Maniakh

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maniakh was a trader from Sogdia who lived in the middle of the 6th century and temporarily served as the diplomatic envoy of the Kök Turks .

Maniakh was a wealthy and apparently politically influential trader. The Kök Turks had conquered Sogdia around 560, but this did not have a negative effect on the Sogdians - on the contrary, Sogdians played a decisive role in administration and above all in the economy. Maniakh was evidently favored by Sizabulus , who ruled in Sogdia; his son seems to have grown up at the court of Sizabulus and he himself seems to have been well connected.

Important Sogdian traders around Maniakh approached Sizabulos in the mid-560s. They wanted to further expand their trade network and to do this, open the Sassanid Empire to the lucrative silk trade , which Sogdian traders largely controlled in late ancient Central Asia . The merchants promised an increase in profits, which was important as silk had to be bought at high prices from the Chinese (known in the West as Seres ).

Sizabulos agreed and Maniakh then led a delegation to Persia. We are informed about this and the following events thanks to a very detailed report written by the historian Menander Protektor .

The Persian king Chosrau I is said to have bought the silk, but then burned it when it was openly displayed. A second Sogdian trade delegation was poisoned by the Persians. With this, the Persian king broke openly with Sizabulos. It is possible that Chosrau wanted to block access to the Persian market for economic reasons, especially since the Persians also wanted to bring the intermediate trade across the Indian Ocean under their control. But it could also have been a question of purely personal motives, such as the fact that the great king did not want to negotiate with traders.

Maniakh persuaded Sizabulos to make direct contact with the Eastern Romans, who were often at war with Persia . In this way they circumvented the Persian market, but could hope for new profits and at the same time make Chosrau atone; again Sizabulos agreed. In 568 Maniakh traveled to Constantinople as part of a delegation that was warmly received by Emperor Justin II . Eastern Current and Persia had made provisional peace in 562, but the emperor was very interested in an alliance.

In August 569 an Eastern Roman embassy left Constantinople, led by the high military Zemarchus and accompanied by Maniakh. Zemarchus was magnificently received by Sizabulus and the alliance was agreed. The Menander Protector, already mentioned, reports on both the embassies and the alliance. The sources then remain silent about Maniakh himself.

In 572 war broke out again between Ostrom and Persia, in addition to refused Roman tribute payments (which were part of the peace agreement), among other things, trade interests in the context of the Indian trade . But the Turkish alliance did not bring the hoped-for success; when an Eastern Roman delegation traveled to Sogdia in 575/76, Sizabulos had died and the Turkish rulers Turxanthos and Tardu were not interested in an alliance.

literature

  • Maniakh. In: The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity . Volume 2 (2018), p. 950.
  • Mihály Dobrovits: The Altaic world through Byzantine eyes: Some remarks on the historical circumstances of Zemarchus' journey to the Turks (AD 569-570). In: Acta Orientalia 64, 2011, pp. 373-409.
  • Étienne de La Vaissière : Sogdian Traders. A history. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2005.
  • Li Qiang, Stefanos Kordosis: The Geopolitics on the Silk Road. Resurveying the Relationship of the Western Türks with Byzantium through Their Diplomatic Communications. In: Medieval Worlds 8, 2018, pp. 109–125.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Étienne de La Vaissière: Sogdian Traders. A history. Leiden / Boston 2005, p. 203.
  2. ↑ See Etienne de La Vaissière: Sogdian Traders. A history. Leiden / Boston 2005, pp. 208-210.
  3. ↑ See Etienne de La Vaissière: Sogdian Traders. A history. Leiden / Boston 2005, p. 228 ff.
  4. ↑ See Etienne de La Vaissière: Sogdian Traders. A history. Leiden / Boston 2005, p. 229 f.
  5. ↑ Étienne de La Vaissière: Sogdian Traders. A history. Leiden / Boston 2005, p. 234 f.
  6. ↑ See in particular Mihály Dobrovits: The Altaic world through Byzantine eyes: Some remarks on the historical circumstances of Zemarchus' journey to the Turks (AD 569-570). In: Acta Orientalia 64, 2011, pp. 373-409.
  7. ^ Michael Whitby, The Emperor Maurice and his Historian. Theophylact Simocatta on Persian and Balkan Warfare. Oxford 1988, p. 250 ff.
  8. ↑ Étienne de La Vaissière: Sogdian Traders. A history. Leiden / Boston 2005, p. 236.
personal data
SURNAME Maniakh
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Trader and envoy
DATE OF BIRTH 6th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Sogdia
DATE OF DEATH 6th century