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

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...

and the

Han Empire The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...

of China, as well as between the later

Eastern Roman Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantin ...

and various

Chinese dynasties Dynasties in Chinese history, or Chinese dynasties, were hereditary monarchical regimes that ruled over China during much of its history. From the legendary inauguration of dynastic rule by Yu the Great circa 2070 BC to the abdication of t ...

. These empires inched progressively closer to each other in the course of the Roman expansion into the

ancient Near East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...

and of the simultaneous Han Chinese military incursions into

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

. Mutual awareness remained low, and firm knowledge about each other was limited. Surviving records document only a few attempts at direct contact. Intermediate empires such as the Parthians and

Kushans The Kushan Empire ( grc, Βασιλεία Κοσσανῶν; xbc, Κυϸανο, ; sa, कुषाण वंश; Brahmi: , '; BHS: ; xpr, 𐭊𐭅𐭔𐭍 𐭇𐭔𐭕𐭓, ; zh, 貴霜 ) was a syncretic empire, formed by the Yuezhi, ...

, seeking to maintain control over the lucrative

silk trade The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and rel ...

, inhibited direct contact between these two

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago ...

n powers. In 97 AD the Chinese general Ban Chao tried to send his envoy

Gan Ying Gan Ying (; fl. 90s CE) was a Chinese diplomat, explorer, and military official who was sent on a mission to the Roman Empire in 97 CE by the Chinese military general Ban Chao. Gan Ying did not reach Rome, only traveling to as far as the "west ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, but

Parthia Parthia ( peo, 𐎱𐎼𐎰𐎺 ''Parθava''; xpr, 𐭐𐭓𐭕𐭅 ''Parθaw''; pal, 𐭯𐭫𐭮𐭥𐭡𐭥 ''Pahlaw'') is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Med ...

ns dissuaded Gan from venturing beyond the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bod ...

. Ancient Chinese historians recorded several alleged Roman emissaries to China. The first one on record, supposedly either from the Roman emperor

Antoninus Pius Antoninus Pius ( Latin: ''Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius''; 19 September 86 – 7 March 161) was Roman emperor from 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the Five Good Emperors from the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. Born into a senatori ...

or from his adopted son

Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good ...

, 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 Silk Road and sea routes involved (for example) Chinese

silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the ...

Roman glass Roman glass objects have been recovered across the Roman Empire in domestic, industrial and funerary contexts. Glass was used primarily for the production of vessels, although mosaic tiles and window glass were also produced. Roman glass productio ...

ware and high-quality cloth.

Roman coins Roman currency for most of Roman history consisted of gold, silver, bronze, orichalcum and copper coinage. From its introduction to the Republic, during the third century BC, well into Imperial times, Roman currency saw many changes in form, denom ...

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

medal A medal or medallion is a small portable artistic object, a thin disc, normally of metal, carrying a design, usually on both sides. They typically have a commemorative purpose of some kind, and many are presented as awards. They may be int ...

lions from the reigns of

() and

() in

Jiaozhi Jiaozhi (standard Chinese, pinyin: ''Jiāozhǐ''), or Giao Chỉ (Vietnamese), was a historical region ruled by various Chinese dynasties, corresponding to present-day northern Vietnam. The kingdom of Nanyue (204–111 BC) set up the Jiaozhi Co ...

(in present-day

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

), 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 The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...

(202 BC to 220 AD). Roman coins and glass beads have also been found in Japan. In classical sources, the problem of identifying references to ancient China is exacerbated by the interpretation of the Latin term ''

Seres Seres are the people of Serica, one of the easternmost countries of Asia known to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Seres may also refer to: People * * * Brands and enterprises * See also * Celes (disambiguation) Celes may refer to: * ...

'', whose meaning fluctuated and could refer to several Asian peoples in a wide arc from India over Central Asia to China. In Chinese records, the Roman Empire came to be known as ''

Daqin Daqin (; alternative transliterations include Tachin, Tai-Ch'in) is the ancient Chinese name for the Roman Empire or, depending on context, the Near East, especially Syria. It literally means "great Qin"; Qin () being the name of the founding dyn ...

'' or Great Qin. Chinese sources directly associated ''Daqin'' with the later ''Fulin'' (), which scholars such as

Friedrich Hirth Friedrich Hirth, Ph.D. (16 April 1845 in Gräfentonna, Saxe-Gotha – 10 January 1927 in Munich) was a German-American sinologist. Biography He was educated at the universities of Leipzig, Berlin, and Greifswald (Ph.D., 1869). He was in the ...

have identified as the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

. Chinese sources describe several embassies of Fulin arriving in China during the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdom ...

(618–907 AD) and also mention the

siege of Constantinople The following is a list of sieges of Constantinople, a historic city located in an area which is today part of Istanbul, Turkey. The city was built on the land that links Europe to Asia through Bosporus and connects the Sea of Marmara and the ...

by the forces of Muawiyah I in 674–678 AD. Geographers in the Roman Empire, such as

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importance ...

in the second century AD, provided a rough sketch of the eastern

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

, including the Malay Peninsula and beyond this the Gulf of Thailand and the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phi ...

. Ptolemy's "Cattigara" was most likely

Óc Eo Óc Eo ( Vietnamese) is an archaeological site in modern-day Óc Eo commune of Thoại Sơn District in An Giang Province of southern Vietnam. Located in the Mekong Delta, Óc Eo was a busy port of the kingdom of Funan between the 2nd century BC ...

, Vietnam, where Antonine-era Roman items have been found. Ancient Chinese geographers demonstrated a general knowledge of

West Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...

and of Rome's eastern provinces. The 7th-century AD Byzantine historian

Theophylact Simocatta Theophylact Simocatta (Byzantine Greek: Θεοφύλακτος Σιμοκάτ(τ)ης ''Theophýlaktos Simokát(t)ēs''; la, Theophylactus Simocatta) was an early seventh-century Byzantine historiographer, arguably ranking as the last historian o ...

wrote of China's reunification under the contemporary Sui dynasty (581 to 618 AD), noting that the northern and southern halves were separate nations recently at war. This mirrors both the conquest of Chen by Emperor Wen of Sui () as well as the names '' Cathay'' and ''Mangi'' used by later medieval Europeans in China during the

Mongol The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member ...

-led

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fift ...

(1271–1368) and the Han-Chinese Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279).

Geographical accounts and cartography

Roman geography

Beginning in the 1st century BC with

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

, Horace, and Strabo, Roman historians offer only vague accounts of China and the silk-producing Seres people of the

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The ter ...

, who were perhaps the ancient Chinese.Lewis (2007), p. 143. The 1st-century AD geographer

Pomponius Mela Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest Roman geographer. He was born in Tingentera (now Algeciras) and died AD 45. His short work (''De situ orbis libri III.'') remained in use nearly to the year 1500. It occupies less ...

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 The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern * : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Centra ...

of the Eurasian Steppe. 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.Ostrovsky (2007), p. 44. Roman authors generally seem to have been confused about where the Seres were located, in either Central Asia or East Asia. The historian

Ammianus Marcellinus Ammianus Marcellinus (occasionally anglicised as Ammian) (born , died 400) was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius). His work, known as the ''Res Gestae ...

(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 The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Ha ...

. The existence of China was known to Roman cartographers, but their understanding of it was less certain. Ptolemy's 2nd-century AD ''

Geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...

'' separates the Land of Silk (''Serica'') at the end of the overland Silk Road from the land of the Qin (''Sinae'') reached by sea. The Sinae are placed on the northern shore of the

Great Gulf The Great Gulf is a glacial cirque, or amphitheater-like valley head formed from a glacier by erosion, located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The cirque's walls are formed, from south to north, by the mountainsides of Mount Washington ( ...

(''Magnus Sinus'') east of the Golden Peninsula (''Aurea Chersonesus'', Malay Peninsula). Their chief port, Cattigara, seems to have been in the lower Mekong Delta. The Great Gulf served as a combined Gulf of Thailand and

, as

Marinus of Tyre Marinus of Tyre ( grc-gre, Μαρῖνος ὁ Τύριος, ''Marînos ho Týrios''; 70–130) was a Greek geographer, cartographer and mathematician, who founded mathematical geography and provided the underpinnings of Claudius Ptolemy' ...

and Ptolemy's belief that the Indian Ocean was an inland sea caused them to bend the

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...

n coast south beyond the equator before turning west to join southern

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...

(

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

).Raoul McLaughlin (2010), pp. 58–59. Much of this is given as unknown lands, but the north-eastern area is placed under the Sinae. Classical geographers such as Strabo and

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

were slow to incorporate new information into their works and, from their positions as esteemed scholars, were seemingly prejudiced against lowly merchants and their

topographical Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sc ...

accounts. Ptolemy's work represents a break from this, since he demonstrated an openness to their accounts and would not have been able to chart the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line betwee ...

so accurately without the input of traders.Parker (2008), p. 118. In the 1st-century AD ''

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' ( grc, Περίπλους τῆς Ἐρυθρᾶς Θαλάσσης, ', modern Greek '), also known by its Latin name as the , is a Greco-Roman periplus written in Koine Greek that describes navigation and ...

'', its anonymous Greek-speaking author, a merchant of Roman Egypt, provides such vivid accounts of eastern trade cities that it is clear he visited many of them. These include sites in Arabia, Pakistan, and India, including travel times from rivers and towns, where to 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 A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal osci ...

winds.Schoff (2004) 912br>Introduction
Retrieved 19 September 2016. The ''Periplus'' also mentions a great inland city, '' Thinae'' (or ''Sinae''), in a country called ''This'' that perhaps stretched as far as the Caspian. The text notes that silk produced there travelled to neighbouring India via the

Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...

and to Bactria by a land route. 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). 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 The Kra Isthmus ( th, คอคอดกระ, ) in Thailand is the narrowest part of the Malay Peninsula. The western part of the isthmus belongs to Ranong Province and the eastern part to Chumphon Province, both in Southern Thailand. The ...

to reach the Perimulic Gulf (the Gulf of

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

). Alexandros claimed that it took twenty days to sail from Thailand to a port called "Zabia" (or ''Zaba'') in southern Vietnam.McLaughlin (2014), p. 205.Suárez (1999), p. 90. 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). 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.

Cosmas Indicopleustes Cosmas Indicopleustes ( grc-x-koine, Κοσμᾶς Ἰνδικοπλεύστης, lit=Cosmas who sailed to India; also known as Cosmas the Monk) was a Greek merchant and later hermit from Alexandria of Egypt. He was a 6th-century traveller who ma ...

, a 6th-century AD Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Greek monk from

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...

and former merchant with experience in the Indian Ocean trade, was the first Roman to write clearly about China in his '' Christian Topography'' (c. 550 AD). He called it the country of '' Tzinista'' (comparable to

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

''Chinasthana'' and

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

''Sinistan'' from the 781 AD

Nestorian Stele The Xi'an Stele or the Jingjiao Stele ( zh, c=景教碑, p= Jǐngjiào bēi), sometimes translated as the "Nestorian Stele," is a Tang Chinese stele erected in 781 that documents 150 years of early Christianity in China. It is a limestone block ...

Xi'an Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by other names, is the capital of Shaanxi Province. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong Plain, the city is the third most populous city in Western China, after Chongqi ...

, China), located in easternmost Asia.Yule (1915), p. 28. He explained the maritime route towards it (first sailing east and then north up the southern coast of the Asian continent) and the fact that cloves came that way to Sri Lanka for sale. By the time of the Eastern Roman ruler

Justinian I Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renova ...

(r. 527–565 AD), the Byzantines purchased Chinese silk from Sogdian intermediaries. They also smuggled silkworms out of China with the help of

Nestorian Nestorianism is a term used in Christian theology and Church history to refer to several mutually related but doctrinarily distinct sets of teachings. The first meaning of the term is related to the original teachings of Christian theologian ...

monks, who claimed that the land of Serindia was located north of India and produced the finest silk.Luttwak (2009), p. 168. 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. From

Turkic peoples The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members speak languages belonging t ...

of Central Asia during the Northern Wei (386–535 AD) period the Eastern Romans acquired yet another name for China: '' Taugast'' (

Old Turkic Old Turkic (also East Old Turkic, Orkhon Turkic language, Old Uyghur) is the earliest attested form of the Turkic languages, found in Göktürk and Uyghur Khaganate inscriptions dating from about the eighth to the 13th century. It is the old ...

: '' Tabghach'').

, a historian during the reign of Heraclius (r. 610–641 AD), wrote that Taugast (or Taugas) was a great eastern empire colonised by Turkic people, with a capital city northeast of India that he called ''Khubdan'' (from the Turkic word ''Khumdan'' used for the Sui and Tang capital

Chang'an Chang'an (; ) is the traditional name of Xi'an. The site had been settled since Neolithic times, during which the Yangshao culture was established in Banpo, in the city's suburbs. Furthermore, in the northern vicinity of modern Xi'an, Qin S ...

), where idolatry was practised but the people were wise and lived by just laws. He depicted the Chinese empire as being divided by a great river (the Yangzi) that served as the boundary between two rival nations at war; during the reign of Byzantine Emperor

Maurice Maurice may refer to: People * Saint Maurice (died 287), Roman legionary and Christian martyr * Maurice (emperor) or Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus (539–602), Byzantine emperor *Maurice (bishop of London) (died 1107), Lord Chancellor and ...

(582–602 AD) the northerners wearing "black coats" conquered the "red coats" of the south (black being a distinctive colour worn by the people of

Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see § Name) is a landlocked province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), N ...

, location of the Sui capital Sui Chang'an, according to the 16th-century Persian traveller Hajji Mahomed, or Chaggi Memet).Yule (1915), p. 30; footnote #2 on p. 30. This account may correspond to the conquest of the Chen dynasty and reunification of China by Emperor Wen of Sui (r. 581–604 AD). Simocatta names their ruler as ''Taisson'', which he claimed meant Son of God, either correlating to the Chinese ''Tianzi'' ( Son of Heaven) or even the name of the contemporary ruler

Emperor Taizong of Tang Emperor Taizong of Tang (28January 59810July 649), previously Prince of Qin, personal name Li Shimin, was the second emperor of the Tang dynasty of China, ruling from 626 to 649. He is traditionally regarded as a co-founder of the dynasty ...

(r. 626–649 AD). Later medieval Europeans in China wrote of it as two separate countries, with '' Cathay'' in the north and '' Mangi'' in the south, during the period when the

led by Mongol ruler Kublai Khan (r. 1260–1294 AD) conquered the Southern Song Dynasty.

Chinese geography

Detailed geographical information about the Roman Empire, at least its easternmost territories, is provided in traditional Chinese historiography. The ''

Shiji ''Records of the Grand Historian'', also known by its Chinese name ''Shiji'', is a monumental history of China that is the first of China's 24 dynastic histories. The ''Records'' was written in the early 1st century by the ancient Chinese his ...

'' by Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BC) gives descriptions of countries in

and

. These accounts became significantly more nuanced in the ''

Book of Han The ''Book of Han'' or ''History of the Former Han'' (Qián Hàn Shū,《前汉书》) is a history of China finished in 111AD, covering the Western, or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. ...

'', co-authored by Ban Gu and his sister

Ban Zhao Ban Zhao (; 45 or 49 – c. 117/120 CE), courtesy name Huiban (), was a Chinese historian, philosopher, and politician. She was the first known female Chinese historian and, along with Pamphile of Epidaurus, one of the first known female h ...

, younger siblings of the general Ban Chao, who led military exploits into Central Asia before returning to China in 102 AD. 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.For the assertion that the first Chinese mention of Daqin belongs to the ''Book of the Later Han'', see: Wilkinson (2000), p. 730. These accounts seem to be restricted to descriptions of the

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...

, particularly Syria. Historical linguist

Edwin G. Pulleyblank Edwin George "Ted" Pulleyblank (August 7, 1922 – April 13, 2013) was a Canadian sinologist and professor at the University of British Columbia. He was known for his studies of the historical phonology of Chinese. Life and career Edwin G. ...

explains that Chinese historians considered Daqin to be a kind of "counter-China" located at the opposite end of their known world.Pulleyblank (1999), p. 71.See also Lewis (2007), p. 143. According to Pulleyblank, "the Chinese conception of Dà Qín was confused from the outset with ancient mythological notions about the far west". From the Chinese point of view, the Roman Empire was considered "a distant and therefore mystical country," according to Krisztina Hoppál. 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. Pulleyblank provides some linguistic analysis to dispute their proposal, arguing that Tiaozhi () in the ''Shiji'' was most likely the Seleucid Empire and that Lijian, although still poorly understood, could be identified with either

Hyrcania Hyrcania () ( el, ''Hyrkania'', Old Persian: 𐎺𐎼𐎣𐎠𐎴 ''Varkâna'',Lendering (1996) Middle Persian: 𐭢𐭥𐭫𐭢𐭠𐭭 ''Gurgān'', Akkadian: ''Urqananu'') is a historical region composed of the land south-east of the Caspian ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

or even Alexandria in Egypt. The ''

Weilüe The ''Weilüe'' () was a Chinese historical text written by Yu Huan between 239 and 265. Yu Huan was an official in the state of Cao Wei (220–265) during the Three Kingdoms period (220–280). Although not a formal historian, Yu Huan has been h ...

'' by

Yu Huan Yu Huan ( third century) was a historian of the state of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period of China. Life Yu Huan was from Jingzhao Commandery, which is around present-day Xi'an, Shaanxi.''Shitong'' vol. 12. He is best known for writin ...

(c. 239–265 AD), preserved in annotations to the '' Records of the Three Kingdoms'' (published in 429 AD by Pei Songzhi), also provides details about the easternmost portion of the Roman world, including mention of the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

. For Roman Egypt, the book explains the location of Alexandria, travelling distances along the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest ...

and the tripartite division of the Nile Delta,

Heptanomis Middle Egypt () is the section of land between Lower Egypt (the Nile Delta) and Upper Egypt, stretching upstream from Asyut in the south to Memphis in the north. At the time, Ancient Egypt was divided into Lower and Upper Egypt, though Middle ...

, and

Thebaid The Thebaid or Thebais ( grc-gre, Θηβαΐς, ''Thēbaïs'') was a region in ancient Egypt, comprising the 13 southernmost nomes of Upper Egypt, from Abydos to Aswan. Pharaonic history The Thebaid acquired its name from its proximity to ...

. In his ''

Zhu Fan Zhi ''Zhu Fan Zhi'' (), variously translated as '' A Description of Barbarian Nations'', ''Records of Foreign People'', or other similar titles, is a 13th-century Song Dynasty work by Zhao Rukuo. The work is a collection of descriptions of countri ...

'', the

Song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetit ...

-era Quanzhou customs inspector

Zhao Rugua Zhao Rukuo (; 1170–1231), also read as Zhao Rugua, or misread as Zhao Rushi, was a Chinese historian and politician during the Song dynasty. He wrote a two-volume book titled ''Zhu Fan Zhi''. The book deals with the world known to the Chinese in t ...

(1170–1228 AD) described the ancient

Lighthouse of Alexandria The Lighthouse of Alexandria, sometimes called the Pharos of Alexandria (; Ancient Greek: ὁ Φάρος τῆς Ἀλεξανδρείας, contemporary Koine ), was a lighthouse built by the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, during the rei ...

. Both the ''Book of the Later Han'' and the ''Weilüe'' mention the "flying"

pontoon bridge A pontoon bridge (or ponton bridge), also known as a floating bridge, uses floats or shallow-draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the supports limits the maximum load that they can carry. ...

() over the

Euphrates The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers''). Originating in Turkey, the Eup ...

Zeugma, Commagene Zeugma ( grc-gre, Ζεῦγμα; syr, ܙܘܓܡܐ) was an ancient Hellenistic era Greek and then Roman city of Commagene; located in modern Gaziantep Province, Turkey. It was named for the bridge of boats, or , that crossed the Euphrates at t ...

Roman Anatolia Classical Anatolia is Anatolia during Classical Antiquity. Early in that period, Anatolia was divided into several Iron Age kingdoms, most notably Lydia in the west, Phrygia in the center and Urartu in the east. Anatolia fell under Achaemenid P ...

. The ''Weilüe'' also listed what it considered the most important dependent

vassal A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain ...

states of the Roman Empire, providing travel directions and estimates for the distances between them (in Chinese miles, ''li''). Friedrich Hirth (1885) identified the locations and dependent states of Rome named in the ''Weilüe''; some of his identifications have been disputed.Hirth (2000) 885br>"From the Wei-lio (written before 429 C.E.), for 220–264 C.E."
(using Wade-Giles) identified these dependent vassal states as Alexandria-Euphrates or

Charax Spasinu , alternate_name = , image = Hyspaosines.jpg , alt = , caption = Hyspaosines (209–124 BC), founder and king of Characene, had his capital in Charax. , map_type = Iraq , map_alt = , map_size = 250 , location = Iraq , region ...

("Ala-san"), Nikephorium ("Lu-fen"),

Palmyra Palmyra (; Palmyrene: () ''Tadmor''; ar, تَدْمُر ''Tadmur'') is an ancient city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early secon ...

("Ch'ieh-lan"), Damascus ("Hsien-tu"),

Emesa ar, حمصي, Himsi , population_urban = , population_density_urban_km2 = , population_density_urban_sq_mi = , population_blank1_title = Ethnicities , population_blank1 = , population_blank2_t ...

("Si-fu"), and

Hira Hira may refer to: Places * Cave of Hira, a cave associated with Muhammad *Al-Hirah, an ancient Arab city in Iraq ** Battle of Hira, 633AD, between the Sassanians and the Rashidun Caliphate *Hira Mountains, Japan * Hira, New Zealand, settlement no ...

("Ho-lat"). Going south of Palmyra and Emesa led one to the "Stony Land", which Hirth identified as

Arabia Petraea Arabia Petraea or Petrea, also known as Rome's Arabian Province ( la, Provincia Arabia; ar, العربية البترائية; grc, Ἐπαρχία Πετραίας Ἀραβίας) or simply Arabia, was a frontier province of the Roman Emp ...

, due to the text speaking how it bordered a sea (the

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...

) where

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and ...

s and real

pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...

s 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 Azania ( grc, Ἀζανία) is a name that has been applied to various parts of southeastern tropical Africa. In the Roman period and perhaps earlier, the toponym referred to a portion of the Southeast Africa coast extending from northern Keny ...

(), Al Wajh (),

Wadi Sirhan Wadi Sirhan ( ar, وَادِي سِرْحَان, Wādī Sirḥān; translation: "Valley of Sirhan") is a wide depression in the northwestern Arabian Peninsula. It runs from the Azraq oasis in Jordan southeastward into Saudi Arabia, where most o ...

(), Leukos Limên, ancient site controlling the entrance to the

Gulf of Aqaba The Gulf of Aqaba ( ar, خَلِيجُ ٱلْعَقَبَةِ, Khalīj al-ʿAqabah) or Gulf of Eilat ( he, מפרץ אילת, Mifrátz Eilát) is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian ...

near modern Aynūnah (), Petra (),

al-Karak Al-Karak ( ar, الكرك), is a city in Jordan known for its medieval castle, the Kerak Castle. The castle is one of the three largest castles in the region, the other two being in Syria. Al-Karak is the capital city of the Karak Governorate. ...

(), and Sura (). Hirth identified Si-fu () as

; John E. Hill (2004) uses linguistic and situational evidence to argue it was Petra in the

Nabataean Kingdom The Nabataean Kingdom ( Nabataean Aramaic: 𐢕𐢃𐢋𐢈 ''Nabāṭū''), also named Nabatea (), was a political state of the Arab Nabataeans during classical antiquity. The Nabataean Kingdom controlled many of the trade routes of the region, ...

, which was annexed by Rome in 106 AD during the reign of

Trajan Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...

. The '' Old Book of Tang'' and '' New Book of Tang'' record that

the Arabs The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, N ...

(''Da shi'' ) sent their commander Mo-yi (,

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...

: ''Móyè'', i.e. Muawiyah I, governor of Syria and later

Umayyad caliph The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...

, r. 661–680 AD) to besiege the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, and forced the Byzantines to pay them tribute. The same books also described Constantinople in some detail as having strong granite walls and a

water clock A water clock or clepsydra (; ; ) is a timepiece by which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into (inflow type) or out from (outflow type) a vessel, and where the amount is then measured. Water clocks are one of the oldest time- ...

mounted with a golden statue of man.Yule (1915), pp. 46–48.

Henry Yule Sir Henry Yule (1 May 1820 – 30 December 1889) was a Scottish Orientalist and geographer. He published many travel books, including translations of the work of Marco Polo and ''Mirabilia'' by the 14th-century Dominican Friar Jordanus. ...

noted that the name of the Byzantine negotiator "Yenyo" (the patrician John Pitzigaudes) was mentioned in Chinese sources, an envoy who was unnamed in

Edward Gibbon Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English historian, writer, and member of parliament. His most important work, '' The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, is ...

's account of the man sent to Damascus to hold a parley with the Umayyads, followed a few years later by the increase of tributary demands on the Byzantines. The ''New Book of Tang'' and ''

Wenxian Tongkao The ''Wenxian Tongkao'' () or ''Tongkao'' was one of the model works of the '' Tongdian'' compiled by Ma Duanlin in 1317, during the Yuan Dynasty. References *Dong, Enlin, et al. (2002). ''Historical Literature and Cultural Studies''. Wuhan: Hube ...

'' described the land of

Nubia Nubia () (Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), or ...

(either the

Kingdom of Kush The Kingdom of Kush (; Egyptian: 𓎡𓄿𓈙𓈉 ''kꜣš'', Assyrian: ''Kûsi'', in LXX grc, Κυς and Κυσι ; cop, ''Ecōš''; he, כּוּשׁ ''Kūš'') was an ancient kingdom in Nubia, centered along the Nile Valley in wh ...

Aksum Axum, or Aksum (pronounced: ), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire, a naval and trading power that ruled the whole regio ...

) as a desert south-west of the Byzantine Empire that was infested with

malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...

, where the natives had black skin and consumed Persian dates. In discussing the three main religions of Nubia (the Sudan), the ''Wenxian Tongkao'' mentions the Daqin religion there and the day of rest occurring every seven days for those following the faith of the ''Da shi'' (the Muslim Arabs). It also repeats the claim in the ''New Book of Tang'' about the Eastern Roman surgical practice of

trepanning Trepanning, also known as trepanation, trephination, trephining or making a burr hole (the verb ''trepan'' derives from Old French from Medieval Latin from Greek , literally "borer, auger"), is a surgical intervention in which a hole is drill ...

to remove parasites from the brain. The descriptions of Nubia and Horn of Africa in the ''Wenxian Tongkao'' were ultimately derived from the '' Jingxingji'' of

Du Huan Du Huan (, ) was a Chinese travel writer born in Chang'an during the Tang Dynasty. According to his writings, he was one of a few Chinese captured in the Battle of Talas in 751, along with artisans Fan Shu and Liu Ci and fabric weavers Le Wei and L ...

(fl. 8th century AD), a Chinese travel writer whose text, preserved in the ''

Tongdian The ''Tongdian'' () is a Chinese institutional history and encyclopedia text. It covers a panoply of topics from high antiquity through the year 756, whereas a quarter of the book focuses on the Tang Dynasty. The book was written by Du You from 766 ...

'' of

Du You Du You () (735 – December 23, 812), courtesy name Junqing (), formally Duke Anjian of Qi (), was a Chinese historian, military general, and politician. He served as chancellor of the Tang Dynasty. Du was born to an eminent aristocratic family in ...

, is perhaps the first Chinese source to describe

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

(''Laobosa''), in addition to offering descriptions of Eritrea (''Molin''). Abraham, Curtis. (11 March 2015).
China’s long history in Africa
". ''

New African ''New African'' is an English-language monthly news magazine based in London. Published since 1966, it is read by many people across the African continent and the African diaspora. It claims to be the oldest pan-African monthly in English, as w ...

''. Accessed 2 August 2017.

Embassies and travel

Prelude

Some contact may have occurred between Hellenistic Greeks and the

Qin dynasty The Qin dynasty ( ; zh, c=秦朝, p=Qín cháo, w=), or Ch'in dynasty in Wade–Giles romanization ( zh, c=, p=, w=Ch'in ch'ao), was the first dynasty of Imperial China. Named for its heartland in Qin state (modern Gansu and Shaanxi), ...

in the late 3rd century BC, following the Central Asian campaigns of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...

, king of

Macedon Macedonia (; grc-gre, Μακεδονία), also called Macedon (), was an Classical antiquity, ancient monarchy, kingdom on the periphery of Archaic Greece, Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. Th ...

, and the establishment of

Hellenistic kingdoms The Diadochi (; singular: Diadochus; from grc-gre, Διάδοχοι, Diádochoi, Successors, ) were the rival generals, families, and friends of Alexander the Great who fought for control over his empire after his death in 323 BC. The War ...

relatively close to China, such as the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. Excavations at the burial site of China's first Emperor

Qin Shi Huang Qin Shi Huang (, ; 259–210 BC) was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China. Rather than maintain the title of " king" ( ''wáng'') borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled as the First Empero ...

(r. 221–210 BC) suggest ancient

Greeks The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...

may have paid tribute and submitted to the supreme universal rule of the

Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctiv ...

emperor by giving him gifts with Greek stylistic and

technological Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

influences in some of the artworks found buried there, including a few examples of the famous

terracotta army The Terracotta Army is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE with the purpose of protecting the emperor ...

. Cultural exchanges at such an early date are generally regarded as conjectural in academia, but excavations of a 4th-century BC tomb in Gansu province belonging to the state of Qin have yielded Western items such as glass beads and a blue-glazed (possibly

faience Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major a ...

) beaker of Mediterranean origin. Trade and diplomatic relations between China's Han Empire and remnants of Hellenistic Greek civilization under the rule of the nomadic Da Yuezhi began with the Central Asian journeys of the Han envoy

Zhang Qian Zhang Qian (; died c. 114) was a Chinese official and diplomat who served as an imperial envoy to the world outside of China in the late 2nd century BC during the Han dynasty. He was one of the first official diplomats to bring back valuable inf ...

(d. 113 BC). He brought back reports to the court of Emperor Wu of Han about the "

Dayuan Dayuan (or Tayuan; ; Middle Chinese ''dâiC-jwɐn'' < LHC: ''dɑh-ʔyɑn'') is the Chinese

" in the

Fergana Valley The Fergana Valley (; ; ) in Central Asia lies mainly in eastern Uzbekistan, but also extends into southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan. Divided into three republics of the former Soviet Union, the valley is ethnically diverse and in the ...

, with Alexandria Eschate as its capital, and the "

Daxia Daxia, Ta-Hsia, or Ta-Hia (; literally: 'Great Xia') was apparently the name given in antiquity by the Han Chinese to Tukhara or Tokhara: the main part of Bactria, in what is now northern Afghanistan, and parts of southern Tajikistan and Uzbek ...

" of Bactria, in what is now Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The only well-known Roman traveller to have visited the easternmost fringes of Central Asia was Maes Titianus,His "

ian" origin betokens no more than his cultural affinity, and the name Maës is Semitic in origin, Cary (1956), p. 130. a contemporary of

in either the late 1st or early 2nd century ADThe mainstream opinion, noted by Cary (1956), p. 130, note #7, based on the date of

, established by his use of many

ic foundation names but none identifiable with Hadrian. who visited a "Stone Tower" that has been identified by historians as either Tashkurgan in the Chinese

Pamirs The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range between Central Asia and Pakistan. It is located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya mountain ranges. They are among the world ...

Centuries later ''Tashkurgan'' ("Stone Tower") was the capital of the Pamir kingdom of Sarikol. or a similar monument in the Alai Valley just west of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.

Embassy to Augustus

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

" (possibly the Chinese) to the court of the first Roman Emperor

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...

(r. 27 BC – 14 AD): In the entire corpus of

Roman literature Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature ...

and

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...

, Yule was unable to uncover any other mention of such a direct diplomatic encounter between the Romans and the Seres. He speculated that these people were more likely to have been private merchants than diplomats, since Chinese records insist that

was the first Chinese to reach as far west as Tiaozhi (;

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

) in 97 AD.Yule (1915), p. 18; for a discussion of ''Tiaozhi'' (条支) and even its

etymology Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...

possibly stemming from the

Tajiks Tajiks ( fa, تاجيک، تاجک, ''Tājīk, Tājek''; tg, Тоҷик) are a Persian-speaking Iranian ethnic group native to Central Asia, living primarily in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Tajiks are the largest ethnicity in Taj ...

and

Iranian peoples The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse grouping of Indo-European peoples who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages and other cultural similarities. The Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separat ...

under ancient Chinese rule, see footnote #2 on p. 42. Yule notes that the 1st-century AD ''Periplus'' mentioned that people of ''Thinae'' ( Sinae) were rarely seen, because of the difficulties of reaching that country.Yule (1915), footnote #2 on p. 43. It states that their country, located under

Ursa Minor Ursa Minor (Latin: 'Lesser Bear', contrasting with Ursa Major), also known as the Little Bear, is a constellation located in the far northern sky. As with the Great Bear, the tail of the Little Bear may also be seen as the handle of a ladle, ...

and on the farthest unknown reaches of the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...

, was the origin of raw silk and fine silk cloth that was traded overland from Bactria to Barygaza, as well as down the Ganges.Schoff (2004) 912br>Paragraph #64
Retrieved 19 September 2016.

Envoy Gan Ying

The

Eastern Han The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...

general Ban Chao (32–102 AD), in a series of military successes which brought the

Western Regions The Western Regions or Xiyu (Hsi-yü; ) was a historical name specified in the Chinese chronicles between the 3rd century BC to the 8th century AD that referred to the regions west of Yumen Pass, most often Central Asia or sometimes more sp ...

(the

Tarim Basin The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Northwest China occupying an area of about and one of the largest basins in Northwest China.Chen, Yaning, et al. "Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, China." Hydr ...

of Xinjiang) back under Chinese control and suzerainty, defeated the Da Yuezhi in 90 AD and the Northern Xiongnu in 91 AD, forcing the submission of city-states such as

Kucha Kucha, or Kuche (also: ''Kuçar'', ''Kuchar''; ug, كۇچار, Кучар; zh, t= 龜茲, p=Qiūcí, zh, t= 庫車, p=Kùchē; sa, कूचीन, translit=Kūcīna), was an ancient Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road ...

and

Turfan Turpan (also known as Turfan or Tulufan, , ug, تۇرپان) is a prefecture-level city located in the east of the autonomous region of Xinjiang, China. It has an area of and a population of 632,000 (2015). Geonyms The original name of the cit ...

Khotan Hotan (also known as Gosthana, Gaustana, Godana, Godaniya, Khotan, Hetian, Hotien) is a major oasis town in southwestern Xinjiang, an autonomous region in Western China. The city proper of Hotan broke off from the larger Hotan County to become ...

and Kashgar (Indo-European Tocharian and

Saka The Saka ( Old Persian: ; Kharoṣṭhī: ; Ancient Egyptian: , ; , old , mod. , ), Shaka (Sanskrit ( Brāhmī): , , ; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): , ), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples who hist ...

settlements, respectively), and finally

Karasahr Karasahr or Karashar ( ug, قاراشەھەر, Qarasheher, 6=Қарашәһәр), which was originally known, in the Tocharian languages as ''Ārśi'' (or Arshi) and Agni or the Chinese derivative Yanqi ( zh, s=焉耆, p=Yānqí, w=Yen-ch'i), is an ...

in 94 AD. An embassy from the

Parthian Empire The Parthian Empire (), also known as the Arsacid Empire (), was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe in conque ...

had earlier arrived at the Han court in 89 AD and, while Ban was stationed with his army in

, another Parthian embassy came in 101 AD, this time bringing exotic gifts such as

ostrich Ostriches are large flightless birds of the genus ''Struthio'' in the order Struthioniformes, part of the infra-class Palaeognathae, a diverse group of flightless birds also known as ratites that includes the emus, rheas, and kiwis. There ...

es.Crespigny (2007), pp. 590–591. 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

and reached the Persian Gulf.Crespigny (2007), pp. 239–240. 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. Deterred, he returned to China bringing much new information on the countries to the west of Chinese-controlled territories, as far as the Mediterranean Basin. Gan Ying is thought to have left an account of the

(Daqin in Chinese) which relied on secondary sources—likely sailors in the ports which he visited. The ''Book of the Later Han'' locates it in ''Haixi'' ("west of the sea", or Roman Egypt; the sea is the one known to the Greeks and Romans as the

Erythraean Sea The Erythraean Sea ( grc-gre, Ἐρυθρὰ Θάλασσα, ''Erythrà Thálassa'', ."Red Sea") was a former maritime designation that always included the Gulf of Aden and at times other seas between Arabia Felix and the Horn of Africa. Origin ...

, which included the

, the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea ( ar, اَلْبَحرْ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Bahr al-ˁArabī) is a region of the northern Indian Ocean bounded on the north by Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel ...

, and Red Sea):Hill (2009), pp. 23, 25. The ''Book of the Later Han'' gives a positive, if inaccurate, view of Roman governance: Yule noted that although the description of the

Roman Constitution The Roman Constitution was an uncodified set of guidelines and principles passed down mainly through precedent.Byrd, 161 The Roman constitution was not formal or even official, largely unwritten and constantly evolving. Having those characteristic ...

and products was garbled, the ''Book of the Later Han'' offered an accurate depiction of the coral fisheries in the Mediterranean.Yule (1915), pp. 43–44.

Coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and ...

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

s. The original list of Roman products given in the ''Book of the Later Han'', such as

sea silk Sea silk is an extremely fine, rare, and valuable fabric that is made from the long silky filaments or byssus secreted by a gland in the foot of pen shells (in particular '' Pinna nobilis''). The byssus is used by the clam to attach itself to ...

glass Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling ( quenching ...

amber Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In ...

cinnabar Cinnabar (), or cinnabarite (), from the grc, κιννάβαρι (), is the bright scarlet to brick-red form of mercury(II) sulfide (HgS). It is the most common source ore for refining elemental mercury and is the historic source for the bri ...

, and asbestos cloth, is expanded in the ''

''. 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. 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. 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.

Possible Roman Greeks in Burma and China

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 by a king of Burma to Emperor An of Han in 120 AD. "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.

It is known that in both the Parthian Empire and Kushan Empire of Asia, ethnic Greeks continued to be employed after the

Hellenistic period In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

as musicians and athletes. The ''Book of the Later Han'' states that Emperor An transferred these entertainers from his countryside residence to the capital

Luoyang Luoyang is a city located in the confluence area of Luo River and Yellow River in the west of Henan province. Governed as a prefecture-level city, it borders the provincial capital of Zhengzhou to the east, Pingdingshan to the southeast, Nanyang ...

, where they gave a performance at his court and were rewarded with gold, silver, and other gifts. With regard to the origin of these entertainers, Raoul McLaughlin speculates that the Romans were selling slaves to the Burmese and that this is how the entertainers originally reached Burma before they were sent by the Burmese ruler to Emperor An in China.McLaughlin (2010), p. 58.Raoul McLaughlin notes that the Romans knew Burma as '' India Trans Gangem'' (India Beyond the Ganges) and that

listed the cities of Burma. See McLaughlin (2010), p. 58. Meanwhile, Syrian jugglers were renowned in Western Classical literature, and Chinese sources from the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century AD seem to mention them as well.

First Roman embassy

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 Emperor Huan of

Han China The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a war ...

from "Andun" (; Emperor

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good ...

), "king of Daqin" (Rome): As Antoninus Pius died in 161 AD, leaving the empire to his adoptive son Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and the envoy arrived in 166 AD, confusion remains about who sent the mission, as both emperors were named "Antoninus".Pulleyblank (1999), p. 78.Hill (2009), p. 27. The Roman mission came from the south (therefore probably by sea), entering China by the frontier of Rinan or

Tonkin Tonkin, also spelled ''Tongkin'', ''Tonquin'' or ''Tongking'', is an exonym referring to the northern region of Vietnam. During the 17th and 18th centuries, this term referred to the domain '' Đàng Ngoài'' under Trịnh lords' control, includ ...

(present-day Vietnam). It brought presents of

rhinoceros horn A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species o ...

ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals i ...

, and

tortoise Tortoises () are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin: ''tortoise''). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like oth ...

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

, probably acquired in Southern Asia. The text states that it was the first time there had been direct contact between the two countries. Yule speculated that the Roman visitors must have lost their original wares due to robbery or shipwreck and used the gifts instead, prompting Chinese sources to suspect them of withholding their more precious valuables, which Yule notes was the same criticism directed at papal missionary

John of Montecorvino John of Montecorvino or Giovanni da Montecorvino in Italian (1247 – 1328) was an Italian Franciscan missionary, traveller and statesman, founder of the earliest Latin Catholic missions in India and China, and archbishop of Peking. He convert ...

when he arrived in China in the late 13th century AD. Historians Rafe de Crespigny,

Peter Fibiger Bang Peter Fibiger Bang (born 25 June 1973) is a Danish historian of Rome, empire, cross-cultural comparison and world history. Bang's main research interests are Roman economic history and imperial power, historical sociology and world histo ...

, and

Warwick Ball Warwick Ball is an Australia-born Near-Eastern archaeologist. Ball has been involved in excavations, architectural studies and monumental restorations in Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Ethiopia and Afghanistan. As a lecturer, he has been involved wit ...

believe that this was most likely a group of Roman merchants rather than official diplomats sent by Marcus Aurelius.Ball (2016), p. 152. de Crespigny (2007), p. 600. Crespigny stresses that the presence of this Roman embassy as well as others from Tianzhu (in

northern India North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Central ...

) and

Buyeo Buyeo or Puyŏ ( Korean: 부여; Korean pronunciation: u.jʌ or 扶餘 ''Fúyú''), also rendered as Fuyu, was an ancient kingdom that was centered in northern Manchuria in modern-day northeast China. It is sometimes considered a Korea ...

(in

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer M ...

) provided much-needed prestige for Emperor Huan, as he was facing serious political troubles and fallout for the forced suicide of politician Liang Ji, who had dominated the Han government well after the death of his sister Empress Liang Na. Yule emphasised that the Roman embassy was said to come by way of

in northern Vietnam, the same route that Chinese sources claimed the embassies from Tianzhu (northern India) had used in 159 and 161 AD.

Other Roman embassies

Green glass Roman cup unearthed at Eastern Han tomb, Guixian, China

Illustration of Byzantine embassy to Tang Taizong 643 CE

The ''

'' and ''

Book of Liang The ''Book of Liang'' (''Liáng Shū''), was compiled under Yao Silian and completed in 635. Yao heavily relied on an original manuscript by his father Yao Cha, which has not independently survived, although Yao Cha's comments are quoted in seve ...

'' record the arrival in 226 AD of a merchant named Qin Lun () from

the Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

(Daqin) at Jiaozhou (Chinese-controlled northern Vietnam). Wu Miao, the Prefect of Jiaozhi, sent him to the court of Sun Quan (the ruler of Eastern Wu during the

Three Kingdoms The Three Kingdoms () from 220 to 280 AD was the tripartite division of China among the dynastic states of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu. The Three Kingdoms period was preceded by the Eastern Han dynasty and was followed by the West ...

) in

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...

, where Sun requested that he provide him with a report on his native country and its people. An expedition was mounted to return the merchant along with ten female and ten male "blackish coloured dwarfs" he had requested as a curiosity, as well as a Chinese officer, Liu Xian of Huiji (in

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , Chinese postal romanization, also romanized as Chekiang) is an East China, eastern, coastal Provinces of China, province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable citie ...

), who died en route. According to the ''Weilüe'' and ''Book of Liang'' Roman merchants were active in Cambodia and Vietnam, a claim supported by modern archaeological finds of ancient Mediterranean goods in the

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

n countries of Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. 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 Wei ( Hanzi: 魏; pinyin: ''Wèi'' < Middle Chinese: *''ŋjwei^C'' <

glassware of various colours. 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.Yule (1915), p. 53; see footnotes #4–5. Another embassy from Daqin is recorded as bringing tributary gifts to the Chinese Jin Empire (266–420 AD). This occurred in 284 AD during the reign of

Emperor Wu of Jin Emperor Wu of Jin (; 236 – 16 May 290), personal name Sima Yan (), courtesy name Anshi (安世), was the grandson of Sima Yi, nephew of Sima Shi and son of Sima Zhao. He became the first emperor of the Jin dynasty after forcing Cao Huan, ...

(r. 266–290 AD), and was recorded in the ''

Book of Jin The ''Book of Jin'' is an official Chinese historical text covering the history of the Jin dynasty from 266 to 420. It was compiled in 648 by a number of officials commissioned by the imperial court of the Tang dynasty, with chancellor Fang ...

'', as well as the later ''

''. This embassy was presumably sent by the Emperor Carus (r. 282–283 AD), whose brief reign was preoccupied by war with

Sasanian Persia The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...

.Yule (1915), pp. 53–54.

Fulin: Eastern Roman embassies

Emperor Taizong gives an audience to the ambassador of Tibet

Chinese histories for the

(618–907 AD) record contacts with merchants from "Fulin" (), the new name used to designate the Byzantine Empire.Wilkinson (2000), p. 730, footnote #14. The first reported diplomatic contact took place in 643 AD during the reigns of Constans II (641–668 AD) and

(626–649 AD). The '' Old Book of Tang'', followed by the '' New Book of Tang'', provides the name "Po-to-li" (,

: ''Bōduōlì'') for Constans II, which Hirth conjectured to be a transliteration of ''Kōnstantinos Pogonatos'', or "Constantine the Bearded", giving him the title of a

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

(王 ''wáng''). Yule and S. A. M. Adshead offer a different transliteration stemming from "

patriarch The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and in certai ...

" or "

patrician Patrician may refer to: * Patrician (ancient Rome), the original aristocratic families of ancient Rome, and a synonym for "aristocratic" in modern English usage * Patrician (post-Roman Europe), the governing elites of cities in parts of medieval ...

", possibly a reference to one of the acting

regent A regent (from Latin : ruling, governing) is a person appointed to govern a state '' pro tempore'' (Latin: 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy ...

s for the 13-year-old Byzantine monarch.Adshead (1995) 988 p. 105. The Tang histories record that Constans II sent an embassy in the 17th year of the Zhenguan () regnal period (643 AD), bearing gifts of red glass and green gemstones. Yule points out that

Yazdegerd III Yazdegerd III (also spelled Yazdgerd III and Yazdgird III; pal, 𐭩𐭦𐭣𐭪𐭥𐭲𐭩) was the last Sasanian King of Kings of Iran from 632 to 651. His father was Shahriyar and his grandfather was Khosrow II. Ascending the throne at the ...

(r. 632–651 AD), last ruler of the Sasanian Empire, sent diplomats to China to secure aid from Emperor Taizong ( considered the suzerain over Ferghana in Central Asia) during the loss of 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. Tang Chinese sources also recorded how Sasanian prince

Peroz III Peroz III ( pal, 𐭯𐭩𐭫𐭥𐭰 ''Pērōz''; ) was son of Yazdegerd III, the last Sasanian King of Kings of Iran. After the death of his father, who legend says was killed by a miller at the instigation of the governor of Marw, he retreated ...

(636–679 AD) fled to Tang China following the conquest of Persia by the growing Islamic caliphate. 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. Adshead lists four official diplomatic contacts with Fulin in the ''Old Book of Tang'' as occurring in 643, 667, 701, and 719 AD. He speculates that the absence of these missions in Western literary sources can be explained by how the Byzantines typically viewed political relations with powers of the East, as well as the possibility that they were launched on behalf of frontier officials instead of the central government.Adshead (1995) 988 p. 104. Yule and Adshead concur that a Fulin diplomatic mission occurred during the reign of

Justinian II Justinian II ( la, Iustinianus; gr, Ἰουστινιανός, Ioustinianós; 668/69 – 4 November 711), nicknamed "the Slit-Nosed" ( la, Rhinotmetus; gr, ὁ Ῥινότμητος, ho Rhinótmētos), was the last Eastern Roman emperor of the ...

(r. 685–695 AD; 705–711 AD). Yule claims it occurred in the year of the emperor's death, 711 AD, whereas Adshead contends that it took place in 701 AD during the usurpation of

Leontios Leontius ( el, Λεόντιος, Leóntios; – 15 February 706), was Byzantine emperor from 695 to 698. Little is known of his early life, other than that he was born in Isauria in Asia Minor. He was given the title of ''patrikios'', and mad ...

and the emperor's exile in

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

, perhaps the reason for its omission in Byzantine records and the source for confusion in Chinese histories about precisely who sent this embassy.Adshead (1995), pp. 105–106. Justinian II regained the throne with the aid of Bulgars and a marriage alliance with the

Khazars The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...

. Adshead therefore believes a mission sent to Tang China would be consistent with Justinian II's behaviour, especially if he had knowledge of the permission Empress Wu Zetian granted to

Narsieh Narsieh ( pal, 𐭭𐭥𐭮𐭧𐭩 ''Narseh''; ) was a Persian general who fled to the Tang dynasty with his father Peroz III, son of Yazdegerd III, the last Sassanid emperor of Persia, after the Muslim conquest of Persia. He was escorted back ...

, son of Peroz III, to march against the Arabs in Central Asia at the end of the 7th century. The 719 AD a Fulin embassy ostensibly came from

Leo III the Isaurian Leo III the Isaurian ( gr, Λέων ὁ Ἴσαυρος, Leōn ho Isauros; la, Leo Isaurus; 685 – 18 June 741), also known as the Syrian, was Byzantine Emperor from 717 until his death in 741 and founder of the Isaurian dynasty. He put an e ...

(r. 717–741 AD) to the court of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (r. 712–756 AD), during a time when the Byzantine emperor was again reaching out to Eastern powers with a renewed Khazar marriage alliance.Adshead (1995) 988 p. 106. It also came as Leo III had just defeated the Arabs in 717 CE. The Chinese annals record that "In the first month of the seventh year of the period Kaiyuan

19 CE AD 19 ( XIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Silanus and Balbus (or, less frequently, year 772 ''Ab urbe condita''). ...

their lord ��菻王, "the King of Fulin"sent the Ta-shou-ling n officer of high rankof T'u-huo-lo Tokhara.html" ;"title="Tokharistan.html" ;"title="��火羅, Tokharistan">Tokhara">Tokharistan.html" ;"title="��火羅, Tokharistan">Tokhara(...) to offer lions and ling-yang [antelopes], two of each. A few months after, he further sent Ta-te-seng ["priests of great virtue"] to our court with tribute." During its long voyage, this embassy probably visited the Turk Shahis king of

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

, since the son of the king took the title " Fromo Kesaro" when he acceded to the throne in 739 CE. " Fromo Kesaro" is a phonetic transcription of "Roman Caesar", probably chosen in honor of "Caesar", the title of Leo III, who had defeated their common enemy the Arabs. In Chinese sources "Fromo Kesaro" was aptly transcribed ''"Fulin Jisuo"'' (拂菻罽娑), " Fulin" (拂菻) being the standard

Tang Dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdom ...

name for "

". The year of this embassy coincided with Xuanzong's refusal to provide aid to the Sogdians of Bukhara and Samarkand against the Arab invasion force. An embassy from the Umayyad Caliphate was received by the Tang court in 732 AD. However, the Arab victory at the 751 AD Battle of Talas and the

An Lushan Rebellion The An Lushan Rebellion was an uprising against the Tang dynasty of China towards the mid-point of the dynasty (from 755 to 763), with an attempt to replace it with the Yan dynasty. The rebellion was originally led by An Lushan, a general offi ...

crippled Tang Chinese interventionist efforts in Central Asia. The last diplomatic contacts with Fulin are recorded as having taken place in the 11th century AD. From the ''Wenxian Tongkao'', written by historian

Ma Duanlin ''Mă Duānlín'' () (1245–1322) was a Chinese historical writer and encyclopaedist. In 1317, during the Yuan Dynasty, he published the comprehensive Chinese encyclopedia ''Wenxian Tongkao'' in 348 volumes. He was born to the family of Southern ...

(1245–1322), and from the '' History of Song'', it is known that the Byzantine emperor Michael VII Parapinakēs Caesar (, ''Mie li sha ling kai sa'') of Fulin sent an embassy to China's

Song dynasty The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...

that arrived in 1081 AD, during the reign of

Emperor Shenzong of Song Emperor Shenzong of Song (25 May 1048 – 1 April 1085), personal name Zhao Xu, was the sixth emperor of the Song dynasty of China. His original personal name was Zhao Zhongzhen but he changed it to "Zhao Xu" after his coronation. He reigned f ...

(r. 1067–1085 AD).Sezgin (1996), p. 25. The ''History of Song'' described the tributary gifts given by the Byzantine embassy as well as the products made in Byzantium. It also described punishments used in

Byzantine law Byzantine law was essentially a continuation of Roman law with increased Orthodox Christian and Hellenistic influence. Most sources define ''Byzantine law'' as the Roman legal traditions starting after the reign of Justinian I in the 6th century ...

, such as the

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

of being stuffed into a "feather bag" and thrown into the sea, probably the Romano-Byzantine practice of '' poena cullei'' (from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

'penalty of the sack'). The final recorded embassy arrived in 1091 AD, during the reign of

Alexios I Komnenos Alexios I Komnenos ( grc-gre, Ἀλέξιος Κομνηνός, 1057 – 15 August 1118; Latinized Alexius I Comnenus) was Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118. Although he was not the first emperor of the Komnenian dynasty, it was during ...

(r. 1081–1118 AD); this event is only mentioned in passing. The ''

History of Yuan The ''History of Yuan'' (''Yuán Shǐ''), also known as the ''Yuanshi'', is one of the official Chinese historical works known as the ''Twenty-Four Histories'' of China. Commissioned by the court of the Ming dynasty, in accordance to political ...

'' offers a biography of a Byzantine man named Ai-sie (transliteration of either Joshua or Joseph), who originally served the court of

Güyük Khan Güyük (also Güyug;; ''c''. March 19, 1206 – April 20, 1248) was the third Khagan-Emperor of the Mongol Empire, the eldest son of Ögedei Khan and a grandson of Genghis Khan. He reigned from 1246 to 1248. Appearance According to Giovann ...

but later became a head

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

and

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

for the court of Kublai Khan, the Mongol founder of the

(1271–1368 AD), at Khanbaliq (modern

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

). Bretschneider (1888), p. 144. He was eventually granted the title Prince of Fulin (, ''Fúlǐn wáng'') and his children were listed with their

Chinese name Chinese names or Chinese personal names are names used by individuals from Greater China and other parts of the Chinese-speaking world throughout East and Southeast Asia (ESEA). In addition, many names used in Japan, Korea and Vietnam are ofte ...

s, which seem to match with transliterations of the Christian names Elias, Luke, and Antony. Kublai Khan is also known to have sent Nestorian monks, including

Rabban Bar Sauma Rabban Bar Ṣawma (Syriac language: , ; 1220January 1294), also known as Rabban Ṣawma or Rabban ÇaumaMantran, p. 298 (), was a Turkic Chinese ( Uyghur or possibly Ongud) monk turned diplomat of the "Nestorian" Church of the East in China. ...

, to the court of Byzantine ruler Andronikos II Palaiologos (r. 1282–1328 AD), whose half-sisters were married to the great-grandsons of Genghis Khan, making this Byzantine ruler an in-law with the Mongol ruler in Beijing. Within the Mongol Empire, which eventually included all of China, there were enough Westerners travelling there that in 1340 AD

Francesco Balducci Pegolotti Pegolotti Pratica Ricc.2441 specimen half page. Francesco Balducci Pegolotti (fl. 1290 – 1347), also Francesco di Balduccio, was a Florentine merchant and politician. Life His father, Balduccio Pegolotti, represented Florence in commercial neg ...

compiled a

guide book A guide book or travel guide is "a book of information about a place designed for the use of visitors or tourists". It will usually include information about sights, accommodation, restaurants, transportation, and activities. Maps of varying det ...

for fellow merchants on how to exchange silver for

paper money A banknote—also called a bill (North American English), paper money, or simply a note—is a type of negotiable promissory note, made by a bank or other licensed authority, payable to the bearer on demand. Banknotes were originally issued ...

to purchase silk in Khanbaliq (Beijing). By this stage the Eastern Roman Empire, temporarily dismantled by the

Latin Empire The Latin Empire, also referred to as the Latin Empire of Constantinople, was a feudal Crusader state founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Byzantine Empire. The Latin Empire was intended to replace the Byzant ...

, had shrunk to the size of a rump state in parts of Greece and

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...

, author of the ''Wenxian Tongkao'', noted the shifting political boundaries, albeit based on generally inaccurate and distorted political geography. 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 Wade–Giles () is a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Francis Wade, during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert A. Giles's '' Chinese–English Dictionary'' o ...

spelling): The ''

History of Ming The ''History of Ming'' or the ''Ming History'' (''Míng Shǐ'') is one of the official Chinese historical works known as the ''Twenty-Four Histories''. It consists of 332 volumes and covers the history of the Ming dynasty from 1368 to 1644. It ...

'' expounds how the Hongwu Emperor, founder of the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peo ...

(1368–1644 AD), sent a merchant of Fulin named "Nieh-ku-lun" () back to his native country with a letter announcing the founding of the Ming dynasty.Grant (2005), p. 99.Hirth (1885), p. 66. It is speculated that the merchant was a former archbishop of Khanbaliq called Nicolaus de Bentra (who succeeded

for that position).Luttwak (2009), p. 170. The ''History of Ming'' goes on to explain that contacts between China and Fulin ceased after this point and an envoy of the great western sea (the

) did not appear in China again until the 16th century AD, with the 1582 AD arrival of the Italian

Jesuit missionary , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders = ...

Matteo Ricci in Portuguese

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a p ...

.For information on Matteo Ricci and reestablishment of Western contact with China by the

Portuguese Empire The Portuguese Empire ( pt, Império Português), also known as the Portuguese Overseas (''Ultramar Português'') or the Portuguese Colonial Empire (''Império Colonial Português''), was composed of the overseas colonies, factories, and the ...

during the

Age of Discovery The Age of Discovery (or the Age of Exploration), also known as the early modern period, was a period largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, approximately from the 15th century to the 17th century in European history, during which seafarin ...

, see: Fontana (2011), pp. 18–35, 116–118.

Trade relations

Roman exports to China

Ménade danzante, Casa del Naviglio, Pompeya

Nizami Ganjavi - Separated by a Green Curtain, a Chinese and Roman Artist Compete with Each Other - Walters W604261A - Full Page

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. Greek navigators learned to use the regular pattern of the

winds for their trade voyages in the

. 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. Archaeological evidence stretching from the Red Sea ports of Roman Egypt to India suggests that Roman commercial activity in the Indian Ocean and

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.McLaughlin (2010), p. 58–60. High-quality

from Roman manufacturers in

and Syria was exported to many parts of Asia, including Han China. The first

ware discovered in China is a blue soda-lime glass bowl dating to the early 1st century BC and excavated from a Western Han tomb in the southern port city of

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

, which may have come there via the Indian Ocean and

.An (2002), p. 83. Other Roman glass items include a mosaic-glass bowl found in a prince's tomb near

dated to 67 AD and a glass bottle with opaque white streaks found in an

tomb of

. Roman and Persian glassware has been found in a 5th-century AD tomb of Gyeongju, Korea, capital of ancient

Silla Silla or Shilla (57 BCE – 935 CE) ( , Old Korean: Syera, Old Japanese: Siraki2) was a Korean kingdom located on the southern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula. Silla, along with Baekje and Goguryeo, formed the Three Kingdoms ...

, east of China. Roman glass beads have been discovered as far as Japan, within the 5th-century AD Kofun-era Utsukushi burial mound near

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin, Keihanshin metropolitan area along wi ...

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

rugs Rug or RUG may refer to: * Rug, or carpet, a textile floor covering * Rug, slang for a toupée * Ghent University (''Rijksunversiteit Gent'', or RUG) * Really Useful Group, or RUG, a company set up by Andrew Lloyd Webber * Rugby railway station, N ...

and gold-coloured cloth,

, asbestos cloth, and

, which was a cloth made from the silk-like hairs of a Mediterranean shellfish, the '' Pinna nobilis''.Thorley (1971), pp. 71–80.Lewis (2007), p. 115. As well as silver and bronze items found throughout China dated to the 3rd–2nd centuries BC and perhaps originating from the Seleucid Empire, there is also a Roman gilded silver plate dated to the 2nd–3rd centuries AD and found in

Jingyuan County, Gansu Jingyuan County () is a county in the east of Gansu Province. It is under the administration of Baiyin City, and consists of two separate tracts of territory to the north and south of Pingchuan District. The northern tract borders Ningxia to the ...

, with a raised

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

image in the centre depicting the Greco-Roman god

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Roma ...

resting on a feline creature. A maritime route opened up with the Chinese-controlled port of Rinan in Jiaozhi (centred in modern Vietnam) and the Khmer kingdom of Funan by the 2nd century AD, if not earlier. Jiaozhi was proposed by Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877 to have been the port known to the Greco-Roman geographer

as Cattigara, situated near modern

Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...

. Ptolemy wrote that Cattigara lay beyond the Golden Chersonese (the Malay Peninsula) and was visited by a Greek sailor named Alexander, most likely a merchant. Richthofen's identification of Cattigara as Hanoi was widely accepted until archaeological discoveries at

(near Ho Chi Minh City) in the Mekong Delta during the mid-20th century suggested this may have been its location.For a summary of scholarly debate about the possible locations of Cattigara by the end of the 20th century, with proposals ranging from

, and the

Mekong River Delta The Mekong Delta ( vi, Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long, lit=Nine Dragon River Delta or simply vi, Đồng Bằng Sông Mê Kông, lit=Mekong River Delta, label=none), also known as the Western Region ( vi, Miền Tây, links=no) or South-weste ...

of the Kingdom of Funan, see: Suárez (1999), p. 92. At this place, which was once located along the coastline, Roman coins were among the vestiges of long-distance trade discovered by the French archaeologist

Louis Malleret Louis Malleret (1901–1970) was a French archaeologist. Malleret together with Paul Levy are credited with first reporting the archeological site An Son in Southern Vietnam. References 1901 births 1970 deaths French archaeologists Pe ...

in the 1940s.Osborne (2006), pp. 24–25. These include Roman golden

lions from the reigns of

and his successor Marcus Aurelius.Young (2001), p. 29. Furthermore, Roman goods and native jewellery imitating 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.Mawer (2013), p. 38.Mawer also mentions Kauthara (in Khánh Hòa Province, Vietnam) and Kutaradja ( Banda Aceh, Indonesia) as other plausible sites for that port. Mawer (2013), p. 38. In addition, Ancient Roman glass beads and bracelets were also found at the site. The trade connection from Cattigara extended, via ports on the coasts of India and Sri Lanka, all the way to Roman-controlled ports in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

and the

Nabataean The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; Arabic: , , singular , ; compare grc, Ναβαταῖος, translit=Nabataîos; la, Nabataeus) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern L ...

territories on the north-eastern coast of the Red Sea. 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

, 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. Ball (2016), p. 153. 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.

Chinese silk in the Roman Empire

Chinese trade with the Roman Empire, confirmed by the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

desire for silk, started in the 1st century BC. The Romans knew of

wild silk Wild silks have been known and used in many countries from early times, although the scale of production is far smaller than that from cultivated silkworms. Silk cocoons and nests often resemble paper or cloth, and their use has arisen independent ...

harvested on Cos ('' coa vestis''), but they did not at first make the connection with the silk that was produced in the

Pamir Pamir may refer to: Geographical features * Pamir Mountains, a mountain range in Central Asia ** Pamir-Alay, a mountain system in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, part of the Pamir Mountains *A pamir (valley) is a high plateau or valley surro ...

Sarikol kingdom Tashkurgan ( ug, تاشقورغان بازىرى; zh, s=塔什库尔干镇, p=Tǎshíkù'ěrgān Zhèn; ) is a town in the far northwest of China, close to the country's border with Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. It is the principal tow ...

. 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. 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.Whitfield (1999), p. 21. In his '' Natural History'' (77–79 AD),

lamented the financial drain of coin from the Roman economy to purchase this expensive luxury. He remarked that Rome's "womankind" and the purchase of luxury goods from India, Arabia, and the Seres of the

cost the empire roughly 100 million sesterces per year, and claimed that journeys were made to the Seres to acquire silk cloth along with

pearl diving Pearl hunting, also known as pearling, is the activity of recovering pearls from wild molluscs, usually oysters or mussels, in the sea or freshwater. Pearl hunting was prevalent in the Persian Gulf region and Japan for thousands of years. On t ...

in the

. 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. 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. 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: Gladiateur Begram Guimet 18117

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.Ball (2016), pp. 153–154. Chinese-produced glassware date back to the Western Han era (202 BC – 9 AD). 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 The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 20 ...

, than with establishing trade, since mercantile pursuits and the

merchant class The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. The ...

were frowned upon by the

gentry Gentry (from Old French ''genterie'', from ''gentil'', "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. Word similar to gentle imple and decentfamilies ''Gentry'', in its widest c ...

who dominated the Han government.

Roman and Byzantine currency discovered in China

Bronze coin of Contantius II 337 361 found in Karghalik

Valerie Hansen Valerie Hansen is an American historian. Career After graduating from Kent School in 1975, Harvard University in 1979 and receiving her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1987, she joined Yale University in 1988 as assistant prof ...

wrote in 2012 that no Roman coins from the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Ki ...

(509–27 BC) or the

Principate The Principate is the name sometimes given to the first period of the Roman Empire from the beginning of the reign of Augustus in 27 BC to the end of the Crisis of the Third Century in AD 284, after which it evolved into the so-called Dominate. ...

(27 BC – 284 AD) era of the

have been found in China.Hansen (2012), p. 97. Nevertheless,

(2016) cites two studies from 1978 summarizing the discovery at

, China (the site of the Han capital

) of a hoard of sixteen Roman coins from the reigns of

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...

(14–37 AD) to Aurelian (270–275 AD).Ball (2016), p. 154. The Roman coins found at Óc Eo, Vietnam, near Chinese-controlled Jiaozhou, date to the mid-2nd century AD.O'Reilly (2007), p. 97. A coin of Maximian (r. 286–305 AD) was also discovered in

. As a note, Roman coins of the 3rd and 4th centuries AD have been discovered in Japan; they were unearthed from

Katsuren Castle is a Ryukyuan '' gusuku'' in Uruma, Okinawa. In 2000, Katsuren Castle was designated as a World Heritage Site, as a part of the Gusuku Sites and Related Properties of the Kingdom of Ryukyu. History Katsuren Castle was built on a large hill of ...

(in

Uruma, Okinawa is a city located in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. The modern city of Uruma was established on April 1, 2005, when the cities of Gushikawa and Ishikawa were merged with the towns of Katsuren and Yonashiro (both from Nakagami District). As of M ...

), which was built from the 12th to 15th centuries AD. Shortly after the

smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire In the mid-6th century CE, two monks, with the support of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, acquired and smuggled living silkworms into the Byzantine Empire, which led to the establishment of an indigenous Byzantine silk industry that long held ...

from China by Nestorian Christian monks, the 6th-century AD Byzantine historian

Menander Protector Menander Protector (Menander the Guardsman, Menander the Byzantian; el, Μένανδρος Προτήκτωρ or Προτέκτωρ), Byzantine historian, was born in Constantinople in the middle of the 6th century AD. The little that is known of ...

wrote of how the Sogdians attempted to establish a direct trade of Chinese silk with the

. After forming an alliance with the Sasanian Persian ruler Khosrow I to defeat the Hephthalite Empire,

Istämi Istämi (or Dizabul or Ishtemi Sir Yabghu Khagan; ) was the ruler of the western part of the Göktürks, which became the Western Turkic Khaganate and dominated the Sogdians. He was the yabgu (vassal) of his brother Bumin Qaghan in 552 AD. He wa ...

, the Göktürk ruler of the First Turkic Khaganate, was approached by Sogdian merchants requesting permission to seek an audience with the Sasanian king of kings for the privilege of travelling through Persian territories to trade with the Byzantines.Howard (2012), p. 133. Istämi refused the first request, but when he sanctioned the second one and had the Sogdian embassy sent to the Sasanian king, the latter had the members of the embassy killed by poison. Maniakh, a Sogdian diplomat, convinced Istämi to send an embassy directly to Byzantium's capital

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...

, which arrived in 568 AD and offered not only silk as a gift to Byzantine ruler

Justin II Justin II ( la, Iustinus; grc-gre, Ἰουστῖνος, Ioustînos; died 5 October 578) or Justin the Younger ( la, Iustinus minor) was Eastern Roman Emperor from 565 until 578. He was the nephew of Justinian I and the husband of Sophia, the ...

, but also an alliance against Sasanian Persia. Justin II agreed and sent an embassy under Zemarchus to the Turkic Khaganate, ensuring the direct silk trade desired by the Sogdians. The small number of

and

Byzantine coins Byzantine currency, money used in the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the West, consisted of mainly two types of coins: the gold solidus and a variety of clearly valued bronze coins. By the end of the empire the currency was issued only i ...

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, and discoveries in contemporary tombs indicate that the Han-dynasty Chinese imported Roman glassware.An (2002), pp. 79–94. The earliest gold ''solidus'' coins from the Eastern Roman Empire found in China date to the reign of Byzantine emperor

Theodosius II Theodosius II ( grc-gre, Θεοδόσιος, Theodosios; 10 April 401 – 28 July 450) was Roman emperor for most of his life, proclaimed ''augustus'' as an infant in 402 and ruling as the eastern Empire's sole emperor after the death of his ...

(r. 408–450 AD) and altogether only forty-eight of them have been found (compared to 1300 silver coins) in

Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

and the rest of China. The use of silver coins in

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. 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

talisman A talisman is any object ascribed with religious or magical powers intended to protect, heal, or harm individuals for whom they are made. Talismans are often portable objects carried on someone in a variety of ways, but can also be installed perm ...

s, confirming the pre-eminence of Greater Iran in Chinese Silk Road commerce of Central Asia compared to Eastern Rome.

Walter Scheidel Walter Scheidel (born 9 July 1966) is an Austrian historian who teaches ancient history at Stanford University, California. Scheidel's main research interests are ancient social and economic history, pre-modern historical demography, and com ...

remarks that the Chinese viewed Byzantine coins as pieces of exotic jewellery, preferring to use bronze coinage in the Tang and

dynasties, as well as

during the Song and Ming periods, even while silver bullion was plentiful. 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. 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 The Chola dynasty was a Tamil thalassocratic empire of southern India and one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history of the world. The earliest datable references to the Chola are from inscriptions dated to the 3rd century BCE ...

. Even with the Byzantine production of silk starting in the 6th century AD, Chinese varieties were still considered to be of higher quality. This theory is supported by the discovery of a Byzantine ''solidus'' minted during the reign of

found in a Sui-dynasty tomb of Shanxi province in 1953, among other Byzantine coins found at various sites.Luttwak (2009), pp. 168–169. Chinese histories offer descriptions of Roman and Byzantine coins. The ''

'', ''Book of the Later Han'', ''

'', as well as the later ''

'' noted how ten ancient Roman silver coins were worth one Roman gold coin. The Roman golden ''

aureus The ''aureus'' ( ''aurei'', 'golden', used as a noun) was a gold coin of ancient Rome originally valued at 25 pure silver ''denarii'' (sin. denarius). The ''aureus'' was regularly issued from the 1st century BC to the beginning of the 4th cen ...

'' was worth about twenty-five silver ''

denarii The denarius (, dēnāriī ) was the standard Roman silver coin from its introduction in the Second Punic War to the reign of Gordian III (AD 238–244), when it was gradually replaced by the antoninianus. It continued to be minted in very ...

''. During the later Byzantine Empire, twelve silver ''

miliaresion The ''miliaresion'' ( el, μιλιαρήσιον, from la, miliarensis), is a name used for two types of Byzantine silver coins. In its most usual sense, it refers to the themed flat silver coin struck between the 8th and 11th Century. History O ...

'' was equal to one gold ''

nomisma ''Nomisma'' ( el, νόμισμα) was the ancient Greek word for "money" and is derived from nomos (νόμος) anything assigned, a usage, custom, law, ordinance".The King James Version New Testament Greek Lexicon; Strong's Number:3546 The te ...

''. The '' 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. It also asserts that the Byzantines forbade the production of counterfeit coins.

Human remains

In 2010, mitochondrial DNA was used to identify that a partial skeleton found in a Roman grave from the 1st or 2nd century AD in Vagnari, Italy, had East Asian ancestry on his mother's side. A 2016 analysis of archaeological finds from Southwark in London, the site of the ancient Roman city Londinium in

Roman Britain Roman Britain was the period in classical antiquity when large parts of the island of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. During that time, the territory conquered wa ...

, 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. 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.

Hypothetical military contact

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. After a Roman army under the command of Marcus Licinius Crassus decisively lost the

battle of Carrhae The Battle of Carrhae () was fought in 53 BC between the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire near the ancient town of Carrhae (present-day Harran, Turkey). An invading force of seven legions of Roman heavy infantry under Marcus Liciniu ...

in 53 BC, an estimated 10,000 Roman prisoners were dispatched by the Parthians to

Margiana Margiana ( el, ''Margianḗ'', Old Persian: ''Marguš'', Middle Persian: ''Marv'') is a historical region centred on the oasis of Merv and was a minor satrapy within the Achaemenid satrapy of Bactria, and a province within its successors, the Se ...

to man the frontier. Some time later the nomadic

chief

Zhizhi Zhizhi or Chi-Chi (, from Old Chinese (58 BCE): *''tśit-kie'' < *''tit-ke'';Schuessler 2014, p. 277 died 36 BCE), also known as Jzh-jzh, was a

Talas valley The Talas (Kyrgyz, kk, Талас) is a river that rises in the Talas Region of Kyrgyzstan and flows west into Kazakhstan. The river is long and has a basin area of . Course It is formed from the confluence of the Karakol and Uch-Koshoy and f ...

, near modern-day Taraz. Dubs points to a Chinese account by Ban 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 the

Battle of Zhizhi The Battle of Zhizhi (郅支之戰) was fought in 36 BC between the Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu chieftain Zhizhi Chanyu. Zhizhi was defeated and killed. The battle was probably fought near Taraz on the Talas River in eastern Kazakhstan, whi ...

in 36 BC. He claimed that this might have been the Roman

testudo formation In ancient Roman warfare, the ''testudo'' or tortoise formation was a type of shield wall formation commonly used by the Roman legions during battles, particularly sieges. Formation In the ''testudo'' formation, the men would align their sh ...

and that these men, who were captured by the Chinese, founded the village of Liqian (Li-chien, possibly from "legio") in

Yongchang County Yongchang County () is a county located in the southern half of the prefecture-level city of Jinchang in north-central Gansu province, China, bordering Qinghai to the south. It has been associated with the historical Liqian and Fanhe counties. The ...

. 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.

DNA testing Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, o ...

in 2005 confirmed the

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

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, such as the

Yuezhi The Yuezhi (;) were an ancient people first described in Chinese histories as nomadic pastoralists living in an arid grassland area in the western part of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, during the 1st millennium BC. After a major defeat ...

and

Wusun The Wusun (; Eastern Han Chinese *''ʔɑ-suən'' <

Old Chinese

(140 BCE < 436 BCE): *''Ɂâ-sûn'') were an ancient semi-

. A much more comprehensive DNA analysis of more than two hundred male residents of the village in 2007 showed close genetic relation to the

populace and great deviation from the

Western Eurasian Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago an ...

gene pool. The researchers conclude that the people of Liqian are probably of Han Chinese origin. The area lacks archaeological evidence of a Roman presence.

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

* Abraham, Curtis. (11 March 2015).
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External links

* Duncan B. Campbell: ttps://www.academia.edu/1952695/Romans_in_China Romans in China?* ''New Book of Tang'' passage containing information on Daqin and Fulin (Chinese language source) * Silk-road.com
The First Contact Between Rome and China
{{Territories with limited Roman Empire occupation & presence Foreign relations of ancient Rome Foreign relations of Imperial China History of foreign trade in China Ancient international relations

Geographical accounts and cartography

Roman geography

Chinese geography

Embassies and travel

Prelude

Embassy to Augustus

Envoy Gan Ying

Possible Roman Greeks in Burma and China

First Roman embassy

Other Roman embassies

Fulin: Eastern Roman embassies

Trade relations

Roman exports to China

Chinese silk in the Roman Empire

Roman and Byzantine currency discovered in China

Human remains

Hypothetical military contact

See also

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

Further reading

External links