Perceptions from Beyond: Some Observations on Non-Roman Assessments of the Roman Empire from the Great Eastern Trade Routes

Centuries of continuous warfare and successful expansion turned the Roman Empire into the single dominant power in the Mediterranean basin. Yet, although Roman warfare never fully came to an end, the countryside and the two to three thousand cities of the Empire in Italy and the provinces experienced many uninterrupted decades of peaceful prosperity from the beginning of the imperial era onwards. This prosperous Roman world, the orbis Romanus, owed much of its success to an extensive network of communication lines by land and sea, through which it was interconnected and accessible. The development of the imperial transport and communication infrastructure reflects both the pragmatic and systematic approaches of the Romans: Building on existing local lines of communication, the Romans took over, expanded or constructed new roads in the deployment zones and in the countries they had conquered. Thereby, they systematically and consistently linked newly acquired territory with the center. In a next step following the establishment of peace—especially under the Empire—, Roman building programs improved and further expanded traffic connections in the subjected areas incorporated into the road network in order to penetrate the territory of the empire. All elements of this network by land and sea made up an estimated length of around 500.000 kilometers.1 Nevertheless, even today this network is often thought of as a closed system, covering only the Roman world. But that was clearly not the case. Travel and commerce were by no means hindered by the confines of the Roman