Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

208 6 Shared interests: Continuing conflicts
guaranteed. 180 Accordingly, Justinian gave full support to the monks’ plan to
import the eggs of the silk worms. Although in the following period Byzantium
gained some independence from the Persian intermediate trade 181
this development was certainly not the end of the silk trade with the Far
East.
Although official regulations aimed at controlling the trade, there was –
far away from interstate politics – room for free economic and personal
exchange. This becomes clear from the writings of Procopius. In his description
of the Armenian border region Chorzanē the Byzantine historian points
out that the population of neither Sasanian nor Byzantine territory feared
each other but rather intermarried, held markets together and shared agricultural
products.
Procopius, De aedificiis iii.3.9–12
(9) On the way from Kitharizon 182 to Theodosio(u)polis and the other Armenia 183
lies a region called Chorzanē; it extends over a march of three days and it is not
separated from Persia by a lake, a river or mountains, which would impede the
crossing of a pass but the borders of the two merge. (10) Because of this the
inhabitants, whether subjects of the Romans or of the Persians, do not fear one
another or suspect mutual attacks but even engage in intermarriage, hold common
markets for their daily needs and run their farms together. (11) Whenever the
military commanders on each side lead an army against the other because their
rulers instructed them to do so they find their neighbours unguarded. (12) The
densely populated settlements are very close to each other and from old times there
were no mounds anywhere.
It becomes clear that the ‘border’ between Romans and Sasanians was not a
heavily fortified ‘limes’, which prohibited any contacts. The Tigris and the
Euphrates or the wide areas of the Syrian Desert formed natural borders that
in the course of the centuries often marked the political borders between
East and West but nevertheless allowed contacts between the people who
lived in the border regions. A common language, customs and way of
life furthered close relations among the population. In this context once
more a link between trade and religion can be observed. In particular in
times of peace the personal contacts between the numerous Christians and
Jews who lived beyond the Euphrates and their fellow-believers in the West
180 Veh 1978: 1091–2. 181 Lopez 1945: 1–42 and Wada 1970.
182 Kitharizon was situated in the region of Asthianēnē, which was adjacent to the Sophanēnē (map 8)
and here was the seat of the second dux Armeniae; its precise location is uncertain; cf. Howard-
Johnston 1989: 203–28.
183 For the distinction between Armenia Minor and Armenia Maior see above, p. 176.