Sino-Roman relations

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Romano-Chinese relations
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Sino-Roman relations
c. 1st century BCE - 1453
Eastern Hemisphere in AD 50, the middle of the first century

Sino-Roman relations comprised the (primarily indirect) contacts and flows of trade goods, information, and occasional travelers between the

silk trade, inhibited direct contact between the two ancient Eurasian powers. In 97 AD, the Chinese general Ban Chao tried to send his envoy Gan Ying to Rome, but Parthians dissuaded Gan from venturing beyond the Persian Gulf. Ancient Chinese historians recorded several alleged Roman emissaries to China. The first one on record, supposedly either from the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius or from his adopted son Marcus Aurelius, arrived in 166 AD. Others are recorded as arriving in 226 and 284 AD, followed by a long hiatus until the first recorded Byzantine embassy
in 643 AD.

The indirect exchange of goods on land along the

sea routes involved (for example) Chinese silk, Roman glassware and high-quality cloth. Roman coins minted from the 1st century AD onwards have been found in China, as well as a coin of Maximian (Roman emperor from 286 to 305 AD) and medallions from the reigns of Antoninus Pius (r. 138–161 AD) and Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180 AD) in Jiaozhi (in present-day Vietnam), the same region at which Chinese sources claim the Romans first landed. Roman glassware and silverware have been discovered at Chinese archaeological sites dated to the Han period (202 BC to 220 AD). Roman coins and glass beads have also been found in the Japanese archipelago.[1]

In

Muawiyah I
in 674–678 AD.

Southern Song dynasty
(1127–1279).

Geographical accounts and cartography

Roman geography

Further information: List of Graeco-Roman geographers, History of cartography, Serica, and Indo-Roman trade relations
Jacobus Angelus.[1]
Sinae
is positioned on its northern and eastern shores.

Beginning in the 1st century BC with Virgil, Horace, and Strabo, Roman historians offer only vague accounts of China and the silk-producing Seres people of the Far East, who were perhaps the ancient Chinese.[2][3] The 1st-century AD geographer Pomponius Mela asserted that the lands of the Seres formed the centre of the coast of an eastern ocean, flanked to the south by India and to the north by the Scythians of the Eurasian Steppe.[2] The 2nd-century AD Roman historian Florus seems to have confused the Seres with peoples of India, or at least noted that their skin complexions proved that they both lived "beneath another sky" than the Romans.[2] Roman authors generally seem to have been confused about where the Seres were located, in either Central Asia or East Asia.[4] The historian Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330 – c. 400 AD) wrote that the land of the Seres was enclosed by "lofty walls" around a river called Bautis, possibly a description of the Yellow River.[2]

The existence of China was known to

Golden Peninsula (Aurea Chersonesus, Malay Peninsula). Their chief port, Cattigara, seems to have been in the lower Mekong Delta.[6] The Great Gulf served as a combined Gulf of Tonkin and South China Sea, as Marinus of Tyre and Ptolemy's belief that the Indian Ocean was an inland sea caused them to bend the Cambodian coast south beyond the equator before turning west to join southern Libya (Africa).[7][8] Much of this is given as unknown lands, but the north-eastern area is placed under the Sinae.[9]

Classical geographers such as

drop anchor, the locations of royal courts, lifestyles of the locals and goods found in their markets, and favourable times of year to sail from Egypt to these places to catch the monsoon winds.[11] The Periplus also mentions a great inland city, Thinae (or Sinae), in a country called This that perhaps stretched as far as the Caspian.[12][13] The text notes that silk produced there travelled to neighbouring India via the Ganges and to Bactria by a land route.[12] Marinus and Ptolemy had relied on the testimony of a Greek sailor named Alexander, probably a merchant, for how to reach Cattigara (most likely Óc Eo, Vietnam).[6][14] Alexander (Greek: Alexandros) mentions that the main terminus for Roman traders was a Burmese city called Tamala on the north-west Malay Peninsula, where Indian merchants travelled overland across the Kra Isthmus to reach the Perimulic Gulf (the Gulf of Thailand).[15] Alexandros claimed that it took twenty days to sail from Thailand to a port called "Zabia" (or Zaba) in southern Vietnam.[15][16] According to him, one could continue along the coast (of southern Vietnam) from Zabia until reaching the trade port of Cattigara after an unspecified number of days (with "some" being interpreted as "many" by Marinus).[15][16] More generally, modern historical scholars assert that merchants from the Eastern part of the Roman Empire were in contact with the peoples of China, Sri Lanka, India and the Kushana Empire.[17]

Nestorian monks, who claimed that the land of Serindia was located north of India and produced the finest silk.[21] By smuggling silkworms and producing silk of their own, the Byzantines could bypass the Chinese silk trade dominated by their chief rivals, the Sasanian Empire.[22]

From

Southern Song dynasty.[26][27][28]

Chinese geography

Further information:
Chinese geography, Daqin, Pei Xiu, and Daoyi Zhilüe
southern China
(with the south oriented at the top), 2nd century BC
Daqinguo (大秦國) appears at the Western edge of this Ming dynasty Chinese world map, the Sihai Huayi Zongtu, published in 1532 AD.

Detailed geographical information about the Roman Empire, at least its easternmost territories, is provided in traditional Chinese historiography. The Shiji by Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BC) gives descriptions of countries in Central Asia and West Asia. These accounts became significantly more nuanced in the Book of Han, co-authored by Ban Gu and his sister Ban Zhao, younger siblings of the general Ban Chao, who led military exploits into Central Asia before returning to China in 102 AD.[29] The westernmost territories of Asia as described in the Book of the Later Han compiled by Fan Ye (398–445 AD) formed the basis for almost all later accounts of Daqin.[29][note 1] These accounts seem to be restricted to descriptions of the Levant, particularly Syria.[29]

Historical linguist Edwin G. Pulleyblank explains that Chinese historians considered Daqin to be a kind of "counter-China" located at the opposite end of their known world.[30][31] According to Pulleyblank, "the Chinese conception of Dà Qín was confused from the outset with ancient mythological notions about the far west".[32][31] From the Chinese point of view, the Roman Empire was considered "a distant and therefore mystical country," according to Krisztina Hoppál.[33] The Chinese histories explicitly related Daqin and Lijian (also "Li-kan", or Syria) as belonging to the same country; according to Yule, D. D. Leslie, and K. H. G. Gardiner, the earliest descriptions of Lijian in the Shiji distinguished it as the Hellenistic-era Seleucid Empire.[34][35][36] Pulleyblank provides some linguistic analysis to dispute their proposal, arguing that Tiaozhi (條支) in the Shiji was most likely the Seleucid Empire and that Lijian, although still poorly understood, could be identified with either Hyrcania in Iran or even Alexandria in Egypt.[37]

The

Emesa;[29] John E. Hill (2004) uses linguistic and situational evidence to argue it was Petra in the Nabataean Kingdom, which was annexed by Rome in 106 AD during the reign of Trajan.[40]

The

Eastern Roman surgical practice of trepanning to remove parasites from the brain.[29] The descriptions of Nubia and Horn of Africa in the Wenxian Tongkao were ultimately derived from the Jingxingji of Du Huan (fl. 8th century AD),[44] a Chinese travel writer whose text, preserved in the Tongdian of Du You, is perhaps the first Chinese source to describe Ethiopia (Laobosa), in addition to offering descriptions of Eritrea (Molin).[45]

Embassies and travel

Further information: Foreign relations of imperial China, History of the Roman Empire, Silk Road, and Zhang Qian
Xinjiang Region Museum
.

Prelude

Further information: War of the Heavenly Horses

Some contact may have occurred between

Alai Valley just west of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.[51][52][53]

Embassy to Augustus

The historian Florus described the visit of numerous envoys, including the "

Roman Emperor Augustus
(r. 27 BC – 14 AD):

Even the rest of the nations of the world which were not subject to the imperial sway were sensible of its grandeur, and looked with reverence to the Roman people, the great conqueror of nations. Thus even Scythians and Sarmatians sent envoys to seek the friendship of Rome. Nay, the Seres came likewise, and the Indians who dwelt beneath the vertical sun, bringing presents of precious stones and pearls and elephants, but thinking all of less moment than the vastness of the journey which they had undertaken, and which they said had occupied four years. In truth it needed but to look at their complexion to see that they were people of another world than ours.[54][55]

In the entire corpus of

Barygaza, as well as down the Ganges.[12]

Envoy Gan Ying

The Chinese impression of the Daqin people, from the Ming-dynasty encyclopedia Sancai Tuhui, 1609
Further information: Protectorate of the Western Regions, Chinese exploration, Dayuan, Daxia, Kangju, and History of the Han dynasty

The

Khotan and Kashgar (Indo-European Tocharian and Saka settlements, respectively),[56] and finally Karasahr in 94 AD.[57][58] An embassy from the Parthian Empire had earlier arrived at the Han court in 89 AD and, while Ban was stationed with his army in Khotan, another Parthian embassy came in 101 AD, this time bringing exotic gifts such as ostriches.[59]

In 97 AD, Ban Chao sent an envoy named Gan Ying to explore the far west. Gan made his way from the Tarim Basin to Parthia and reached the Persian Gulf.[60] Gan left a detailed account of western countries; he apparently reached as far as Mesopotamia, then under the control of the Parthian Empire. He intended to sail to the Roman Empire, but was discouraged when told that the trip was dangerous and could take two years.[61][62] Deterred, he returned to China bringing much new information on the countries to the west of Chinese-controlled territories,[63] as far as the Mediterranean Basin.[60]

Gan Ying is thought to have left an account of the Roman Empire (Daqin in Chinese) that relied on secondary sources, most likely from sailors in the ports which he visited. The Book of the Later Han locates it in Haixi ("west of the sea", or Roman Egypt;[29][64] the sea is the one known to the Greeks and Romans as the Erythraean Sea, which included the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, and Red Sea):[65]

Its territory extends for several thousands of li [a li during the Han dynasty equalled 415.8 metres].[66] 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. 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.[67]

The Book of the Later Han gives a positive, if inaccurate, view of Roman governance:

Their kings are not permanent rulers, but they appoint men of merit. When a severe calamity visits the country, or untimely rain-storms, the king is deposed and replaced by another. The one relieved from his duties submits to his degradation without a murmur. The inhabitants of that country are tall and well-proportioned, somewhat like the Han [Chinese], whence they are called [Daqin].[68]

Yule noted that although the description of the Roman Constitution and products was garbled, the Book of the Later Han offered an accurate depiction of the coral fisheries in the Mediterranean.[69] Coral was a highly valued luxury item in Han China, imported among other items from India (mostly overland and perhaps also by sea), the latter region being where the Romans sold coral and obtained pearls.[70] The original list of Roman products given in the Book of the Later Han, such as sea silk, glass, amber, cinnabar, and asbestos cloth, is expanded in the Weilüe.[38][71] The Weilüe also claimed that in 134 AD the ruler of the Shule Kingdom (Kashgar), who had been a hostage at the court of the Kushan Empire, offered blue (or green) gems originating from Haixi as gifts to the Eastern Han court.[38] Fan Ye, the editor of the Book of the Later Han, wrote that former generations of Chinese had never reached these far western regions, but that the report of Gan Ying revealed to the Chinese their lands, customs and products.[72] The Book of the Later Han also asserts that the Parthians (Chinese: 安息; Anxi) wished "to control the trade in multi-coloured Chinese silks" and therefore intentionally blocked the Romans from reaching China.[64]

Possible Roman Greeks in Burma and China

jugglers to the court of Emperor Wu of Han;[29] the Book of the Later Han states that a king of Burma sent acrobats originally from Daqin to the court of Emperor An of Han in 120 AD.[note 7]

It is possible that a group of Greek acrobatic performers, who claimed to be from a place "west of the seas" (Roman Egypt, which the Book of the Later Han related to the Daqin empire), were presented

Classical literature,[79] and Chinese sources from the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century AD seem to mention them as well.[80]

First Roman embassy

Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 AD), located in Zhengzhou, Henan
province, China

The first group of people claiming to be an ambassadorial mission of Romans to China was recorded as having arrived in 166 AD by the Book of the Later Han. The embassy came to

Han China from "Andun" (Chinese: 安敦; Emperor Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius Antoninus), "king of Daqin" (Rome):[81][82]

"... 其王常欲通使於漢，而安息欲以漢繒彩與之交市，故遮閡不得自達。至桓帝延熹九年，大秦王安敦遣使自日南徼外獻象牙、犀角、瑇瑁，始乃一通焉。其所表貢，並無珍異，疑傳者過焉。"
"... The king of this state always wanted to enter into diplomatic relations with the Han. But

Hou Hanshu (ch. 88)[83]

As Antoninus Pius died in 161 AD, leaving the empire to his adoptive son Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and the envoy arrived in 166 AD,

Empress Liang Na.[89] Yule emphasised that the Roman embassy was said to come by way of Jiaozhi in northern Vietnam, the same route that Chinese sources claimed the embassies from Tianzhu (northern India) had used in 159 and 161 AD.[90]

Other Roman embassies

southern China
)
An illustration of the Eastern Roman embassy to Emperor Taizong of Tang in 643 AD

The

Cambodia and Vietnam, a claim supported by modern archaeological finds of ancient Mediterranean goods in the Southeast Asian countries of Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.[6][29][38]

Yule mentions that in the early 3rd century AD a ruler of Daqin sent an envoy with gifts to the northern Chinese court of Cao Wei (220–266 AD) that included glassware of various colours.[92] Several years later a Daqin craftsman is mentioned as showing the Chinese how to make "flints into crystal by means of fire", a curiosity to the Chinese.[92]

Another embassy from Daqin is recorded as bringing tributary gifts to the Chinese

Jin Empire (266–420 AD).[80][93] This occurred in 284 AD during the reign of Emperor Wu of Jin (r. 266–290 AD), and was recorded in the Book of Jin, as well as the later Wenxian Tongkao.[29][80] This embassy was presumably sent by the Emperor Carus (r. 282–283 AD), whose brief reign was preoccupied by war with Sasanian Persia.[94]

Fulin: Eastern Roman embassies

Further information: Cathay and Europeans in Medieval China
Gar Tongtsen Yülsung, ambassador of the Tibetan Empire, at his court. Later copy of a 641 painting by the Tang court artist Yan Liben
(600–673 AD).

Chinese histories for the

Persian heartland to the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate, which may also have prompted the Byzantines to send envoys to China amid their recent loss of Syria to the Muslims.[99] Tang Chinese sources also recorded how Sasanian prince Peroz III (636–679 AD) fled to Tang China following the conquest of Persia by the growing Islamic caliphate.[98][100]

Yule asserts that the additional Fulin embassies during the Tang period arrived in 711 and 719 AD, with another in 742 AD that may have been Nestorian monks.

Empress Wu Zetian granted to Narsieh, son of Peroz III, to march against the Arabs in Central Asia at the end of the 7th century.[105]

The 719 AD a Fulin embassy ostensibly came from

An Lushan Rebellion crippled Tang Chinese interventionist efforts in Central Asia.[113]

The last diplomatic contacts with Fulin are recorded as having taken place in the 11th century AD. From the Wenxian Tongkao, written by historian

Latin 'penalty of the sack').[115] The final recorded embassy arrived in 1091 AD, during the reign of Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118 AD); this event is only mentioned in passing.[116]

The

half-sisters were married to the great-grandsons of Genghis Khan, making this Byzantine ruler an in-law with the Mongol ruler in Beijing.[118]

glassware appeared during the Western Han era.[119]

Within the

paper money to purchase silk in Khanbaliq (Beijing).[120] By this stage the Eastern Roman Empire, temporarily dismantled by the Latin Empire, had shrunk to the size of a rump state in parts of Greece and Anatolia.[121][122] Ma Duanlin, author of the Wenxian Tongkao, noted the shifting political boundaries, albeit based on generally inaccurate and distorted political geography.[29] He wrote that historians of the Tang dynasty considered "Daqin" and "Fulin" to be the same country, but he had his reservations about this due to discrepancies in geographical accounts and other concerns (Wade–Giles
spelling):

During the sixth year of Yuan-yu [1091] they sent two embassies, and their king was presented, by Imperial order, with 200 pieces of cloth, pairs of silver vases, and clothing with gold bound in a girdle. According to the historians of the T'ang dynasty, the country of Fulin was held to be identical with the ancient Ta-ts'in. It should be remarked, however, that, although Ta-ts'in has from the Later Han dynasty when Zhongguo was first communicated with, till down to the Chin and T'ang dynasties has offered tribute without interruption, yet the historians of the "four reigns" of the Sung dynasty, in their notices of Fulin, hold that this country has not sent tribute to court up to the time of Yuan-feng [1078–1086] when they sent their first embassy offering local produce. If we, now, hold together the two accounts of Fulin as transmitted by the two different historians, we find that, in the account of the T'ang dynasty, this country is said "to border on the great sea in the west"; whereas the Sung account says that "in the west you have still thirty days' journey to the sea;" and the remaining boundaries do also not tally in the two accounts; nor do the products and the customs of the people. I suspect that we have before us merely an accidental similarity of the name, and that the country is indeed not identical with Ta-ts'in. I have, for this reason, appended the Fulin account of the T'ang dynasty to my chapter on Ta-ts'in, and represented this Fulin of the Sung dynasty as a separate country altogether.[123]

The

Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci in Portuguese Macau.[29][note 9]

Trade relations

Roman exports to China

Further information: Roman glass and Indo-Roman trade relations
Roman glass from the 2nd century AD
Naples National Archaeological Museum
A painting entitled Separated by a Green Curtain, a Chinese and Roman Artist Compete with Each Other, original by Nizami Ganjavi (1141–1209), from a Persian Timurid-era copy dated 1481

Direct trade links between the Mediterranean lands and India had been established in the late 2nd century BC by the Hellenistic Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt.[127] Greek navigators learned to use the regular pattern of the monsoon winds for their trade voyages in the Indian Ocean. The lively sea trade in Roman times is confirmed by the excavation of large deposits of Roman coins along much of the coast of India. Many trading ports with links to Roman communities have been identified in India and Sri Lanka along the route used by the Roman mission.[128] Archaeological evidence stretching from the Red Sea ports of Roman Egypt to India suggests that Roman commercial activity in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia declined heavily with the Antonine Plague of 166 AD, the same year as the first Roman embassy to Han China, where similar plague outbreaks had occurred from 151 AD.[129][130]

High-quality

Eastern Han tomb of Luoyang.[133] Roman and Persian glassware has been found in a 5th-century AD tomb of Gyeongju, Korea, capital of ancient Silla, east of China.[134] Roman glass beads have been discovered as far as Japan, within the 5th-century AD Kofun-era Utsukushi burial mound near Kyoto.[135]

From Chinese sources it is known that other Roman luxury items were esteemed by the Chinese. These include gold-embroidered

gilded silver plate dated to the 2nd–3rd centuries AD and found in Jingyuan County, Gansu, with a raised relief image in the centre depicting the Greco-Roman god Dionysus resting on a feline creature.[139]

A maritime route opened up with the Chinese-controlled port of

Antonine Roman coins have been found there, and Granville Allen Mawer states that Ptolemy's Cattigara seems to correspond with the latitude of modern Óc Eo.[14][note 11] In addition, Ancient Roman glass beads and bracelets were also found at the site.[143]

The trade connection from Cattigara extended, via ports on the coasts of India and Sri Lanka, all the way to Roman-controlled ports in

Nabataean territories on the north-eastern coast of the Red Sea.[144] The archaeologist Warwick Ball does not consider discoveries such as the Roman and Roman-inspired goods at Óc Eo, a coin of Roman emperor Maximian found in Tonkin, and a Roman bronze lamp at P'ong Tuk in the Mekong Delta, to be conclusive proof that Romans visited these areas and suggests that the items could have been introduced by Indian merchants.[145] While observing that the Romans had a recognised trading port in Southeast Asia, Dougald O'Reilly writes that there is little evidence to suggest Cattigara was Óc Eo. He argues that the Roman items found there only indicate that the Indian Ocean trade network extended to the ancient Kingdom of Funan.[143]

Chinese silk in the Roman Empire

Sarikol kingdom.[146] There were few direct trade contacts between Romans and Han Chinese, as the rival Parthians and Kushans were each protecting their lucrative role as trade intermediaries.[147][148]

During the 1st century BC silk was still a rare commodity in the Roman world; by the 1st century AD this valuable trade item became much more widely available.

pearl diving in the Red Sea.[151][138] Despite the claims by Pliny the Elder about the trade imbalance and quantity of Rome's coinage used to purchase silk, Warwick Ball asserts that the Roman purchase of other foreign commodities, particularly spices from India, had a much greater impact on the Roman economy.[152] In 14 AD the Senate issued an edict prohibiting the wearing of silk by men, but it continued to flow unabated into the Roman world.[149] Beyond the economic concerns that the import of silk caused a huge outflow of wealth, silk clothes were also considered to be decadent and immoral by Seneca the Elder
:

I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one's decency, can be called clothes ... Wretched flocks of maids labour so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife's body.

— Seneca the Elder c. 3 BC – 65 AD, Excerpta Controversiae 2.7[153]
Begram, Afghanistan, a royal city of the Kushan Empire where, according to Warwick Ball, it was likely on its way to China via the Silk Road along with other glass items.[154]
Eastern Han (25–220 AD) Chinese tomb mural showing a banquet with men and women wearing traditional Hanfu silk robes, from the Dahuting Tomb (Chinese: 打虎亭汉墓) on the southern bank of the Suihe River in Zhengzhou
, China

Trade items such as spice and silk had to be paid for with Roman gold coinage. There was some demand in China for Roman glass; the Han Chinese also produced glass in certain locations.[154][149] Chinese-produced glassware date back to the Western Han era (202 BC – 9 AD).[155] In dealing with foreign states such as the Parthian Empire, the Han Chinese were perhaps more concerned with diplomatically outmaneuvering their chief enemies, the nomadic Xiongnu, than with establishing trade, since mercantile pursuits and the merchant class were frowned upon by the gentry who dominated the Han government.[156]

Roman and Byzantine currency discovered in China

Further information:
Byzantine-Mongol alliance, Economy of the Han dynasty, Economic history of China before 1912, and Numismatics
Bronze coin of Constantius II (337–361 AD), found in Karghalik, modern China

Uruma, Okinawa), which was built from the 12th to 15th centuries AD.[158]

Shortly after the

Roman and Byzantine coins found during excavations of Central Asian and Chinese archaeological sites from this era suggests that direct trade with the Sogdians remained limited. This was despite the fact that ancient Romans imported Han Chinese silk,[162] and discoveries in contemporary tombs indicate that the Han-dynasty Chinese imported Roman glassware.[163]

horse archer and a lion, 8th century AD; Byzantine or Spanish woven silk, 9th–10th century AD; griffins
from an embroidered silk robe, 11th century AD

The earliest gold

Turfan persisted long after the Tang campaign against Karakhoja and Chinese conquest of 640 AD, with a gradual adoption of Chinese bronze coinage during the 7th century AD.[157] Hansen maintains that these Eastern Roman coins were almost always found with Sasanian Persian silver coins and Eastern Roman gold coins were used more as ceremonial objects like talismans, confirming the pre-eminence of Greater Iran in Chinese Silk Road commerce of Central Asia compared to Eastern Rome.[164] Walter Scheidel remarks that the Chinese viewed Byzantine coins as pieces of exotic jewellery, preferring to use bronze coinage in the Tang and Song dynasties, as well as paper money during the Song and Ming periods, even while silver bullion was plentiful.[165] Ball writes that the scarcity of Roman and Byzantine coins in China, and the greater amounts found in India, suggest that most Chinese silk purchased by the Romans was from maritime India, largely bypassing the overland Silk Road trade through Iran.[152] Chinese coins from the Sui and Tang dynasties (6th–10th centuries AD) have been discovered in India; significantly larger amounts are dated to the Song period (11th–13th centuries AD), particularly in the territories of the contemporary Chola dynasty.[166]

Even with the Byzantine production of silk starting in the 6th century AD, Chinese varieties were still considered to be of higher quality.

History of Song notes that the Byzantines made coins of either silver or gold, without holes in the middle, with an inscription of the king's name.[29] It also asserts that the Byzantines forbade the production of counterfeit coins.[29]

Human remains

In 2010,

East Asian ancestry on his mother's side. Evidence indicated that he was not originally from Italy, and was a slave or worker in the area.[170][171]

A 2016 analysis of archaeological finds from Southwark in London, the site of the ancient Roman city Londinium in Roman Britain, suggests that two or three skeletons from a sample of twenty-two dating to the 2nd to the 4th centuries AD are of Asian ancestry, and possibly of Chinese descent. The assertion is based on forensics and the analysis of skeletal facial features. The discovery has been presented by Dr Rebecca Redfern, curator of human osteology at the Museum of London.[172][173] No DNA analysis has yet been done, the skull and tooth samples available offer only fragmentary pieces of evidence, and the samples that were used were compared with the morphology of modern populations, not ancient ones.[174]

Hypothetical military contact

Further information: Sampul tapestry and Chronology of European exploration of Asia
Orodes
. Their further fate is unknown.

The historian Homer H. Dubs speculated in 1941 that Roman prisoners of war who were transferred to the eastern border of the Parthian Empire might later have clashed with Han troops there.[175]

After a Roman army under the command of

village of Liqian (Li-chien, possibly from "legio") in Yongchang County.[176][177]

There have been attempts to promote the Sino-Roman connection for tourism, but Dubs' synthesis of Roman and Chinese sources has not found acceptance among historians, on the grounds that it is highly speculative and reaches too many conclusions without sufficient hard evidence.[178][179] DNA testing in 2005 confirmed the Indo-European ancestry of a few inhabitants of modern Liqian; this could be explained by transethnic marriages with Indo-European people known to have lived in Gansu in ancient times,[180][181] such as the Yuezhi and Wusun. A much more comprehensive DNA analysis of more than two hundred male residents of the village in 2007 showed close genetic relation to the Han Chinese populace and great deviation from the Western Eurasian gene pool.[182] The researchers conclude that the people of Liqian are probably of Han Chinese origin.[182] The area lacks archaeological evidence of a Roman presence, such as coins, pottery, weaponry, architecture, etc.[180][181]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ For the assertion that the first Chinese mention of Daqin belongs to the Book of the Later Han, see: Wilkinson (2000), p. 730.
  2. Hira ("Ho-lat"). Going south of Palmyra and Emesa led one to the "Stony Land", which Hirth identified as Arabia Petraea, due to the text speaking how it bordered a sea (the Red Sea) where corals and real pearls were extracted. The text also explained the positions of border territories that were controlled by Parthia, such as Seleucia ("Si-lo").
    Hill (September 2004), "Section 14 – Roman Dependencies", identified the dependent vassal states as Azania (Chinese: 澤散; pinyin: Zesan; Wade–Giles: Tse-san), Al Wajh (Chinese: 驢分; pinyin: Lüfen; Wade–Giles: Lü-fen), Wadi Sirhan (Chinese: 且蘭; pinyin: Qielan; Wade–Giles: Ch'ieh-lan), Leukos Limên, ancient site controlling the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba near modern Aynūnah (Chinese: 賢督; pinyin: Xiandu; Wade–Giles: Hsien-tu), Petra (Chinese: 汜復; pinyin: Sifu; Wade–Giles: Szu-fu), al-Karak (Chinese: 于羅; pinyin: Yuluo; Wade–Giles: Yü-lo), and Sura (Chinese: 斯羅; pinyin: Siluo; Wade–Giles
    : Szu-lo).
  3. Macedonian
    " origin betokens no more than his cultural affinity, and the name Maës is Semitic in origin, Cary (1956), p. 130.
  4. ^ The mainstream opinion, noted by Cary (1956), p. 130, note #7, based on the date of Marinus of Tyre, established by his use of many Trajanic foundation names but none identifiable with Hadrian.
  5. Sarikol
    .
  6. ^ a b Yule (1915), p. 18; for a discussion of Tiaozhi (条支) and even its etymology possibly stemming from the Tajiks and Iranian peoples under ancient Chinese rule, see footnote #2 on p. 42.
  7. ^ a b Fan Ye, ed. (1965) [445]. "86: 南蠻西南夷列傳 (Nanman, Xinanyi liezhuan: Traditions of the Southern Savages and South-Western Tribes)". 後漢書 [Book of the Later Han]. Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing. p. 2851. "永寧元年，撣國王雍由調復遣使者詣闕朝賀，獻樂及幻人，能變化吐火，自支解，易牛馬頭。又善跳丸， 數乃至千。自言我海西人。海西即大秦也，撣國西南通大秦。明年元會，安帝作樂於庭，封雍由調爲漢大都尉，賜印綬､金銀､綵繒各有差也。"
    A translation of this passage into English, in addition to an explanation of how Greek athletic performers figured prominently in the neighbouring Parthian and Kushan Empires of Asia, is offered by Christopoulos (August 2012), pp. 40–41:

    The first year of Yongning (120 AD), the southwestern barbarian king of the kingdom of Chan (Burma), Yongyou, proposed illusionists (jugglers) who could metamorphose themselves and spit out fire; they could dismember themselves and change an ox head into a horse head. They were very skilful in acrobatics and they could do a thousand other things. They said that they were from the "west of the seas" (Haixi–Egypt). The west of the seas is the Daqin (Rome). The Daqin is situated to the south-west of the Chan country. During the following year, Andi organized festivities in his country residence and the acrobats were transferred to the Han capital where they gave a performance to the court, and created a great sensation. They received the honours of the Emperor, with gold and silver, and every one of them received a different gift.
  8. ^ Raoul McLaughlin notes that the Romans knew Burma as India Trans Gangem (India Beyond the Ganges) and that Ptolemy listed the cities of Burma. See McLaughlin (2010), p. 58.
  9. ^ For information on Matteo Ricci and reestablishment of Western contact with China by the Portuguese Empire during the Age of Discovery, see: Fontana (2011), pp. 18–35, 116–118.
  10. Kingdom of Funan
    , see: Suárez (1999), p. 92.
  11. Kutaradja (Banda Aceh
    , Indonesia) as other plausible sites for that port. Mawer (2013), p. 38.

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Sources

Further reading

Library resources about
Sino-Roman relations
  • 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.
  • Schoff, Wilfred H.: "Navigation to the Far East under the Roman Empire", Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 37 (1917), pp. 240–249
  • Bueno, André (May 2016). ""Roman Views of the Chinese in Antiquity" in Sino-Platonic Papers" (PDF). Sino-platonic.org. Retrieved 10 September 2016.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sino-Roman_relations&oldid=1217772008"