Stealing the secret of silk: the first international industrial spies?

Into the crisis-ridden Eastern Roman Empire of the 6th century two monks arrived with an audacious plan: to steal the secret of silk production from China. Why was this idea so important to Emperor Justinian? Jemahl Evans, author of The Charioteer, unravels what may have been the first recorded case of international industrial espionage in history.

The Roman Empire was in crisis in AD550: the reconquest of the West had stalled and Emperor Justinian’s dream of restoring Rome to its ancient glory seemed set to fail.

An outbreak of the plague in AD541 had ravaged the population, killing as much as 50 per cent in places and breaking the economy. Conflict with Sassanid Persia and with the Goths in Italy was almost constant further draining the Empire’s coffers. Then two Nestorian monks appeared in Constantinople with a plan that could save the Empire. They knew a way to steal the secret of silk from China.

Justinian’s reign is characterised by a genuine attempt to restore the lost western provinces of the Empire to Roman control. Under the legendary general Belisarius, Africa had been recaptured from the Vandals in 534AD which gave Justinian access to African grain and increased the gold flowing into the imperial treasury.

The Balkans were reinforced and protected against barbarian incursions. Expeditions were mounted to Spain, and from 534 onward there was a long drawn out struggle with the Goths for the Italian peninsula.

There was also near constant warfare in the east with Sassanid Persia that forced the Empire to balance its resources and ambitions. The genius of Belisarius, and other generals and administrators like the eunuch Narses, meant that Justinian’s western ambitions were within a whisker of being realised when the first great pestilence in European history struck.

The Plague of Justinian first struck in Egypt in AD541, probably brought along the ancient trade routes that also brought silk to Rome. Whilst scholars still discuss the exact disease, it seems certain that it was a variant of the yersina pestis that would ravage the globe eight hundred years later.

The Byzantine historian Procopius recorded that 10,000 people were dying every day in the capital, and whilst this figure is disputed the devastation wreaked by the plague on the population had very tangible effects on the Empire. Tax revenues collapsed with the dramatic population decline and a rapid inflation in food prices (sound familiar?), and the conflict in Italy stalled at the point of Roman victory giving the Goths time to reorganise and counter attack.

“About the same time there came from India certain monks; and when they had satisfied Justinian Augustus that the Romans no longer should buy silk from the Persians, they promised the emperor in an interview that they would provide the materials for making silk so that never should the Romans seek business of this kind from their enemy the Persians, or from any other people whatsoever.” (Procopius of Caesarea)

Into this crisis came two Nestorian monks, Christians from the Eastern Church established in Persia and along the western Indian seaboard, who offered Justinian the means to make silk in Greece. Silkworm eggs could be procured in a place Procopius calls ‘Serinda’, and then be brought back to Rome. Serinda’s exact location is uncertain: one Roman term for China is ‘Serica’, but it could also be an Indian location where silk manufacturing had been established by the sixth century AD.

Justinian and his secretary Narses understood the implication of the Nestorian offer. At a stroke it would increase imperial revenue whilst draining Sassanid coffers. The extensive series of trade routes that linked the ancient world, now known as the Silk Road, had brought the plague to Rome – but also an opportunity. Roman emperors had been trying to control the amount of gold spent on silk and sent out of the empire since the time of Augustus, and suddenly Justinian had the chance to finish off the trade for good.

What followed is perhaps the first documented case of international industrial espionage, which is frustratingly glossed over by Procopius in his history.

Around AD550, a mission returned to the East with the Nestorian monks who procured silkworm eggs and hid them in a bamboo cane packed with straw to keep them dormant. Once eggs were smuggled back to Constantinople, they were hatched and the Byzantine silk industry was born.

The mission itself must have taken a couple of years of travel and extensive organisation to succeed, but it would have been aided by confusion in China, which was embroiled in a long civil war and the establishment of the first Turkic Khaganate in the central steppe protecting trade. Whilst the exact route the Romans took is unknown, it must have either been across the steppe or an ocean voyage to India to avoid Persian agents. Both routes were well known and well travelled by Roman merchants in antiquity but it cannot have been an easy or speedy task.

The establishment of the Byzantine silk industry did not have the impact that the Emperor had perhaps hoped for. Certainly the amount of coin spent on Chinese silk diminished and Justinian’s treasury benefitted, but the trade was not wiped out.

Western silk remained of an inferior quality to the Chinese product, and Byzantine coins found in Chinese archaeological digs testify to the continued importance of international trade long before Marco Polo.

While the conquest of Italy was ultimately completed by Belisarius and Narses, the ravages of plague and years of war had left the Italian peninsula utterly devastated. The restored province was conquered by Germanic Lombards again within a few decades of Justinian’s death.

The Empire had neither the manpower nor coin to defend it, barely clinging on in ports and the southern tip of the peninsular. The west was not restored and the Roman Empire became medieval Byzantium (although their citizens would still refer to themselves as Roman until the fall of Constantinople), and a slow decline set in countered by occasional successes until the Ottoman Turks finally finished the empire off in 1453.

The Charioteer by Jemahl Evans was published on 15 October, 2021.

Find out more about this book.

Jemahl Evans is the author the Blandford Candy and Thomas Becket series of books.

jemahlevans.wixsite.com/jemahlevans

Twitter: @Temulkar

Images:

Emperor Justinian and members of his court (Belisarius may be the figure on the left of him, Narses on the right), Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna: Picryl
Sassanid plate with king hunting rams, 5th to 6th century: Metropolitan Museum, New York, via Wikimedia
Nestorian priests in a procession on Palm Sunday, 7th- to 8th-century wall painting, Qocho, China: Ethnological Museum, Berlin, via Wikimedia
Map showing the major powers in Eurasia and the routes between them, c555: Wikimedia
Vandal cavalryman, cAD500, from a mosaic pavement at Bordj Djedid near Carthage: The British Museum via Wikimedia