Communications in Humanities Research
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Communications in Humanities Research
Vol. 10, 31 October 2023
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Role of Palmyra in the Formation of Roman View of the Far East in the 1st and 2nd Century
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Abstract
Roman imagery of the far east could be influenced by the near-easterners either in ideological dimension or in interactive dimension. Since Palmyra was one of the most important cities that linked together Rome and the far east, this essay will discuss the role of Palmyra in the formation of Roman view of the far east in the 1st and 2nd century and try to resolve two main questions: How Palmyrene merchants as middlemen promoted the Roman maritime trades with the far east? Besides, what role did they take in the formation and progress of Romans’ recognition of the far east? Based on the analysis of archaeological evidences and Latin literature which respectively infer the operation of Palmyrene commercial network and Roman imagery of the far east, it is concluded that Palmyrene merchants’ activities and their complicated ethnic identity had brought positive effects to the Rome-far east trade through which geographical and material knowledge was accumulated and thus led to a refinement of Roman view of the far east.
Keywords
palmyrene, caravan trade, far east, roman imagery, silk road
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Data Availability
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- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-83558-043-1
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-83558-044-8
- Published Date
- 31 October 2023
- Series
- Communications in Humanities Research
- ISSN (Print)
- 2753-7064
- ISSN (Online)
- 2753-7072
- DOI
- 10.54254/2753-7064/10/20231227
- Copyright
- 31 October 2023
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited