Changes

By the time of the Parthian (247 BC – 224 CE) king, Mithradates II, we now know of a Near Eastern king to have established political and diplomatic relations with a Chinese emperor, to whom the Parthian king sent an ambassador.<ref> For a discussions on the Parthians, see: Wolski, Joséf. 1993. ''L’empire des Arsacides''. Louvain: Peeters.</ref> This act paved the way for the establishment of long-distance trade contacts with China and laid the basis for the Silk Road along which silk was traded from China up to the Mediterranean, crossing Parthian lands. A maritime route was also opened through the Indian Ocean, perhaps facilitated by extension of Parthian control over the western shores of the Persian Gulf, though this extension is suggested by some archaeological remains only.<ref>For further details on trade activities in this period see: Grajetzki, Wolfram 2011. ''Greek and Parthians in Mesopotamia and Beyond''. Bristol: Bristol Classical.</ref>

==The Role of Money and Coinage in the Economy==

It was also at around the 6th century BC that coinage began to be used more substantially. The origin of coinage is somewhat in dispute but it could have begun in the Aegean or Western Anatolia, perhaps the kingdom of Lydia. What is critical, however, is not so much the invention of coinage but how it was used by the later empires. By the 5th century BC, coins in the Persian Achaemenid Empire began to be used in a standard form, called the daric (Figure 3), as decreed by Darius I.<ref>For a discussion on Darius and his important reforms, including in currency, see: Poolos, Jamie. 2008. ''Darius the Great.'' Ancient World Leaders. New York: Chelsea House Publishers.</ref> We now begin to see a standard way in which money began to flow across vast distances using a standard unit of currency.

Coinage, therefore, was a convenient representation of that can be exchanged easily across vast areas under the aegis of a unifying state. This allowed money to flow at much greater quantities in later periods and made banking and investments a fixed feature of the economic landscape. In essence, capital in the form of coinage becomes of great utility with the rise of empires in the Near East, as it was able to flow across distances with far less hindrances from numerous political actors disrupting trade flow, such as that seen in the Bronze Age. This also allowed a range of commodities to be trade in far away regions, including silk from China arriving in the Near East and reaching Rome in the Roman Empire, all the while forms of investment banking beginning to flourish.<ref>For information on the trade in silk and the Silk Road establishment, see: ''The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes The Ancient World Economy and the Empires of Parthia, Central Asia and Han China''. 2015. Pen & Sword.</ref>