Trade and the city of ancient rome

[Geriander]

Did the merchants of the earth grow to rely on ancient rome for their livelihood

The merchants of the Americas, Australia, parts of Africa and parts of Asia sold nothing to Rome and therefore did not rely upon the city for their livelihood. If you are limited to the geography known to Biblical writers, all of "the earth" did trade with Rome and many but not most merchants would rely on the market of the city.

 

[Conon394]

The merchants of the Americas, Australia, parts of Africa and parts of Asia sold nothing to Rome and therefore did not rely upon the city for their livelihood. If you are limited to the geography known to Biblical writers, all of "the earth" did trade with Rome and many but not most merchants would rely on the market of the city.

Obvsiouly in that light you are right but... For the Pax Roman part of the Empire say the first 2/3-ish centuries the merchants of everywhere on the med (and or a navigable river connecting to the med) would have had access to empire wide trade. A glass blower in the Levant might not him/her -self be eyeing the market in Spain or Italy, somebody buying the glass was. Similarly Indian and Chinese merchants and producers might never leave home but they knew demand was there.


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New
I read somewhere that the Silk trade between China and Rome made Parthia quite wealthy as the in-between of those two empires. In fact Parthia mostly imported raw silk from China and the craft was mostly done in Persia which is when the famous Persians rugs where born and also created a lot of Artisans/Merchants jobs solely dependent of that trade.

I know it doesn't directly that question but hey still good to know I think.

I can join you in the I read thing... I had an old paper on fabrics in ancient Greece lost on a dead HDD. One odd thing was that some Aegean islands specialized in picking apart imported silk and re-weaving into fine sheer cloth, with novel dyes and actually going back down the silk road the opposite way. Although its been a while and I wonder if in reality the ideal is based on mistaking exports of sea silk (byssus cloth) to China.