RE: Re: Trade Goods from the Lunar Empire

From: Etyries <Nick_at_...>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 23:13:12 +0100


Jeff wrote:

> You are correct, Kralorela is rather insular (but its not as bad
> as Vormain) so its hard to pique their interest.

My funniest "Romans trading with China" story comes from Nigel Sitwell's excellent book "Outside the Empire: the world the Romans knew" (highly recommended), and goes like this:

A bunch of Roman merchants got together the wherewithal for a trade mission to the land of the Seres (China), some time in the reign of Marcus Aurelius (IIRC). Knowing they'd have to travel light, they carried only the most valuable, exotic, expensive trade goods they knew -- silks, spices, "unicorn horn" and the like. Talk about coals to Newcastle: the mission was a complete failure, as the Chinese (reasonably enough) pointed out that this stuff was all much cheaper at their end of the Silk Road. (Now, if only they'd taken some Samian ware...).

Cheers, Nick

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