Geoffrey Greatrex (2005). Byzantium and the East in - Kaveh Farrokh

The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian
he relied on others for his descriptions of these regions. Indeed, few
Roman traders ventured further East than Himyar, and their knowledge
of the Indian Ocean was very limited. 71 In the 510s a Jewish Himyarite
ruler, Dhu Nuwas, sought to stem the rise of Roman and Ethiopian
influence in the region. He executed some Roman merchants, organised
the persecution of Christians in his kingdom, and even attempted
to form an alliance with the Lakhmids. 72 However, his efforts served
only to persuade the Romans and Ethiopians to make common cause
against him, culminating in a successful invasion of Himyar in 525 by the
Ethiopian king Ella Asbeha and the imposition of an Ethiopian ruler;
the Romans contributed a substantial fleet to the operation. 73 It was
this favourable situation, perhaps coupled with the renewal of major
hostilities to the north, that prompted the emperor to seek a new way
to bypass the Persian silk monopoly: “He purposed that the Ethiopians,
by purchasing silk from India and selling it among the Romans,
might themselves gain much money, while causing the Romans to
profit in only one way, namely, that they no longer be compelled to
pay over their money to their enemy” (Procopius, Wars, 1.20.9, trans.
Dewing).
The emperor’s logic was sound, but he underestimated the strength
of the Persian grip. As Procopius relates (Wars, 1.20.12), Sasanian traders
completely dominated the Indian Ocean and were able to buy up all the
silk arriving in Sri Lanka from further east; consequently, the Ethiopian
traders were never able to buy directly from the exporters. 74 With
the conclusion of the Eternal Peace in 532 and the overthrow of the
Ethiopian ruler of Himyar around the same time, the initiative came
to nothing. Southern Arabia continued to interest the major powers,
however. A striking indication of its importance comes in an inscription
from Marib of 542. During a war between the new ruler of Himyar,
a Christian named Abraha, and his rivals, the dam at Marib, vital for
the irrigation of a large area, collapsed. The warring parties united to
rebuild it, and in the inscription recording the work it is reported that
embassies arrived not only from the Lakhmid chief Mundhir and the
Jafnid rulers Harith and Abu Karib, but also from both the Persian and
the Roman rulers. What exactly their mission was is unclear, but the
gathering was clearly an important one. Eventually, in 570, following
an appeal from the Himyarites, the Persians intervened directly and
annexed the kingdom to their empire. 75
The issue of the silk trade did not disappear with the failure of Justinian’s
Ethiopian venture. Although silkworms were introduced to the
Roman Empire in the early 550s by eastern monks, Roman dependence
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