic research, rode hard to the plains of Hungary to escape the vengeance of the Turks. This new Turkic empire spread far beyond their predecessors' limits, reaching eastern Ukraine, the Pacific coast and the Indus river within twenty years. Although entirely nomadic, their sheer size worried the Sassanids to the south, who had spent centuries dealing on their northern frontier with successive waves of Hunnic nomads. Their worry was soon noticed by the Byzantine court, and in 568 an embassy from the Turks arrived, seeking an alliance and, more critically for them, a redirection of the silk trade directly to Constantinople, rather than through Persia.
Although the silk road had already been tapped into by the Byzantines a few decades before, after a pair of Nestorian Christian monks had smuggled silkworm eggs from the far east, this promised to be a more serious endeavor. The emperor Justin II, Justinian's young nephew, tasked the diplomat Zemarchus, a native of Cicilia in modern-day southwest Turkey, with travelling to Sogdiana (a region encompassing modern Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan), where he would accompany a local chieftain in visiting the camp of the Great Khan of the Turks.
Zemarchus' embassy soon arrived in Sogdiana, probably travelling around the Caspian Sea, or else disguised as merchants with no business on behalf of the emperor, where they were received by the Sogdian chieftain Maniakh, who offered them iron to trade and safe passage through the valleys of the 'Golden Mountain', most likely the Tian Shan mountain range. After making the perilous journey to the steppe, they eventually arrived at the gilded throne of the khan Istämi. Although flattered by the nomadic ruler with gifts, their pleasantries were cut short by a spat with the Persian embassies, and shortly Zemarchus was dragged along in the Turks' revenge campaign into Sassanid lands, reaching Talas along the Syr Darya river.
Evidently, knowing he was to accompany the Khagan for a while yet, Zemarchus sent one of his messengers, George, along the shortest route back to Constantinople around the northern edge of the Caspian Sea, and travelling down the eastern shore of Black Sea to imperial safety in Anatolia. This journey was nearly stopped short by an ambush of some 4,000 Sassanid levies, but remarkably, George slipped through the Persian net and arrived to confirm the alliance between the Turks and the Romans to the emperor.
The story, recorded by the contemporary Menander Protector, may contain an element of bias in favour of the imperial throne, but indicates the complex political manoeuvring that was part and parcel of the later sixth-century CE. Despite the thousands of miles between modern-day Mongolia and Constantinople, the two courts clearly saw themselves as equals and reliable business partners. Was this manifest in anything more material than ambassadorial gestures and lavish feasts?
We know from tombs in northwest China that the Byzantine and far Eastern worlds were familiar with each other, in the form of ornate glass bowls dating to the 5th and 6th centuries CE that appear to replace Sassanian bowls from earlier periods. Rather than being directly traded, these probably came into northern Chinese possession through the Sogdians, and their overlords, the Turks. A number of Byzantine gold coins or solidi have been found the oases surrounding the Taklamakan desert, including those of Justinian II. For as many gold coins, even greater numbers of imitations in silver or copper have been found; suggesting what was valuable was not the gold, but the image of the Byzantine west.. The Gokturks had possession of this area (modern-day Xinjiang province), so it indicates, at the very least, that circulation of Byzantine currency was not only permitted, but encouraged.
This movement of money was probably aided by a thriving Nestorian community along the central Asian Silk Road, who although were theologically opposed to the emperor, spoke Latin and spread Roman culture to the kingdoms of the east. The Nestorian influence might have won over the Sogdian kingdom to the Byzantines in the first place; Maniakh, although Menander does not state it, might have followed Nestorianism himself. A number of Byzantine-looking or Byzantium-influenced objects, such as sarcophagi, were produced by Sogdian families residing in China, who had either retired from trading along the Silk Road or had relatives in central Asia.
What conclusions can be drawn from this? It seems that Zemarchus was not an intrepid explorer venturing into unknown, barbarian lands, but an ambassador sent to reinforce, and to exploit, already thriving links between the Roman west and the kingdoms of the Silk Road, which the Gokturks were keen to exert influence over.
The apparent wealth of evidence for material cross-pollination (silk, in unofficial exchange for currency), supported by Menander's narrative, could explain why two centuries later, a local Hunno-Turkic ruler in Afghanistan was bestowed the name Fromo Kesaro, meaning 'Roman Caesar', soon after the reigning emperor Leo III had defeated an Umayyad army.
References:
Chen, M. L. (2006). The importation of byzantine and Sasanian glass into China during the fourth to sixth centuries. Reading Medieval Studies, 32, 47-52.
Harris, A. (2006). Britain and China at opposite ends of the world? Archaeological methodology and long-distance contacts in the sixth century. Reading Medieval Studies, 32, 91-104.
Erdemi̇r, H. (2004). The Nature of Turko-Byzantine Relations in the Sixth Century AD. Belleten, 68(252), 423-430.
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