La crisis del siglo III d. C. y el comercio romano en el Mar Rojo: ¿crisis o transformación?

Abstract

The aim of this work is to provide an analysis of the impact that the crisis occurred in the Roman World during the third century AD had on the international trade between Rome and the East (Arabia, India, China). In order to do so, I have studied the area of the Red Sea, ruled for almost seven centuries by the Roman (later Byzantine) Empire. Such area played the pivotal role to connect the Western and the Eastern Worlds, because from the shores of the Red Sea the Roman vessels would leave once a year to the East. Usually, the history of this trade has been divided in three phases. One phase of boom and development, happened between the end of the first century BC and the end of the second AD; a phase of steady decline, occurring during the third century AD; finally, a partial recovery, started in the IV century AD and lasted more or less until the beginning of the VI, during which the level of the trade never reached the peaks occurred during the imperial age. This article focuses mainly on the second phase, trying, through an analysis of the available evidence, to verify whether the concept of ‘crisis’ is the most appropriate one to describe what occurred during the third century, or it should be rather changed with the idea of a gradual ‘transformation’ from one phase to the other.