History · 2
What primarily motivated the Central Asian middlemen who kept ancient Roman and Chinese silk traders from ever meeting each other directly?
Answer
Preserving their own monopoly profits as intermediaries
Sogdian and other Central Asian traders controlled the middle stretches of the Silk Road and had every incentive to keep buyer and seller apart, since direct contact would have let each side cut out the middleman and its markup.
💡 Did you know?
Roman silk traders never met Chinese silk makers for centuries. Middlemen in Central Asia deliberately kept them apart to maintain monopoly profits.
Other options people guess
- Religious prohibitions against contact with foreigners
- Language barriers too great for either side to overcome
- Formal travel bans imposed by the Roman and Chinese governments
Topics
- silk-road
- trade
- ancient-history
- central-asia
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