Charles River Editors (ed.). Ancient Mediterranean Trade: The History of the Trade Routes Throughout the Region and the Birth of Globalization

Charles River Editors, 2020. — 84 p.At the same time, this shift in Mediterranean trade from a local to international scale was a catalyst for immense social, political and economic changes that helped to shape the course of Western Civilization as a whole. Starting with the Egyptians and Minoans around 3000 BCE until the decline of the Roman Empire at the end of the 5th century CE, ancient trade in the Mediterranean brought cultures into increasingly close contact with one another, and just as in the globalized world today, these cross-cultural influences came to shape the development of belief systems, languages, economics, politics, and art throughout wide expanses of land. Traders introduced foreign goods, but also foreign ideas and new methods of expression, and they in turn took new ideas home with them from the places they visited. Sometimes these mutual exchanges make it difficult to determine whether a particular process or idea originated from the buyers or the sellers, and in some cases the meeting of disparate cultures produced entirely new ideas unique from anything that existed in either culture prior to their interaction with one another. At the same time, interactions with foreign peoples also brought about new ways of viewing one’s own identity. Ancient cultures could now be more clearly defined in terms of their differences from other distinct cultures. This sense of distance between the self and the “other” helped form national and communal identities, made famous by the ancient Greek identification of non-Greeks as “barbarians.” Over the centuries, the profits generated from trade helped establish wealthy nations and fuel economic development across the sea. By taxing imports and exports, governments could afford large infrastructure projects, like the construction of roads and harbors, which in turn helped to further increase trade and wealth. As a result, wars were fought for control of important trade routes and to maintain access to crucial commodities such as grain and precious metals. Economics became a primary consideration when establishing government policies and dealing with international relations. Some cities, most notably Rome and Athens, even built empires on the back of their mercantile success.