Daqin

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Daqin Guo (大秦國) appears at the Western edge, third from the bottom, of this Chinese world map, the Sihai Huayi Zongtu.
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Historical Chinese exonyms

Daqin (

customs, dress, and currency were explained in Chinese sources. Its medieval incarnation was described in histories during the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD) onwards as Fulin (Chinese: 拂菻; pinyin: Fúlǐn), which Friedrich Hirth and other scholars have identified as the Byzantine Empire.[3] Daqin was also commonly associated with the Syriac-speaking Nestorian Christians
who lived in China during the Tang dynasty.

Chinese sources describe several ancient Roman embassies arriving in China, beginning in 166 AD and lasting into the 3rd century. These early embassies were said to arrive by a maritime route via the South China Sea in the Chinese province of Jiaozhi (now northern Vietnam). Archaeological evidence such as Roman coins points to the presence of Roman commercial activity in Southeast Asia. Later recorded embassies arriving from the Byzantine Empire, lasting from the 7th to 11th centuries, ostensibly took an overland route following the Silk Road, alongside other Europeans in Medieval China. Byzantine Greeks are recorded as being present in the court of Kublai Khan (1260–1294), the Mongol ruler of the Yuan dynasty in Khanbaliq (Beijing), while the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398), founder of the Ming dynasty, sent a letter of correspondence to Byzantine emperor John V Palaiologos.

Etymology

Daqin

The term Daqin (

Early Middle Chinese pronunciation (with the final consonant pronounced with an -r sound).[5]

Fulin

The term Daqin was used from the

Persianate word for the Roman Empire shared by several contemporaneous Iranian languages (Middle Persian: hrwm; Parthian: transl. xpr – transl. frwm; Sogdian: βr'wm-; Bactrian: фромо).[8]

History

The Chinese impression of the Daqin people, from the Ming encyclopedia Sancai Tuhui. The caption reads: "Daqin: The western merchants end their journeys here. Its king wears embroidered tissues sewn with gold threads on his head. The land produces corals, grows golden flowers, coarse fabrics, pearls, etc."
Main article: Sino-Roman relations
Further information:
Early Chinese cartography

Early descriptions by Gan Ying

Following the opening of the Silk Road in the 2nd century BC, the Chinese thought of the Roman Empire as a civilized counterpart to the Chinese Empire. The Romans occupied one extreme position on the trade route, with the Chinese located on the other.

China never managed to reach the Roman Empire directly in antiquity, although general Ban Chao sent Gan Ying as an envoy to "Daqin" in 97 AD. Gan Ying did not reach Daqin: he stopped at the coast of a large sea, because "sailor(s) of the Parthian west border" told him that the voyage to cross the sea might take a long time and be dangerous. Gan Ying left a detailed account of the Roman Empire, but it is generally considered to have been based on second-hand information from Parthians:

「大秦國一名犂鞬，以在海西，亦云海西國。地方數千里，有四百餘城。小國役屬者數十。以石為城郭。列置郵亭，皆堊塈之。有松柏諸木百草。」 The Kingdom of Da Qin (the Roman Empire) is also called Lijian. As it is found to the west of the sea, it is also called the Kingdom of Haixi ("West of the Sea"). The territory extends for several thousands of li. It has more than four hundred walled towns. There are several tens of smaller dependent kingdoms. The walls of the towns are made of stone. They have established postal relays at intervals, which are all plastered and whitewashed. There are pines and cypresses, as well as trees and plants of all kinds.[9][10]

Naples National Archaeological Museum
Detail of a mural showing two women wearing Hanfu silk robes, from the Dahuting Tomb (打虎亭漢墓; Dáhǔtíng hànmù) of the late Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 AD), located in Zhengzhou, Henan, China

Gan Ying gives a very idealistic view of Roman governance which is likely the result of some story he was told while visiting the Persian Gulf in 97 AD. He also described, less fancifully, Roman products:

「其王無有常人，皆簡立賢者。國中災異及風雨不時，輒廢而更立，受放者甘黜不怨。其人民皆長大平正，有類中國，故謂之大秦......土多金銀奇寶，有夜光璧、明月珠、駭雞犀、珊瑚、虎魄、琉璃、琅玕、朱丹、青碧。刺金縷繡，織成金縷罽、雜色綾。作黃金塗、火浣布。」

gemstones, gold-thread embroideries, woven gold-threaded net, delicate polychrome silks painted with gold, and asbestos
cloth.

「又有細布，或言水羊毳，野蠶繭所作也。合會諸香，煎其汁以為蘇合。凡外國諸珍異皆出焉。以金銀為錢，銀錢十當金錢一。與安息、天竺交巿於海中，利有十倍。[...]其王常欲通使於漢，而安息欲以漢繒綵與之交市，故遮閡不得自達。」

They also have

Tianzhu by sea. The profit margin is ten to one. ... The king of this country always wanted to send envoys to the Han, but Anxi, wishing to control the trade in multi-coloured Chinese silks, blocked the route to prevent [the Romans] getting through [to China].[9][10]

Geographical descriptions in the Weilüe

Main article: Weilüe
Further information: Geography of Egypt

In the Weilüe written by

Wade-Giles spelling):[3]

Formerly

Antioch-on-the-Orontes]. They use stone in making city walls. In this country there are the trees sung [pine], po [cypress], huai [sophora?], tzu [a kind of euphorbia?]; bamboos, rushes, poplars, willows, the wu-t'ung tree, and all kinds of other plants. The people are given to planting on the fields all kinds of grain. Their domestic animals are: the horse, the donkey, the mule, the camel, and the mulberry silk-worm. There are many jugglers who can issue fire from their mouths, bind and release themselves, and dance on twenty balls. In this country they have no permanent rulers, but when an extraordinary calamity visits the country, they elect as king a worthier man, while discharging the old king, who does not even dare to feel angry at this decision. The people are tall, and upright in their dealings, like the Han [Chinese], but wear foreign dress; they call their country another "Middle Kingdom" [probably from "Mediterranean" or "Middle of the Land"].[3]

Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 AD) tomb, Guangxi
, China

The Weilüe also noted that the Daqin had small "dependent"

Zeugma, Commagene (in modern-day Turkey).[3]

Hirth and Arkenberg identified Si-fu (Chinese: 汜復) with Emesa. However, John E. Hill provides evidence that it was most likely

Al Karak) and the fact that it fell under Roman dominion in 106 AD when it was annexed by Trajan.[12] Even more convincing for Hill is the fact that Si-fu in Chinese means "an arm of a river which rejoins the main stream" or more aptly "rejoined water courses".[12] He believes this is directly related to the reservoir and cistern flood-control system harnessing the many streams running through the settlement and nearby canyons, or wadis, such as the Wadi Musa ("Valley of Moses").[12]

Christianity

Further information: Daqin Pagoda
The Daqin Pagoda, which once formed part of a Nestorian church
Nestorian Stele
entitled "Stele to the propagation in China of the luminous religion of Daqin" (大秦景教流行中國碑), was erected in China in 781.

In later eras, starting in AD 550, as

Roman church.[1] So, for example, when the Taoist Emperor Wuzong of Tang closed Christian monasteries in the mid-9th century, the imperial edict commanded:[13]

As for the Tai-Ch'in (Syrian Christian) and Muh-hu (Zoroastrian) forms of worship, since Buddhism has already been cast out, these heresies alone must not be allowed to survive.[14]

The name "Daqin" for Rome was used on Chinese maps as late as the 16th century, such as the

Nestorian Stele erected in 781 in the Tang capital Chang'an contains an inscription that briefly summarizes the knowledge about Daqin in the Chinese histories written up to that point and notes how only the "luminous" religion (i.e. Christianity) was practiced there.[3]

Capital cities

To the Chinese, the capital of Daqin was "An-tu", or

caliph and founder of the Umayyad Caliphate.[3] The city of Rome
itself does not appear to have been described.

Characteristics attributed from the Book of Jin to the Romans

The encyclopedic part of the Book of Jin classified the appearance of the Romans as being genuinely Xirong, a barbaric people who lived west of the Zhou dynasty, however, the characteristics attributed to Daqin tend to be more positive than the others, saying that their people when they reached adulthood looked like the Chinese, they used glass on the walls of their houses (considered a luxury item in the Tang dynasty), their tiles were covered with coral, their "king" had 5 palaces, all huge, and all far from each other, just as what was heard in one palace took time to reach another and so on.[16]

Embassies

Further information:
Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire

Starting in the 1st century BC with

Oc Eo, Vietnam, where Roman artefacts have been found.[18]

Probalinthos, Attica (c. 161 AD; now in the Louvre
, Paris)

In contrast,

Annam (northern Vietnam), as would later embassies.[3] Its members claimed to be representatives of the Daqin ruler "Andun" (安敦), either Antoninus Pius or more likely his co-emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and offered gifts to the court of Emperor Huan of Han.[19][20] Other embassies arrived sporadically afterwards. The Book of Liang mentions a Daqin embassy to Sun Quan of Eastern Wu in 226, while the Book of Jin records a Daqin embassy to Emperor Wu of Jin in 284.[3]

Although Emperor Yang of Sui (r. 604–618) had desired to send an embassy to Daqin, this never came to fruition.[3][21] Instead, an embassy from a country that was now called Fulin (拂菻, i.e. the Byzantine Empire), which the Old Book of Tang and New Book of Tang identified as being the same as Daqin, arrived in 643 at the court of Emperor Taizong of Tang and claimed to represent their king Bo duoli (波多力; i.e. Kōnstantinos Pogonatos, "Constantine the Bearded", the nickname of Constans II).[3] Several other Fulin (i.e. Byzantium) embassies during the Tang dynasty are mentioned for the years 667, 701, and 719.[3]

The

astronomy.[26] This convinced Kublai Khan, founder of the Yuan dynasty, to offer him a position as the director of medical and astronomical boards, eventually honoring him with the title of Prince of Fulin (Chinese: 拂菻王; Fú lǐn wáng).[26] His biography in the History of Yuan lists his children by their Chinese names, which are similar to the Christian names Elias (Ye-li-ah), Luke (Lu-ko), and Antony (An-tun), with a daughter named A-na-si-sz.[26]

The History of Ming explains how the founder of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the Hongwu Emperor, sent a merchant of Fulin named "Nieh-ku-lun" (捏古倫) back to his home country with a letter announcing the founding of a new dynasty.[3][27][28] It is speculated that this "merchant" was actually a former bishop of Khanbaliq named Nicolaus de Bentra.[29] The History of Ming goes on to explain that contacts between China and Fulin ceased thereafter, whereas an envoy of the great western sea (i.e. the Mediterranean Sea) did not arrive again until the 16th century, with the Italian Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci.[3]

Currency and coinage

Further information:
Byzantine currency
Bronze coin of Constantius II (337–361), found in Karghalik, modern China

Although the

Kingdom of Funan bordering the Chinese province of Jiaozhi in northern Vietnam.[17][34] This was the same region where Chinese historical texts claim the Romans first landed before venturing further into China to conduct diplomacy.[17][3]

Chinese histories offer descriptions of Byzantine coins. In discussing trade

History of Song notes how the Byzantines made coins of either silver or gold, without holes in the middle yet with an inscription of the king's name.[3]

Law and order

Further information: Roman law and Byzantine law
An 1860 sketch depicting a Roman lictor, a bodyguard for Roman magistrates

The

Latin "punishment of the sack"), where those who committed parricide (i.e. murder of a father or mother) were sewn up into a sack, sometimes with wild animals, and thrown into either a river or sea.[36] The History of Song also mentioned how it was forbidden by law to counterfeit the coins minted by Fulin.[3] These descriptions from the History of Song are also found in the Wenxian Tongkao.[3]

Naming conventions

Further information: Chinese name, Chinese surname, and Roman naming conventions

In the Chinese histories, the names of Romans and Byzantines were often transliterated into Chinese as they were heard, yet occasionally the surname stemmed from their country of origin, Daqin (大秦). For instance, the Roman merchant Qin Lun (秦論), who visited the Eastern Wu court of Sun Quan in 226 AD, bears the surname derived from the name for his homeland, while having a given name that is perhaps derived from the Greek name Leon (e.g. Leon of Sparta).[37] In the Han-era stage of the spoken language intermediate between Old Chinese and Middle Chinese, the pronunciation for his given name "Lun" (論) would have sounded quite different from modern spoken Mandarin: K. 470b *li̯wən / li̯uĕn or *lwən / luən; EMC lwən or lwənh.[37]

Granting Roman individuals the surname "Qin" followed a common Chinese naming convention for foreign peoples. For instance, people from the

Eastern Iranian people from Central Asia, were also frequently given the surname "An" (e.g. An Chongzhang), especially those from Bukhara, while Sogdians from Samarkand were surnamed "Kang" (康; e.g. Kang Senghui), derived from Kangju, the Chinese term for Transoxiana.[38][39][40][41] The name given for either Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius Antoninus in the Chinese histories was "An Dun" (安敦).[19][note 1]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The surname "An" (安) used here for the surname of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus is the same as the aforementioned surname used for Parthians and Sogdians.

References

Citations

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-0-06-147280-0
    .
  2. ^ Foster, p. 3.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Hirth, Friedrich (2000) [1885]. Jerome S. Arkenberg (ed.). "East Asian History Sourcebook: Chinese Accounts of Rome, Byzantium and the Middle East, c. 91 B.C.E. - 1643 C.E." Fordham.edu. Fordham University. Archived from the original on 2014-09-10. Retrieved 2016-09-10.
  4. ^ a b c Lieu (2013), p. 126.
  5. ^ Lieu (2013), p. 126 f.; the same character for "Qin" (i.e. 秦) was used by the Chinese of the Han period to transcribe foreign words ending in an -r sound.
  6. ^ Lieu (2013), p. 227.
  7. ^ Hirth (1939) [1885], pp. 286-290.
  8. ^ Lieu (2013), p. 127 f.
  9. ^ a b Hill (2009), p. 25.
  10. ^ a b Description of the Western regions (in Chinese).
  11. ISBN 1-55786-860-3
    , p. 81.
  12. ^ a b c Yu, Huan (September 2004). John E. Hill (ed.). "The Peoples of the West from the Weilue 魏略 by Yu Huan 魚豢: A Third Century Chinese Account Composed between 239 and 265, Quoted in zhuan 30 of the Sanguozhi, Published in 429 CE [Section 11 – Da Qin (Roman territory/Rome)]". Depts.washington.edu. Translated by John E. Hill. Retrieved 2016-09-17.
  13. ^ Philip, TV (1998). "Christianity in China". East of the Euphrates: Early Christianity in Asia. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2008-11-30.
  14. ^ Foster, John (1939). The Church in T'ang Dynasty. Great Britain: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. p. 123.
  15. ^ Foster, p. 4.
  16. ^ "晉書/卷097 - 维基文库，自由的图书馆". zh.wikisource.org (in Chinese). Retrieved 2024-01-22.
  17. ^
    ISBN 0-415-24219-3
    , p. 29.
  18. ISBN 9780642278098
    , p. 38.
  19. ^
    ISBN 978-90-04-15605-0
    .
  20. ISBN 978-0-521-24327-8
    .
  21. ISBN 978-0-415-72078-6
    , pp 152-153.
  22. ISBN 9783829820479
    .
  23. ISBN 0-393-02747-3
    . Accessed 15 September 2016.
  24. ISBN 0-520-24340-4
    .
  25. ISBN 0-415-34850-1
    .
  26. ^ a b c Bretschneider, Emil (1888), Medieval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources: Fragments Towards the Knowledge of the Geography and History of Central and Western Asia from the 13th to the 17th Century, Vol. 1, Abingdon: Routledge, reprinted 2000, p. 144.
  27. ISBN 978-0-7566-1360-0
    .
  28. ISBN 9780524033050
    .
  29. ISBN 978-0-674-03519-5
    .
  30. ISBN 0-415-32089-5
    .
  31. ISBN 2-503-52178-9
    .
  32. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-993921-3
    .
  33. ISBN 978-0-415-72078-6
    , p. 154.
  34. ISBN 1-74114-893-6
    , p. 24 f.
  35. ^ John Pike. (last modified 11 July 2011). "Roman Money". Globalsecurity.org. Accessed 15 September 2016.
  36. ISBN 0-203-42858-7
    , p. 23.
  37. ^ a b Yu, Huan (September 2004). John E. Hill (ed.). "The Peoples of the West from the Weilue 魏略 by Yu Huan 魚豢: A Third Century Chinese Account Composed between 239 and 265, Quoted in zhuan 30 of the Sanguozhi, Published in 429 CE". Depts.washington.edu. Translated by John E. Hill. Archived from the original on 2005-03-15. Retrieved 2016-09-17.
  38. ISBN 978-0-19-993921-3
    .
  39. ^ Galambos, Imre (2015), "She Association Circulars from Dunhuang", in Antje Richter, A History of Chinese Letters and Epistolary Culture, Brill: Leiden, Boston, p. 872.
  40. ISBN 978-1500696702
    , note 2.17, p. 183.
  41. ISBN 978-1-56518-098-7
    .

Sources

Further reading

  • Leslie, D. D., Gardiner, K. H. J.: "The Roman Empire in Chinese Sources", Studi Orientali, Vol. 15. Rome: Department of Oriental Studies, University of Rome, 1996
  • Pulleyblank, Edwin G.: "The Roman Empire as Known to Han China", Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 119, No. 1 (1999), pp. 71–79

External links
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