They fulfill whatever he commands them, whether it be a matter of life or death

[chichi]

MARCO WAS NOT the first to travel what came to be fifa 15 coins called the Silk Road; he had been preceded by generations of Mongols, Turks, Arabs, mercenaries, and monks. Nor was he the first Westerner to describe his adventures in Asia. Nearly a hundred years earlier, Benjamin of Tudela, a rabbi from Navarre, had much the same idea concerning his journey. Benjamin’s travels brought him into contact with local officials, colorful characters, and other merchants. His account described commercial conditions from Barcelona to Constantinople, Baghdad, and points east.

From his vantage point in Baghdad, Benjamin compiled a Book of Travels, covering the years 1160 to 1173. Collecting reliable information about Jews in Palestine, Thebes, Antioch, and Tyre and on Mount Parnassus, he took note of Jewish merchants, dyers,shipowners, peasants, and laborers. He remarked on practices of obscure Jewish sects and wrote an account of a Jewish pseudo- Messiah and mystic in Persia, David Alroy, who had burst into prominence shortly before Benjamin’s excursion. In all, he included the names of 248 leaders of Jewish communities that he encountered throughout the Diaspora.

His curiosity led him to the cult of the Assassins—the same sect that would later alarm Marco Polo. “They fulfill whatever he commands them, whether it be a matter of life or death,” wrote Benjamin of their leader, in words that prefigure the Venetian’s account.

Unlike later merchants, Benjamin of Tudela did not penetrate deeply into Asia. After getting as far east as Baghdad, he returned home safely to Spain by way of Sicily. Nevertheless, he had seen much of the world. Despite his accomplishment, Benjamin of Tudela’s account, written with a collaborator in Hebrew, remained unknown in Europe, except among a handful of Jews. It was not published until 1543, and not translated into other tongues until the seventeenth century.