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第1段
1 .listen to part of a lecture in a history class
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2 .as we continue our study of the ancient Roman Empire.
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3 .Let\'s talk a little about the opening up of trade between Rome and the Middle East and Asia.
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4 .This happened in the second century BCE,
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5 .when the Romans began importing a lot of exotic spices.
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6 .This spice trade certainly affected the Roman economy.
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7 .In fact, it\'s often argued that it led to a chronic trade imbalance
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8 .causing severe economic problems that ultimately led to the fall of the Roman Empire.
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9 .But let\'s explore that question,
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10 .starting with how the spice trade began,
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11 .as we established last class, there were many grains in the Roman diet,
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12 .foods like bread and boiled barley.
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13 .Boiling was common for many foods actually,
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14 .vegetables were often boiled.
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15 .Even fresh meat was soaked in water for long periods to soften the fibers and then boiled.
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16 .This diet of grain based and boiled Foods was pretty bland.
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17 .Now, the Romans did have some flavorings.
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18 .They used mild tasting locally grown plants to add some flavor.
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19 .But as the empire expanded to the east,
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20 .the Romans came into contact
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21 .for the first time with powerful spices.
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22 .Pepper especially, became highly desired,
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23 .and so Rome began importing spices
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24 .at great expense from the Middle East and Asia.
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25 .Traders were more than happy to sell their spices to Rome,
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26 .but these sellers tended to be secretive about what kind of plant the spice came from.
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27 .They\'d also invent stories of how difficult
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28 .and often how dangerous it was to obtain the spices in order to keep prices high.
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29 .All this further increased the value that Rome placed on spices,
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30 .and the government spent huge amounts of money to safely store them.
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31 .Now the question is,
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32 .did the trade of these valuable spices really have a negative impact on the Roman economy?
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33 .Some scholars speak of a trade imbalance.
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34 .In other words, that Rome paid more to those Eastern countries than those countries paid to Rome for their goods.
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35 .You see, initially, other countries were not willing to exchange their spices for Roman goods,
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36 .even luxury goods like jewelry or bronze items.
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37 .And historically, that\'s not uncommon.
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38 .A country establishing trade with any new partner starts out paying money for foreign goods before a demand for its own goods develops.
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39 .Indeed, in some areas east of Rome,
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40 .people didn\'t have coins or the kinds of precious metals that Rome had,
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41 .so Rome\'s trading partners preferred getting money for their spices anyway.
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42 .So as Rome imported more goods,
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43 .more gold began flowing out of Rome to the east.
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44 .Documents from that time indicate that some Romans were concerned about a trade imbalance
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45 .to try to counter that,
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46 .Roman coins were repeatedly devalued.
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47 .That is, their gold content was reduced
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48 .by 337 CE, the gold content of coins was cut by almost half.
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49 .This seems to support the idea that Romans were concerned about the amount of gold that had been flowing out of Rome through trade,
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50 .but claims that this trade imbalance caused the economic collapse of the Roman Empire.
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51 .Well, those claims seemed to be much exaggerated.
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52 .You see, even though Rome was using lots of gold to buy spices,
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53 .records indicate it was getting more gold from new mines within its territory.
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54 .And this information about the gold mines,
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55 .it comes to us from the writings of a man who worked in the Roman treasury so
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56 .we know he had direct access to the actual figures.
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57 .What\'s more, Rome\'s trade deficit was offset by customs dues,
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58 .money that both importers and exporters had to pay to the Roman government for the right to transport goods through Egypt.
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59 .Egypt was the main center through which imported spices passed,
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60 .and Rome had control of it for much of this time.
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61 .In fact, it appears that the overall effect of the spice trade was positive, both to Rome and to its trading partners.
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62 .There\'s no real evidence that Rome\'s economy was weakened.
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63 .There\'s actually more evidence that political instability and ineffective leadership led to the fall of Rome,
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64 .and we\'ll look at those factors in more detail next time.
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