Chapter 7 Commerce and Culture

What was the impact of disease along the silk roads?

People were exposed to unfamiliar diseases to which they had little immunity or effective methods of coping.  The spread of some particular epidemic diseases led to deaths on a large scale.

Greek city-state of Athens in 430 – 429 B.C.E. was suffering from a new disease that had entered Greece through seaborne trade from Egypt.  It killed about 25% of their army and weakened the city state.

Between 534 and 750 B.C.E. outbreaks of bubonic plague spread the coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea through the black rats that carried the disease arrived through seaborne trade with India.  The capital city of Byzantine Empire, lost thousands of people per day. 

In the fourteenth century the Black Death, identified variously with bubonic plague, anthrax, or a package of epidemic diseases, swept away nearly 1/3 of the population in Europe, China, and the Middle East.

Some people were benefited from the disease which increased appeal to religions-Christianity & Buddhism.
Tenant farmers/urban workers demanded higher prices and became wealthy.