Hiyya

Hiyya was a silk merchant and a very wealthy man who owned large tracts of land in the Galilee, Palestine, especially around Tiberias. For the Jews, participation in international trade, particularly in lucrative silk, was greatly facilitated by some facts. First, the synagogues in various place served as hospices for travelling Jews. Second, Galilee was part of the hinterland of the Syrian ports from which silk fabrics were exported to Rome. The entire back country of Tyre and Berytus was dotted with silk-weaving enterprises. Silk weaving was carried on in private shops, not only in Berytus and Tyre, but elsewhere in northern Palestine and southern Syria. The silk was imported from the east, manufactured in Galillee, transported to the Syrian ports and after that to the Roman markets through the well-developed and coordinated trade network.

Hence, Hiyya’s voyage to sell silk in Tyre, and possibly that to northern Arabia, place him into the context of international trade in silk. He is an example of prosperous silk merchant operating in the Roman Empire who belonged to “pretty substantial people”.