Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia From the Bronze Age to the Present (75 page)

⁵⁷
Note the well-chosen title of the anthropologist Robert Ekvall’s (1968) book on Tibetan nomads,
Fields on the Hoof.

⁵⁸
See the careful analysis of the Khazar economy by Noonan (1997), and note Tamîm ibn Bahr’s description of the extensive agriculture in the steppe zone itself (and not just around the capital city) in the Uighur Empire (Minorsky 1942), a typical natural feature of Central Eurasian cities in or near the steppe zone,
pace
Barfield (1989: 157 et seq.). The studies of Noonan on the Khazar economy and to some degree those of Pletneva (1958, 1967) point to rather complex mixed economies, with agricultural elements, some clearly stemming from ex-nomads or semi-nomads.

⁵⁹
This was pointed out very early by Bosworth (1968: 4–5), who notes that the traditionally supposed existence of “two naturally antipathetic groups,” the “pastoral nomads” and “the rural peasantry and even the town populations of Transoxiana,” is belied by “the economic facts, well brought out by the Arab geographers,” who “say that the economy of the pastoralist Turks from the steppe was complementary to and interdependent with the economy of the agricultural oases and towns of the Iranian Tajiks.” He goes on to say, somewhat less accurately, “The settled regions supplied the nomads with cereals, manufactured goods, and arms, and the nomads reared stock animals and brought dairy products, hides, and furs to the farmers.” This list of items produced and exchanged is not completely correct on either side. For example, the steppe peoples produced arms and other metal goods, they were involved extensively in commerce beyond that necessary for their own needs, and they are rarely known to have been very interested in eating grain foods. Nevertheless, the essential point is well made.

⁶⁰
Chinese expansion into Central Eurasia in this way was paralleled by Russian expansion through the steppe zone into Central Asia.

⁶¹
My analysis disagrees with the “trade or raid” theory—summarized, critically, by Di Cosmo (1999b: 11 n. 32)—according to which “periodic conflicts between China and the nomads are to be attributed to China’s unwillingness to allow trade or to subsidize nomadic economy with tribute, which forced the nomads to organize themselves into raiding parties and make use of their military superiority to fulfill the economic function of trade. While addressing some of the reasons that allegedly led to a cyclical alternation of peace and war, this theory does not explain the rise of nomadic empires, instead dismissing them as anomalies.”

⁶²
Perdue (2005: 63).

⁶³
Perdue (2005: 64).

⁶⁴
Perdue (2005: 64).

⁶⁵
Perdue (2005: 65).

⁶⁶
Perdue (2005: 65). Here “tribute” is the literal English translation of the loaded Chinese term for officially sanctioned trade.

⁶⁷
Perdue (2005: 66).

⁶⁸
Perdue (2005: 65). This need probably explains the policy change.

⁶⁹
Perdue (2005: 63–66).

⁷⁰
Perdue (2005: 256–265).

⁷¹
It is thus hard to sympathize with Sinologists who lament China’s weakness when faced with the Europeans. The latter ran up against the same policy and prejudices on the part of the Manchu-Chinese.

⁷²
Yü (1986: 388), emphasis added.

⁷³
Thompson (1996: 195). He also remarks perceptively in this connection, “It is difficult to resist the impression that the continued existence of the Hun empire must have been recognized by many Roman subjects as essential to their prosperity” (Thompson 1996: 194).

⁷⁴
According to Drews (2004: 122), Herodotus says that “the natives of the Pontic-Caspian steppe called themselves
Skolotoi,
and that only the Greeks called them ‘Skythians.’ … There was, however, one very important difference between the nomadic
Skolotoi
north of the Black Sea and the Skythians of western Iran: the
Skolotoi
appear to have been pastoralists and not raiders. That the hospitable and congenial ‘Skythians’ north of the Black Sea were the same people as the real Skythians, who had terrorized much of the Near East for a generation, is most unlikely.” This conclusion is odd; even the usual misconceived idea of a Central Eurasian nomadic people equates “pastoral nomads” with “terrorizing raiders.” The only thing that is unlikely in Herodotus here is the idea that the Scythians terrorized anyone without good reason (as explicitly noted by Strabo); in fact, most of the time we simply do not know what the reasons for their campaigns were. At any rate, it is known for certain that the two names are merely different pronunciations of the same name and do actually refer to the same people (Szemérenyi 1980); cf.
appendix B
.

⁷⁵
Di Cosmo (2002b: 9), who, however, also indicates some doubt about the correctness of the natural warrior theory.

⁷⁶
Di Cosmo (2002b: 8–9).

⁷⁷
Mattingly (1970: 114).

⁷⁸
On the historical topos of “the greed of the barbarians,” see Sinor (1978).

⁷⁹
It still is, as witness many armed conflicts in the contemporary period.

⁸⁰
Dunnell (1994: 161).

⁸¹
Marcianopolis was the capital of the Roman province of Lower Moesia, which extended eastward along the right (south) bank of the lower Danube to the Black Sea (Vallhé 1910); it is modern Devnya, not far from Varna in Bulgaria.

⁸²
Burns (1984: 17–18), quoting the
Scriptores Historiae Augustae.

⁸³
Bryce (2002: 98) remarks that “since the beginning of recorded history scarcely more than three hundred years have been free of major wars. To put this another way, if we were to take at random any period of a hundred years in the last five thousand, we could expect ninety-four of them on average to be occupied with large-scale conflicts in one or more parts of the globe.”

⁸⁴
The word
‘barbarian’ was not originally pejorative in meaning. It only meant someone who could not speak Greek. Herodotus, despite his sensationalistic stories, was not prejudiced against the Scythians, and does not use the word in a pejorative sense. The negative connotations leading to its modern sense derive largely from the Greeks’ later feelings about the Persians (whom they also called
‘barbarians’) after the Graeco-Persian wars (Liddell et al. 1968: 306). Aristotle, for example, remarks in his
Nicomachean Ethics
vii, that “a bestial character is rare among human beings; it is found most frequently among barbarians (
)” (Rackham 1934: 376–377). The idea that barbarians have culture, though an “uncouth” one—that is, they are not savages or wild men—apparently also derives from the Persian connection.

⁸⁵
There was and is no word or expression in Chinese equivalent to the Western term and concept of the
barbarian,
as explained below.

⁸⁶
In
Germania
xliii (Mattingly 1970: 137).

⁸⁷
The practice of slaughtering most of the defendants in such cases is attested among virtually every Eurasian people down to premodern times. The comments of Bryce (2002: 98 et seq.) on this practice, and on the constancy of warfare and rarity of peace and the acceptance of warfare as a normal part of life and death, applies not only to Antiquity but to most of history. This is not to excuse anyone’s butchery of their fellow man but only to insist that no nationality seems to have been uniquely virtuous.

⁸⁸
Similarly, Allsen (1997: 4–5) remarks that “all premodern empires, including that of the Mongols, were possessed of ‘multiple personalities,’ “ and that “they were, by turn, destructive and constructive, brutal and paternal, exploitative and beneficent, coercive and attractive, conservative and innovative.” I would delete only the word “premodern” from this characterization.

⁸⁹
Miller (1999).

⁹⁰
Many people in many countries are prejudiced about people of particular nationalities and hate even the mention of their names. But does this mean the
names themselves
are pejorative—that is, the
words,
not the letters or characters used to transcribe them? This would only be possible if the people of the foreign nations despised themselves, or thought they were less virtuous or less cultured than the people who despised them, and accordingly gave themselves names expressing such feelings. This is hardly conceivable.

⁹¹
Liddell et al. (1968: 306).

⁹²
Etymologically, it literally means ‘wild
Mán
person’, where
Mán
alone (often combined with the word
nán
‘south’ to make
Nán-Mán
‘southern
Mán’)
is the name normally used for foreigners living to the south of the Chinese heartland. Northern Chinese traditionally looked down on southerners in general, not only foreigners. Note that the Chinese word
mán (Mán)
is unrelated to the English word man. It seems to have been pronounced *mal or *bal or the like in Old Chinese.

⁹³
Cf. the careful discussion of these and other terms by Michael Drompp (2005: 172–175).

⁹⁴
Also written
fán.

⁹⁵
Recorded in the same Chinese historical works that express animosity toward the Uighurs.

⁹⁶
This is usually translated absurdly as ‘caitiff’, an archaic English word that etymologically means ‘captive’ but in current literary usage is defined as ‘cowardly’ or ‘despicable’, which is certainly not the meaning of the Chinese word.

⁹⁷
Many modern Sinologists are still strongly attached to the use of the word
barbarian
as a translation of the two-dozen or so commonly used Chinese words for foreigners, none of which can be shown to mean anything like ‘barbarian’. This cannot be loyalty to the Chinese, who never had the word
barbarian,
or the idea of ‘the barbarian’, and still do not have it. Surely it is better to represent Chinese or Sinitic cultures, as well as the cultures of the peoples near them, as accurately as possible.