- Sino-Roman relations
Sino-Roman relations started first on an indirect basis during the
2nd century BC .China and Rome progressively inched closer with the embassies ofZhang Qian in130 BC and the military expeditions of China toCentral Asia , until generalBan Chao attempted to send an envoy to Rome around100 CE. Several alleged Roman embassies to China were recorded by a number of ancient Chinesehistorian s. The first one on record, supposedly from either theRoman emperor Antoninus Pius or the later emperorMarcus Aurelius , arrived in 166 CE.Zhang Qian's embassy
In
130 BC , with the embassies of theHan Dynasty to Central Asia, following the reports of the ambassadorZhang Qian (who was originally sent to obtain an alliance with theYuezhi against theXiongnu , but in vain), theChinese emperor Wudi became interested in developing relationships with the sophisticated urban civilizations ofFerghana ,Bactria andParthia :The Chinese subsequently sent numerous embassies, around ten every year, to these countries and as far as Seleucid
Syria . According to Hou Hanshu's "Later Han History", "Thus more embassies were dispatched to "Anxi" (Parthia ), "Yancai" (who later joined theAlans ), "Lijian" (Syria under theSeleucids ), "Tiaozhi" (Chaldea ) and "Tianzhu " (northwestern India) ... As a rule, rather more than ten such missions went forward in the course of a year, and at the least five or six."Chinese silk in the Roman Empire
Trade with the Roman Empire followed soon, confirmed by the Roman craze for Chinese
silk (supplied through theParthians ) from the1st century BC . Although the Romans knew of wild silk harvested on Cos, they did not at first make the connection with Chinese silk. Hence,Pliny the Elder , in his "Natural History", wrote:Yet later in the same work, he writes:
quote|The larva [of the 'bombyx'] then becomes a caterpillar, after which it assumes the state in which it is known as 'bombylis', then that called 'necydalus', and after that, in six months, it becomes a silk-worm. These insects weave webs similar to those of the spider, the material of which is used for making the more costly and luxurious garments of females, known as 'bombycina'. Pamphile, a woman of Cos, the daughter of Platea, was the first person who discovered the art of unravelling these webs and spinning a tissue therefrom; indeed, she ought not to be deprived of the glory of having discovered the art of making vestments which, while they cover a woman, at the same moment reveal her naked charms.|
Pliny the Elder |"The Natural History" XI, 26 The Senate issued, in vain, several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, on economic and moral grounds: the importation of Chinese silk caused a huge outflow of gold, and silk clothes were considered to be decadent and immoral:The Roman historian
Florus also describes the visit of numerous envoys, including "Seres " (perhaps the Chinese), to the first Roman Emperor Augustus, who reigned between27 BC and 14 AD:A maritime route opened up with the Chinese-controlled
Giao Chỉ (centred in modern Vietnam) and the Khmer kingdom ofFunan probably by the first century AD. At the formerly coastal site ofÓc Eo in the Mekong Delta, Roman coins were among the vestiges of long-distance trade discovered by the French archaeologist Louis Malleret in the 1940s. [Milton Osborne, "The Mekong: Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future" (2001:25).] Óc Eo may have been the port known to the geographer Ptolemy and the Romans asKattigara . The trade connection extended, via ports on the coasts of India andSri Lanka , all the way to Roman-controlled ports inEgypt and theNabataean territories on the northeastern coast of theRed Sea . The "Hou Hanshu " records that a delegation of Roman envoys arrived in China by this maritime route in 166 AD; this may well have been an exaggeration, by the envoys or the scribe, of what was actually an unofficial party of Roman merchants.Castaways
Pomponius Mela ( [http://ourworld-top.cs.com/latintexts/m305.htm Book III,Chapter 5] ), copied byPliny the Elder , wrote that Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer,proconsul inGaul , 59 BC, got "several Indians" ("Indi") as a present from aGermanic king . The Indians were driven by a storm to the coasts ofGermania ("in tempestatem ex Indicis aequoribus"):It is unclear whether these castaways were people from
India or Eastern Asia, since "Indians" designated all Asians, Indian and beyond, during Roman times. Pomponius is using these "Indi" as evidence for theNortheast Passage and the northward strait out of theCaspian Sea (which in Antiquity was usually thought to be open toOceanus in the north).Edward Herbert Bunbury suggests that they were of Finnish origin. There are also some speculations that they may have been American Indians castaway across the Atlantic.Some confusion may be suspected in this passage since Metellus Celer died before taking up his proconsulship, thus leaving it free for
Julius Caesar .Roman soldiers in the East
There are several known instances of Roman soldiers being captured by the Parthians and transferred to the East for border duty. According to Pliny, in
54 BCE , after losing at thebattle of Carrhae , 10,000 Roman prisoners were displaced by the Parthians toMargiana to man the frontier (of the 40,000 troops under Crassus, half had lost their lives, one quarter escaped, and one quarter were taken prisoner):About 18 years later the nomadic
Xiongnu chiefZhizhi established a state in the nearby Talas valley, near modern dayTaraz . The Chinese have an account byBan Gu of about "a hundred men" under the command of Zhizhi who fought in a so-called "fish-scale formation" to defend Zhizhi's wooden-palisade fortress against Han forces, in theBattle of Zhizhi in36 BCE . The historianHomer Dubs claimed that this might have been the Romantestudo formation and that these men, who were captured by the Chinese, were able to found the village of Liqian (Li-chien) inYongchang County . [ [http://www.archaeology.org/9905/newsbriefs/china.html Archaelogy.org] , [http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy_regions/tuscany/2005/07/ Italy Magazine] , [http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-08/24/content_3396301.htm Xinhua] , [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=EOFSBRMSL2JCJQFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/02/02/wroman02.xml The Daily Telegraph, 2 February 2007] ] There is, however, no evidence that these men were Romans, [ [http://people.virginia.edu/~ewg4x/roman_li-chien.pdf Detailed analysis] by Ethan Gruber] and recent DNA testing of the male inhabitants of Liqian does not support the hypothesis. [Zhou R, An L, Wang X, Shao W, Lin G, Yu W, Yi L, Xu S, Xu J, Xie X, [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17579807 Testing the hypothesis of an ancient Roman soldier origin of the Liqian people in northwest China: a Y-chromosome perspective.] J Hum Genet. 2007; 52(7): 584-91.]A Roman inscription of the 2nd–3rd centuries CE has been found in eastern
Uzbekistan in the Kara-Kamar cave complex, which has been analysed as belonging to some Roman soldiers from thePannonian Legio XV "Apollinaris": [Reference: Ustinova, Yulia, “New Latin and Greek Rock-Inscriptions from Uzbekistan,” "Hephaistos: New Approaches in Classical Archaeology and related Fields", 18/2000, pp. 169–179. Through [http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/hhshu/notes13.html Roman inscriptions in Uzbekistan] ]:PANN
:G. REX
:AP.LGExpedition of Ban Chao
In
97 ,Ban Chao crossed theTian Shan and Pamir mountains with an army of 70,000 men in a campaign against theXiongnu /Huns , who were harassing the trade routes now known as theSilk Road . The Han general made an alliance with the Parthian kingMithradates II and established his base on shores of theCaspian Sea and atAntiochia Margiana (Merv ) at the eastern outpost of theParthian Kingdom ("NOTE:" The correct information here should state that Han general Ban Chao established an alliance with the Parthian kingPacorus II of Parthia , as Mithradates II was already dead by the time Ban Chao arrived in Parthia). It was from here that the Han general dispatched envoyGan Ying toDaqin (Rome). Gan Ying left a detailed account of western countries, although he apparently only reached as far as Mesopotamia. While he intended to sail to Rome through the Black Sea, some Parthian merchants, interested in maintaining their profitable role as the middleman in the trade between China and Rome, falsely told him the dangerous trip would take two years at the least (when it was actually closer to two months). Deterred, he returned home.Gan Ying left an account onRome (Daqin in Chinese) which may have relied on second-hand sources. He locates it to the west of the sea:He also describes the adoptive monarchy of the Emperor
Nerva , and Roman physical appearance and products:Finally Gan Ying determines Rome correctly as the main economic power at the western end of Eurasia:
Eastern travels of Maes Titianus
Maës Titianus was the ancient traveller of
Hellenistic culture [ His "Macedon ian" origin betokens no more than his cultural affinity, and the name Maës is Semitic in origin (Cary 1956:130).] who penetrated farthest east along theSilk Road from the Mediterranean world. In the early second century CE [The mainstream opinion, noted by Cary 1956:130 note 7, based on the date of Marinus, established by his use of manyTrajan ic foundation names but none identifiable withHadrian .] or at the end of the first century BCE, [This is Cary's dating.] during a lull in the intermittent Roman struggles withParthia , his party reached the famous Stone Tower, "Tashkurgan ", [Centuries later "Tashkurgan" ('Stone Tower') was the capital of the Pamir kingdom ofSarikol .] in thePamirs .First Roman embassy
With the expansion of the
Roman Empire in the Middle East during the2nd century , the Romans gained the capability to develop shipping and trade in theIndian Ocean . Several ports containing Roman ruins have been excavated on the coast of India.Groups of Romans probably travelled farther eastwards, either on Roman, Indian, or Chinese ships. The first group of people claiming to be an ambassadorial mission of Romans to China was recorded in166 , sixty years after the westbound expeditions of the Chinese generalBan Chao . The embassy came to Emperor Huan ofHan China "from "Antun" (EmperorAntoninus Pius ), king ofDaqin (Rome)". (As Antoninus Pius died in161 , leaving the empire to his adoptive son Marcus Aurelius (Antoninus), and the convoy arrived in 166, confusion remains about who sent the mission given that both Emperors were named 'Antoninus'.) The Roman mission came from the south (therefore probably bysea ), entering China by the frontier ofJinan orTonkin . It brought presents ofrhinoceros horns,ivory , andtortoise shell, probably been acquired inSouthern Asia . About the same time, and possibly through this embassy, the Chinese acquired atreatise ofastronomy from the Romans.The existence of China was clearly known to Roman cartographers of the time, since its name and position is depicted in
Ptolemy 's "Geographia", which is dated to c.150 . On the map, China is located beyond the "Aurea Chersonesus" ("GoldenPeninsula "), which refers to theSoutheast Asia n peninsula. It is shown as being on the "Magnus Sinus" ("Great Gulf"), which presumably corresponds to the known areas of theChina Sea at the time; although Ptolemy represents it as tending to the southeast rather than to the northeast. Trade throughout theIndian Ocean was extensive from the2nd century , and many trading ports with links to Roman communities have been identified inIndia andSri Lanka along the route used by the Roman mission.Other Roman embassies
Other embassies may have been sent after this first encounter, but were not recorded, until an account appears about presents sent in the early
3rd century by the Roman Emperor toCao Rui of theKingdom of Wei (reigned227 –239 ) in Northern China. The presents consisted of articles of glass in a variety of colours. While severalRoman Emperors ruled during this time, the embassy, if genuine, may have been sent byAlexander Severus ; since his successors reigned briefly and were busy with civil wars.Another embassy from Daqin is recorded in the year
284 , as bringing presents to the Chinese empire. This embassy presumably was sent by the EmperorCarus (282 –283 ), whose short reign was occupied by war with Persia.Notes
ee also
*
Foreign relations of Imperial China
*List of tributaries of Imperial China
*Kangnido map
* Later Han History,Hou Hanshu .
*Ptolemy world map
*Silk Road External links and references
* Accounts of
Daqin in the Chinese history of the Later HanHou Hanshu [http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/hhshu/hou_han_shu.html#sec11]
* Hill, John E. 2004. "The Western Regions according to the Hou Hanshu." Draft annotated English translation. [http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/texts/hhshu/hou_han_shu.html]
* Hill, John E. 2004. "The Peoples of the West from the Weilue" 魏略 "by Yu Huan" 魚豢": A Third Century Chinese Account Composed between239 and265 ." Draft annotated English translation. [http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/texts/weilue/weilue.html]
*Henry Yule . "Cathay and the Way Thither". 1915.
* http://www.silk-road.com/artl/romanenvoy.shtml
* [http://people.virginia.edu/~ewg4x/roman_li-chien.pdf The Origins of Roman Li-chien]
* [http://ospitiweb.indire.it/Mondragone1/ANGOLO%20CREATIVO/primaparte.htm The Lost Legion (Italian)] [http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fospitiweb.indire.it%2FMondragone1%2FANGOLO%2520CREATIVO%2Fprimaparte.htm&langpair=it%7Cen&hl=ja&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools (English)]
* [http://www.friends-classics.demon.co.uk/news_romans_in_china.htm Did the Romans settle in Yongchang County, Gansu Province, China?]
* [http://yuhe.home2.cernet.cn/ReadNews.asp?NewsID=471 The Romans in China. They came,saw and settled]
* [http://www.archaeology.org/9905/newsbriefs/china.html Romans in China?]
* "Los Angeles Times ": "Digging for Romans in China"; August 24, 2000
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