The Silk Road: A Famous Road Nobody Called the Silk Road What Romans, Persians and Chinese actually called the routes that connected their worlds A name that arrived roughly 2,000 years late For centuries, silk, spices, horses, glassware and ideas travelled between East and West. Merchants crossed deserts, mountains and imperial borders. What they did not do was announce that they were joining the Silk Road. The famous name is modern: German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen used Seidenstraße (‘Silk Road’) in the nineteenth century, notably in 1877. The trade networks were ancient; their branding was not. China: the Western Regions Han Chinese sources spoke of (Xīyù), the ‘Western Regions’: territories beyond China's northwestern frontiers, especially around the Tarim Basin and Central Asia. This named a geographical region, not one continuous road. Diplomat Zhang Qian's second-century BCE journeys helped expand Chinese knowledge of these lands. Chinese records also named distant powers: (Ānxī) for Parthia and (Dà Qín) for the Roman world. The latter sounds rather grand; Rome would probably have approved. Rome: follow the silk, not the signposts Roman writers referred to the Seres, a distant people associated with silk, and Serica, their supposed homeland. Latin sericum meant silk. None of these was an established Roman name for a transcontinental highway. ‘Via Serica’ may sound convincingly classical, but presenting it as the ancient name of the Silk Road would be dressing a modern invention in a toga. Roman commerce also relied heavily on sea routes through the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Not every bolt of silk arrived by camel. Persia: roads, empires and middlemen Persian empires controlled crucial stretches of Eurasian commerce, but no securely attested Achaemenid, Parthian or Sasanian proper name corresponds to ‘the Silk Road’. The Achaemenid imperial road network included the route conventionally called the Royal Road, linking Susa and Sardis through Anatolia. It was a major communications artery, not another name for the whole Silk Road. Later Parthian and Sasanian territories connected Mediterranean, Iranian, Indian and Central Asian markets. Sogdian traders were especially important across Central Asia. In practice, goods often changed hands repeatedly; a merchant did not need to walk from Rome to China to make an excellent living from the distance between them. One network, many names The modern term suggests a single, neatly marked road. Reality was a shifting web of overland tracks, oasis towns, caravan routes, sea lanes and political relationships. Routes changed with war, taxes, geography and opportunity. Many travellers knew their next marketfar better than the continent beyond it. That is why historians increasingly favour ‘Silk Roads’, plural. The short answer China had the Western Regions (Xīyù), not a named Silk Road. Rome knew the Seres and Serica, not an established Via Serica. Persia had imperial roads and commercial corridors, including the Royal Road, but no equivalent umbrella name. The most famous road in ancient history was, in a sense, named by someone who arrived very late to the journey. Further reading and primary sources UNESCO, “About the Silk Roads” — https://www.unesco.org/en/silk-roads/about-silk-roads Encyclopaedia Iranica, articles on commerce and Achaemenid communications — https://www.iranicaonline.org/ The Han histories (Shiji and Hanshu), accounts of the Western Regions and Zhang Qian; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, references to the Seres and silk.