When the Romans went to China
In 2004 already the
University of Washington’s John E. Hill drafted an English copy of the Weilüe,
a third century C.E. account of the interactions between the Romans and the
Chinese, as told from the perspective of ancient China. “Although the Weilue was never classed among the official or ‘canonical’
histories, it has always been held in the highest regard by Chinese scholars as
a unique and precious source of historical and geographical information,” says
Hill.
For some time it has
been known that Chinese records provide a considerable amount of information on
Daqin 大秦 i. e. Great Qin (synonym of
Roman Empire in Chinese records). Nevertheless, interpretation of these
accounts requires a more coherent nexus.
Looking at the
potential relationships between ancient Greece Rome and second century China
one study that was published
in Science on 8 Nov. 2019 established the influx of many people from the
near East and areas that were part of to the Silk Road. Already mentioned by
contemporary Greek historian Herodotus where the Tocharians
(modern Xinjiang) whose languages are the easternmost group of Indo-European
languages. Caucasoid mummies have been found in various locations in the Tarim Basin such as Loulan, the Xiaohe Tomb complex, and Qäwrighul.
"Tocharian" was given to them by modern scholars, who identified
their speakers with a people who inhabited the important
area of Bactria from the 2nd century BC, and were known in ancient Greek
sources as the Tókharoi (Latin Tochari).
This subject of the relationship between China and Ancient Greece and Rome has
during the past few years has also been intensively studied by specialized
historians like for example also Randolph B. Ford who recently completed a book
soon to be published by Cambridge University Press:
The historical
reconstruction of the trans-Eurasian ‘Silk Roads’ has been the archaeological
documentation coupled with the comparative analysis of the written sources,
that is to say, those of the Roman and the Chinese authors. It has been argued
that from a historiographical perspective, it must be stressed that ‘the
invention of the Silk Roads’ was from the very beginning deeply
associated with the History of the Roman Empire.
The Silk roads to the
Mediterranean combined maritime and overland itineraries. From the production
centers in the territories of North-Western China, the caravans moved westward
through the overland roads of the Tarim basin. From
the Pamir Mountains, silk passed through Bactria, avoiding Parthia, and then
down the Hindu Valley to the Northern India ports. The Periplus testifies the
existence of silk and silk products in the Indian ports of the Western and
Eastern coasts of India. From Muziris different
routes could be taken: the most direct was crossing the Indian Ocean to reach
the Egyptian ports on the Red Sea, then across the desert up to Alexandria.
Another possible route was leading carriers to the port of Charax
Spasinou on the Persian Gulf, and then across the
desert to Palmyra. From this important city (a key hub for the caravan trade),
the silk was then taken to the Syrian cities of Tyre,
Sidon, Antiochia, famous centers for textile
manufacturing.
Indian merchants
provided Roman business people with some necessary information about the location
of China. Roman seafarers used the stars to determine the position of distant
countries and plot the direction of sea crossings. Night journeys across
featureless desert landscapes were also made using the constellations as a
guide.¹ Greek pilots, therefore, tried
to connect Indian information on China with star patterns that might reveal the
global position of this distant country. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea suggests that ‘Thinalies
right under Ursa Minor and must be on the same level as the outer parts of the
Pontus (Black Sea) and the Caspian’ (AD 50).²
Based on this perspective, China was thought to be on the same latitude
as the Caspian Sea in a location just slightly north of its correct position.
A concise history of the Roman contact with China
As ocean commerce
developed, Roman ships began sailing around the southern tip of India to reach
city-ports in the Ganges and Burma. But these Roman voyages remained within the
Indian Ocean since the 1,000-mile-long Malay Peninsula was a significant
barrier that hindered ventures further east. Roman ships were dependent on
seasonal weather. Once the northeast monsoon began to blow in November, it was
time for them to sail back across the ocean to Egypt. ³ This timeframe
discouraged any Roman voyages around the Malay Peninsula to investigate the
lands that lay beyond.
In the early second
century AD, a Greek sailor named Alexandros gathered details from Indian
merchants who sailed to a site on the northern part of the Malay Peninsula
called Tamala. From Tamala, travelers trekked 100 miles across the narrow Kra Isthmus and boarded other Indian vessels on the eastern
seaboard. These ships were outfitted to cross the Gulf of Thailand, and their
Indian crews sailed to Cambodia and Vietnam in search of new trade
opportunities. When they reached the southern tip of Vietnam some of these
ships sailed south into the open sea and made the crossing to Borneo.⁴ Ancient
Borneo was an extensive jungle forested island that was almost as large as Asia
Minor (modern Turkey). Indian ships
making landfall on the 700-mile-long northern coast of Borneo were therefore
unsure if the landmass was an island or some southern extension of the Asian
continent.
The Periplus written
by Alexandros has not survived, but it provided Claudius Ptolemy with most of
the geographical data he used to map the southeast edge of Asia. Using this
information, Ptolemy locates ‘Sinae’ (Han China) in a
narrow band of territory on the very edge of the Asian continent. However,
Ptolemy made errors in his reconstruction of the Far East. He theorized that
the northern coast of Borneo was part of the Asian continent and therefore made
the seaboard of Sinae extend southeast to enclose the
entire southern ocean.⁵
The Maes Titianus
Expedition
For centuries the
overland Silk Routes around the Tarim Basin provided
a conduit through which Chinese goods reached Bactria, India, and Parthia. Only
one Roman merchant group is reported to have ventured into Central Asia and
followed the Tarim routes to the Chinese Empire. The
group was sent by a Roman entrepreneur named Maes Titianus sometime around AD 100. But this contact was
exceptional and was only made possible due to particular circumstances that
arose between the leading ancient empires.
In the late first
century AD, the Han general Ban Chao restored Chinese authority over the Tarim kingdoms using a combination of diplomacy and
military force (AD 74–97). By AD 84, Ban Chao had secured Kashgar,
and the Han could re-establish direct political contacts with the Yuezhi in
Bactria (the Kushan Empire). Chinese rule created stability on the silk routes
and prevented intervening regimes from hindering travel, or monopolizing
various sections of the caravan trails that led across the Tarim
territories. In AD 87 the Parthians responded to these developments by sending
an embassy to China which was received by the Han Emperor Zhang.⁶
They returned with
oriental merchandise and brought new information about the Chinese Empire back
to the Parthian capitals at Ecbatana in Iran and Ctesiphon in Babylonia.
These events probably
motivated Maes Titianus to
plan his own commercial venture into Central Asia. Sometime around AD 100, Maes arranged for a team of commercial agents to travel
along the Parthian caravan routes that led from Iran into Afghanistan. This
Roman group journeyed through the northern part of the Kushan Empire towards
the Tarim territories. Somewhere near the Pamirs,
they were intercepted by Han authorities who took them eastward through the Tarim kingdoms to China. The bewildered Romans were
delivered to the Chinese capital Luoyang and brought before the Han Emperor He.
On their return to the Roman Empire, the group offered an account of their
exploits to Maes who wrote a report for his business
colleagues. This account was read by educated Greeks and Romans, including
geographers who extracted names, distances, and directions from work. One of
these geographers was a mathematician named Marinus, who came from the Syrian
city of Tyre. This is significant because Tyre was famous for its fabric industries and the city was
a leading participant in the international silk trade.⁷ The original report by Maes has not survived into modern times, but Claudius
Ptolemy copied the data collected by Marinus. Ptolemy used the information from
Maes to construct new maps of the Far East and
determine the geographical position of the people that the Romans called the Sinae (the Chinese).⁸
Claudius Ptolemy
describes Maes as ‘a Macedonian who was also called Titianus and was the son of a merchant and a merchant
himself’.⁹ Maes was a Syrian name, and the nomen ‘Titianus’ indicates that
he came from a family granted Roman citizenship by a man called Titian.
Therefore Maes Titianus was
a Macedonian who spoke Greek, but he came from a family of businessmen who
claimed elements of both Syrian and Roman identity. Maes
could have inherited his Roman citizenship from an ancestor who served a
leading politician named Marcus Titius.¹⁰ Titius was
the Roman governor of Syria in 13 BC, and on the orders of Emperor Augustus he helped facilitate an
important peace settlement with the
Parthians. This was the agreement whereby the Parthian King Phraates IV sent several of his young sons and grandsons to
Rome as political wards of the Roman Emperor.¹¹ Strabo describes how Marcus
received four children, four grandchildren and two daughters-in-law of the
Parthian King. He took responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of these
Parthian royals from the time they crossed into Syria until their transfer to
Rome.¹²
Marcus Titius would have sent trusted Syrian servants to the
Parthian capital Ctesiphon to convey messages and arrange for the safe conduct
of the royal family. Marcus probably granted some of these servants Roman
citizenship, and as freedmen, they could have used their knowledge and
political connections to create successful commercial businesses. They had
high-status contacts in Ctesiphon who could acquire silk batches for dispatch
to the cities of Roman Syria. Maes Titianus was probably from one of these merchant families,
a Roman citizen with connections to the Parthian nobility, which ensured that
his business requests would be granted. In this particular context, he was able
to arrange for some of his commercial agents to join a Parthian caravan as it
headed out across Iran towards Bactria and the Kushan Empire.
Claudius Ptolemy
explains the route taken by the Maes group. The first stage in the expedition was a
journey across the Parthian Empire from the Euphrates frontier to Merv on the eastern edge of Iran. Before the onset of
summer, Parthian caravans would have left the hot and humid city of Ctesiphon
and headed east to the seasonal capital of Ecbatana in the drier and cooler
climate of Media.¹³ This was a journey of about 250 miles through passes
in the Zagros Mountains which formed the
outer fringe of the Iranian Plateau.
Caravans followed this route in springtime when snows from the mountains melted
and provided temporary streams of water for the benefit of travelers and their
horse-mounted escorts.
The multi-walled city
of Ecbatana offered accommodation and supplies to the Parthian caravans that
crossed ancient Iran. From Ecbatana, the route headed north across the Iranian
plateau towards the coast of the Caspian Sea. This was a journey of about 200
miles through mountain valleys that descended towards the narrow seaboard of Hyrcania. Hyrcania was a
300-mile-long belt of low-lying territory between the mountains and the Caspian
shore. This plain of fertile land was a
vital corridor for east-west travel as it offered caravans a well-provisioned
route around the eastern section of the Iranian Plateau. On the edge of Hyrcania, the merchant caravans passed through the Iranian
city of Hecatompylos. This was the first capital
created by the Parthians (the Parni) when they
migrated from the Central Asian steppe to settle in northeast Iran (238–209
BC).
The caravan route from
Hecatompylos (Qumis) to the
Parthian frontier at Merv covered more than 450 miles
across arid terrain. Merv
was the last major outpost of the Parthian Empire, and from there, caravans
would have entered Kushan territory and headed 300 miles east to the Bactrian
capital Bactra (Balkh). Centuries earlier, Bactria had been part of a Greek
kingdom that included an urban population descended from Macedonian colonists
(256–140 BC). Perhaps the Maes group was able to exploit a shared Macedonian heritage
to pass unhindered through this region.
In AD 100, there was
peace between Parthian Iran and the Kushan Empire, which ruled in ancient
Afghanistan. This meant that caravans were able to pass unobstructed between
their realms and the Parthian merchants that reached Bactra (Balkh) were
permitted to travel eastward to the Pamir Mountains. It was a journey of about
00 miles between Bactra and a trade outpost on the Kushan frontier known as the
Stone Tower (Tashkurgan). The Stone Tower was a
meeting-ground for the steppe peoples that Claudius Ptolemy calls the
‘Scythians.’ Ptolemy calculated that the entire route from Ctesiphon to the
Stone Tower covered about 26,280 stadia, which is equivalent to about 2,600
miles.¹⁴ Caravans can travel up to 15 miles per day, but with frequent rest
periods, the journey would have taken up to six months.
The Stone Tower trade
outpost in the Pamir Mountains was about 250 miles from the oasis city of Kashgar on the edge of the Tarim
Basin. Perhaps the Roman merchants sent by Maes expected
to conclude their trade dealings at this distant site and then begin the long
trek home to Syria. But in AD 100, Kashgar was a
protectorate of the Han Empire, and Chinese observers were active on this new
frontier. The Protector General Ban Chao was planning his retirement and wanted
to impress the Han Emperor by returning to Luoyang with a range of foreign
peoples from western countries beyond the Tarim
territories. By chance, the Roman merchants were at the Stone Tower when Han
agents were searching for external representatives who could give an account of
their distant homelands to the imperial court. As a result, the Maes group was brought to the offices of Ban Chao in the Tarim kingdoms where they accepted the opportunity to
travel onward to Luoyang.¹⁵
The Maes merchants spoke Greek and were found by Chinese agents
near a country that had once been ruled by Hellenic dynasties (Bactria). They
were also traveling with Parthian merchants and so did not identify themselves
as Roman. This meant that Chinese authorities were not aware they were dealing
with subjects of Da Qin (the Roman Empire). The Maes
merchants were conveyed 600 miles across the Tarim
kingdoms by a Chinese military escort and brought through the Jade Gate to the
600-mile-long Hexi a corridor that led into inner China and the 400-mile route
to Luoyang.15
This part of the
journey revealed the accurate scale of eastern Asia to Roman geographers.
Ptolemy reports, ‘The distance from the Stone
Tower to Sera, the capital of the Seres, is a
journey of seven months, estimated at 36,200 stadia.’¹⁶ This distance was
about 3,600 miles and suggested that a
journey from the Euphrates to central China could be completed in about twelve
months, or a full year of travel. Consequently, anyone making the round trip
would be absent from their homeland for at least two years.
Maes
wrote a full account of the journey taken by his business agents, but only the
briefest summary of this work survives in the map-based discussion given by
Claudius Ptolemy. Ptolemy describes how the Maes
group journeyed for seven months through lands that were previously unknown to
any Greek or Roman authority. As they traveled through the Tarim
territories, the agents kept to a route ‘subject to violent storms’ until, at
the end of their journey,
they entered the
capital of the Seres. This was the imperial city of
Luoyang, and the Maes group found themselves in the
company of dozens of envoys from Central Asia who had come to pay honor to the
Chinese Court.¹⁷
The Chinese history,
known as the Hou Hanshu, reveals the incident from
the Han perspective and dates this encounter to AD 100. It seems that the Maes
group described themselves as Macedonians and explained the long distance
between their Syrian homelands and the Chinese Empire. This information
translated for the imperial court, and the Chinese scribes entered in their
records that the Maes group came from a previously
unknown region called Meng-chi Tou-le (Macedonia–Tyre). The Hou Hanshu reports:
‘the distant States of Mengchi and Tou-le came to make their submission by sending envoys to
bring tribute.’¹⁸ The Chinese were
informed that the route from Meng-chi Tou-le to the
Han capital at Luoyang covered a distance of more than 10,000 miles (40,000
li). This made these western territories the most distant region in contact
with the Chinese regime and placed Meng-chi Toule
within the Roman Empire.
The Maes merchants followed the protocol practiced by foreign
envoys and were permitted into the imperial palace to offer formal submission
to Emperor He.
The group was
carrying lightweight silks that had been rewoven in Syrian workshops and had
some imperial gold coins that bore the image of the Roman Emperor. The Hou Hanshu reports that the representatives from Mengchi Tou-le ‘brought silks and the gold seal of their
ruler’.¹⁹ There were dozens of visiting envoys offering tribute at this time,
and the Maes group was accepted as just another party
of exotic foreigners from a minor power on the western edge of Asia. They would
have received the finest Han silks as diplomatic gifts before being escorted
back to the Stone Tower to begin their long return journey to Syria.
The report written by
Maes described a journey to the Far East that
challenged the traditional view of Central Asia as a place occupied by monsters
and cannibals.
The expedition
confirmed the existence of robust and well-organized kingdoms on the eastern
edge of Asia. This new awareness of China could explain a comment made by
Juvenal when he complains that Roman women were interfering in traditional male
interests by interrupting generals with the question, ‘what are the intentions
of the Chinese?’²⁰
The Maes report suggested unique opportunities for the
development of distant commerce and the advancement of Roman knowledge. For the
first time, Roman subjects in Syria and Egypt knew for sure that there was an
Asian superpower in the Far East that manufactured large quantities of silk and
steel. Reports of the Maes expedition spread through
Roman Syria at a time when Roman Emperor Trajan was engaged in conquering Dacia
(AD 101–106). Perhaps knowledge of these distant contacts and the value of
eastern commerce encouraged the Emperor to plan the conquest of Parthia.
The Antun Embassy
Chinese sources record
that in AD 166, a Roman ship sailed around the Malay Peninsula and crossed the
Gulf of Thailand to reach the South China Sea.
The Roman crew then
sailed north along the coast of Vietnam and docked at a Chinese military
outpost called Rinan. The Rinan
Commandery (in what is now central Vietnam) was on the southern periphery of
the Han Empire, where the Red River flowed into the Gulf of Tonkin. Its Han
commander allowed the Roman crew to come ashore and made arrangements for some
of their personnel to be escorted to the Chinese court at Luoyang.
This contact between
China and Rome appears in a brief encyclopedia-like entry in the Hou Hanshu in the section marked ‘Da Qin’.²¹ The author was
interested in descriptive facts and did not think it was relevant to explain
the purpose of this contact. Unfortunately, this brief account is all that
survives regarding this first meeting between the Han court and representatives
from Rome. This event was a prime opportunity for the exchange of significant
commercial, cultural, and technological innovations between the two ancient
civilizations. But the contact had no long-term impact, and Chinese accounts
provide the only record of these Roman representatives reaching Han China. This
suggests that the Roman crew may not have made it safely back to Egypt on a sea
voyage that would have spanned a quarter of the globe and crossed 8,000 miles
of ocean.²²
The arrival of Roman
subjects in China was probably connected with events in AD 162 when the Parthian
King Vologases IV invaded the Roman client kingdom of
Armenia and installed his candidate on the throne. In response, the Roman
governor of neighboring Cappadocia, Marcus Sedatius Severianus, marched his legion into Armenia to restore
imperial order. But the Roman army was outflanked, encircled, and massacred by
a large force of Parthian horse riders. This meant that Emperor Marcus Aurelius
was forced to declare a state of war between their regimes. After almost fifty
years of peace on the eastern frontiers, the Roman and Parthian Empires
prepared for full-scale military conflict.²³
As the situation
escalated, the Romans probably decided to threaten Parthian interests by making
direct contact with robust regimes in the distant east. This would have
included the Kushan Empire in Afghanistan and the Caspian kingdom of Hyrcania, which had split from the main Parthian realm. The
usual route chosen for this type of diplomatic contact was through Egypt and
its Red Sea connection with India. Roman business people were probably given
state messages to deliver to foreign rulers, and envoys from distant kingdoms
were offered safe passage on Roman trade vessels are sailing to and from the
Indus region.
These contacts had
proved valuable in the reign of Nero when the Roman legions fought
Parthian-backed forces for control of Armenia (AD 58–63). Roman successes in
this war were aided by eastern conflicts that drew the Parthian military
workforce away from the Armenian campaign. Tacitus reports, ‘Our successes were
more easily gained because the Parthians were fully occupied with the Hyrcanian War. The Hyrcanians
sent messages to the Roman Emperor asking for an alliance, and as a pledge of
goodwill, they explained how they had detained the Parthian King in the east.’
For their return journey, these envoys were given quarters on the Roman ships
that sailed from Egypt to the Indus kingdoms. Tacitus explains how the Roman
commander Corbulo ‘was concerned that the deputies
would be intercepted at the enemy’s outposts when they crossed the Euphrates.
So he escorted them and conducted them down to the shores of the Red Sea, and
they returned safely to their native lands by avoiding Parthian territory.’²⁴
These envoys would have traveled through the Kushan Empire from the Indus
kingdoms to the northern frontiers of Afghanistan and from there to Hyrcania on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea.
The Romans probably
used this same merchant network in AD 163 to contact distant regimes opposed to
the Parthian rule. But this time, it seems that the Emperor decided to contact
the Seres (Chinese) and send Roman representatives to
the Far East. Perhaps Marcus Aurelius wanted to establish contact with the
mysterious steel-equipped empire described by Maes Titianus.
In the spring of AD
163, the co-emperor Lucius Verus arrived in Syria to
prepare the Roman legions for war against Parthia. Around the same time,
arrangements were made for a Roman delegation to sail from a Red Sea port in
Egypt to contact the Seres. Their first point of
contact was the Kushan Empire, which had dealings with China via the overland
Silk Routes. But by this period, the Tarim kingdoms
were no longer subject to the Han rule, and the Kushan could not guarantee safe
passage through Central Asia.
An alternative route
to China was to cross the entire Indian Ocean and sail around the Malay
Peninsula to reach the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea.
Indian merchants had
recently discovered this route when they explored the north coast of Vietnam.
Han accounts record that in AD 160 a regent from one of the Indus kingdoms
managed to send envoys to southern China using this new maritime route.²⁵ The
discovery of this sea passage offered an important new avenue for long-range
diplomatic and commercial contacts. The Roman envoys, who were probably senior
merchants, were sent east by Marcus Aurelius to confirm the existence of this
route and establish a direct connection with the Han government.
The Romans spent the
winter of AD 165 in an eastern port before resuming their voyage at the onset
of the summer monsoon winds in AD 166. From Burma, they sailed 1,000 miles down
the Malay Peninsula and through the treacherous Malacca Strait to enter the
Gulf of Thailand. From Thailand, it was 500 miles to the southern tip of
Vietnam and then a further 1,000 miles around the southeast coast of Asia to
reach Rinan on the south edge of the Han Empire. Rinan was a Chinese military outpost established close to
where the Red River flowed into the Tonkin Gulf (near modern Hanoi). The Roman
crew probably arrived at Rinan in the late summer of
AD 166, after spending over fourteen months at sea or in various foreign
ports.
Rinan
was managed by a Han administrator who oversaw Chinese interests in the region
and had authority over the local rulers. In AD 166, the Han government had just
restored order in the Rinan Commandery following a
short series of military mutinies.²⁶ Consequently, the Romans who arrived at
the port would have seen numerous military personnel dressed in strange
uniforms and carrying unfamiliar weaponry. The travelers must have realized
that they were dealing with a vast militarized empire similar to Rome.
The Chinese commander
at Rinan recognized the significance of the Roman
visitors, and they were immediately dispatched under guard to Luoyang, along
with cargo samples removed from the ship. The journey from Rinan
to Luoyang was more than 1,200 miles, which is almost the same distance as from
Egypt to Italy.
Travel across China
was conducted mainly through a network of wide roads, and the Roman group would
have been conveyed in official carriages accompanied by a small escort of
Chinese cavalry. The leading Chinese highways were over 50 feet wide, which
made them twice the size of the most important Roman roads. A paved lane in the
center of these highways was reserved for state carriages and dispatch
riders.
Postal offices were
situated on the main routes, and these managed the conveyance of messages and
kept records of dispatches. Every 6 miles, there were Cantonal offices staffed
by soldiers who policed the area and monitored traffic. At 10 mile intervals,
postal stations provided couriers and state officials with fresh horses and
offered facilities for overnight accommodation.²⁷ But even with these
advantages, the journey north to the
inland capital of Luoyang must have taken several weeks of fast-paced and
relentless travel.
On their way north, the
Romans would have seen the tall watchtowers in the Chinese countryside, which
served as multi-story grain silos. They also had an opportunity to observe the
formidable defensive walls that surrounded Han cities. These cities had none of
the monumental stone-built classical buildings that a Greek or Roman might
expect to see in an important urban center. Instead, the upper stories of the
most significant Chinese buildings were constructed entirely from ornately
carved wood supporting bright terracotta tiles.
Roman travelers would
have noticed other cultural differences. In China, thick silk fabrics were worn
by poor people of low status, including orphans and widows who were offered
essential clothing as handouts by the state. High-quality steel was a rarity in
the Roman Empire, but in China, it was used both for battle gear and standard
work tools. In Roman domains, the image of the Emperor was widely produced on
coins, army emblems, and public statues. But the Chinese did not display
reverence in the same manner. During their weeks of travel through China, the
Roman envoys might have wondered if the Han Emperor would be a soldier-general
like Trajan, or perhaps a philosopher statesman like Marcus Aurelius.
When the Romans
reached Luoyang, they were probably taken to an administrative headquarters
within the imperial palace for assessment. A vast civil service managed China,
and the Han palace complex in Luoyang resembled a self-contained city filled
with scholars, archivists, ministers, and bureaucrats. Han officials might have
summoned translators from the Indian merchant community resident at Luoyang, or
perhaps asked assistance from one of the Buddhist temples that had been
established within the city. There were also members of the Parthian nobility living
in Luoyang who were associated with Silk Route commerce and the propagation of
Buddhism.²⁸ The sight of Han officials in the company of these Parthian nobles would have been highly
disconcerting for the Roman envoys.
After careful
questioning, the Roman delegates were granted an audience with the Han Emperor
and summoned to the inner court. As part of this protocol, the Han officials
subjected the Romans to a list of stock questions designed to ascertain the
scale and character of their regime. According to Chinese records, the
delegates claimed to represent ‘Antun,’ which is a
reference to the ruling Roman household and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. The Chinese recognized that Rome had a ruling
political family similar to the Han dynasty and shortened the dynastic name
Antonine to ‘Antun.’
The Antonine
delegates confirmed that there was a direct overland route to the Roman Empire
that passed through Parthian territory. They told the Chinese that the Roman
regime had been trying to send representatives to China, but their efforts had
been blocked by the Parthians who wanted to maintain control of the overland
silk trade. Further questions concerned the profits that Roman merchants made
from their trade ventures to India. The Chinese probably asked the envoys about
the military strength of the Roman Empire, as this is an essential feature in
most Han reports concerning foreign powers. However, the envoys did not reveal
Roman military numbers or explain their methods of warfare. Maybe they thought
it was unwise to disclose this information to a foreign power, or perhaps the
presence of Parthians in the Han court inhibited their response.
It was customary for
embassies to offer exotic and expensive diplomatic gifts to foreign rulers as
tokens of respect and measures of prestige. Even trade delegations followed
this practice in order to begin successful commercial negotiations with foreign
governments. However, it seems that the Antonine group had no valuable
ambassadorial gifts to present to the Han court and no high-value Roman
merchandise to hand over as diplomatic offerings. This cannot have been an
oversight, so the Romans may have lost their prepared gifts during some
previous encounters. Perhaps they were compelled to part with these items by
some foreign ruler at one of the eastern kingdoms they had visited on route to
China. This could have been the price they paid for a safe-harbor during the
preceding winter.
In place of Roman
gifts, they offered the Han Emperor the cargo samples that had been removed
from their ship and conveyed to the palace at Luoyang. These items were a
collection of ordinary eastern merchandise that disappointed the Han officials.
Based on existing reports from the silk routes, the Han were expecting to
receive gemstone jewelry, objects fashioned from delicate red coral, or
exquisite western fabrics dyed vibrant colors. The Hou Hanshu
records: ‘Antun the ruler of Da Qin, sent envoys from
beyond the frontiers to reach us through Rinan. They
offered us elephant tusks, rhinoceros horns, and turtle shells. This was the
very first time there was ever communication [between our countries.
The Antonine envoys
offered no explanation for their lack of appropriate diplomatic gifts and this
caused concern in the Han court. All previous reports collected by the Han
government suggested that Rome was as powerful as the Chinese Empire, so the
absence of suitable diplomatic offerings was suspicious. This was viewed as a
possible lack of commitment by the Romans or a sign that their empire was not
as wealthy as existing reports claimed. The Hou Hanshu
comments, ‘The tribute they brought was neither precious nor rare, raising
suspicion that the accounts of Rome might be exaggerated.’²⁹
In 1885 a German
scholar named Friedrich Hirth translated this passage
and assumed that the Chinese were ‘suspicious’ about the delegates. He
suggested that the envoys were opportunist Roman merchants who offered trade
cargo as diplomatic tribute.³⁰ But the Han court had protocols for assessing
foreign groups and the passage in the Hou Hanshu
suggests the diplomats were on a genuine mission from the Emperor. An accurate
reading of the ancient text indicates that the meager gifts made certain
Chinese officials doubt established reports describing the wealth and
significance of Rome. This exchange of gifts concluded the meeting, and the
Antonine envoys were escorted back to Rinan and their
waiting ship.
The Antonine
delegates probably expected to spend the summer of AD 168 in India with their
return to Roman Egypt scheduled for November of that year. Given these
schedules, the Chinese anticipated further contacts from the Romans in AD 170. But no one returned, not even opportunistic
merchants exploiting lucrative new opportunities. Chinese officials sought
explanations for the lack of contact by Rome and drew attention to the
condition of the gifts offered by the Antonine group. They accepted that the
diplomats were genuine, but concluded that Rome was not as wealthy or as
politically ambitious as their foreign informants had claimed.
However, if the
Antonine delegates had returned safely to Egypt, they would have found the
Roman Empire amid an unprecedented crisis. In AD 165 the Roman legions
successfully invaded the Parthian Empire, captured the city of Seleucia, and occupied Babylonia. But an
unknown disease broke out amongst the troops during the winter months, and this
lethal sickness soon reached high levels of infection. The Roman army was
forced to abandon the war and retreat to Syria, with many men still infected by
the outbreak. Dio reports that the co-emperor Lucius Verus ‘lost a great many of his soldiers through supply
shortages and disease, but he made it back to Syria with the survivors’.³¹
The returning troops
spread the disease into the main cities of the Roman Empire. The Historia
Augusta claims that ‘it was his fate that disease seemed to follow Verus through whatever provinces he traveled on his return
until finally, it reached Rome.’³² This disease, known to academics as the ‘Antonine
Plague,’ quickly reached epidemic levels in many parts of the Empire. Major
outbreaks kept reoccurring in previously affected regions, causing further
distress and death to the Roman population. In AD 168, the imperial physician
Galen had to treat an epidemic amongst the Roman army in northeast Italy. He
reports, ‘When I reached Aquileia, the infection was at a greater intensity
than previous outbreaks. The Emperors immediately went back to Rome with a few
soldiers, while the majority had difficulty surviving and most perished.’³³ In
AD 169, the co-emperor Lucius Verus died suddenly due
to an undisclosed illness that might have been the disease, or a sickness
caused by the toxic effects of preventative medicines.³⁴
Galen documented the
symptoms and effects of the disease, which seems to have been a virulent new
form of smallpox. The infection caused many deaths since the Roman population
had no inherited resistance to this lethal strain. Possible death rates are
suggested by papyrus documents recovered from Roman Egypt. Tax records for Socnopaiou
Nesos confirm that between September AD 178 and
February 179, a village with 244 male inhabitants lost seventy-eight men due to
the disease. This is almost one-third of the male population in six months.³⁵ A
bronze plaque from Virunum, near the Noricum iron mine,
gives a membership list for a local
temple devoted to Mithras. In AD 183, the Mithraeum lost five of its
ninety-eight members during a fresh outbreak of the disease.³⁶ Modern strains
of the smallpox virus can leave survivors visually impaired or infertile, so many who recovered from the infection were
left with severe disabilities that made them dependent on others, or vulnerable
to further illness.
As the legions
succumbed to disease, the Roman defenses on the northern frontiers were overrun
by Germanic invaders. Marcus Aurelius spent the remainder of his reign
campaigning to restore the Roman Empire and safeguard its European frontiers.
Unknown to the Romans, the same disease was spreading through the Far East and
inflicting a similar death rate on the Chinese Empire. The Hou Hanshu records that in AD 162 one third of the Han army
stationed on the northern frontiers died or were debilitated during the early
stages of this pandemic.³⁷
International trade
declined, and long-distance communications were no longer feasible as both
empires suffered severe damage to their manpower. Hopes of an alliance between
distant empires were no longer achievable as the governments of China and Rome
fought for individual survival in a world were devastating disease reduced
settled populations and crippled entire armies.
Roman contact with
Southern China In AD 184 the Chinese Empire was destabilized by a major
political uprising known as the Yellow TurbanTaiping dao (or Way of
Great Peace) rebellion also translated as the Yellow Scarves Rebellion. The
rebels mobilized Chinese peasants and rural militia who wore yellow fabric
around their heads to identify their allegiance to a revolutionary Taoist sect
that practiced faith-healing. To restore order the Han regime gave greater
political, military and tax-collecting powers to provincial governors, local
rulers, and Chinese generals. These new warlords suppressed the yellow scarves'
rebellion and then fought to claim power for themselves (AD 196–208).
China was split into
three rival kingdoms with a warlord named Cao Cao
ruling the northern half of the country (the Kingdom of Wei). South of the
Yangtze River the lower provinces of China were divided between the Kingdom of
Shu in the west and the Kingdom of Wu in the east. The Han dynasty officially
ended in AD 220 when the weak and ineffective emperor
Xian was forced to abdicate by the son of Cao Cao.
During this era, the Roman
Empire also suffered a period of serious political and economic instability as
the population declined and imperial revenues diminished.
This crisis included
a civil war that threatened to split the Roman Empire into three rival domains
(AD 192–197). Clodius Albinus seized power in Gaul, Pescennius Niger claimed Syria, while Septimius Severus
gained Pannonia and Italy. When Severus successfully defeated his rivals he
founded a new imperial dynasty that stabilised the
Roman Empire for several decades (AD 198–235).
A Chinese text called
the Liang-shu 梁書 records how a Roman merchant named Lun reached southern China in AD 226. Lun
could be the Greek name Leon phonically simplified by Chinese scholars.³⁸ Lun, or Leon, arrived aboard a Roman ship that sailed from
Thailand around Vietnam to reach the Chinese Kingdom of Wu. On arrival, he was
questioned by the Chinese Prefect of Tonkin (northern Vietnam) and identified
himself as a merchant specializing in long-distance trade. The Prefect of
Tonkin sent Leon to Wuchang (modern Ezhou) which was the inland capital of the
Wu Kingdom and the court of the regional Emperor Sun Quan.³⁹
By AD 226 the Kingdom
of Wu had reached a political and military stalemate with the powerful Kingdom
of Wei in northern China. But Sun Quan wanted to expand his domains and was
interested in extending his rule south into Cambodia and Vietnam. He had
maritime interests in the East China Sea and was preparing an armada with
10,000 troops to invade the nearby island of Taiwan (AD 230).⁴⁰
Sun Qian may have
been surprised to learn that the Roman Empire was still intact and functioning
as a unified state at a time when China had split into three rival kingdoms.
The Liang-shu reports that Sun Quan ‘asked Lun for details about his native land and its customs, and Lun prepared a report in reply.’ The prospect of establishing
political and commercial contacts with Rome must have been intriguing. The
Liang-shu records that Sun Quan selected a Chinese
officer named Liu Hsien to accompany Leon on his return journey to the Roman
Empire.
While he was present
at the Wu court, Leon expressed interest in some tiny dark-skinned captives
that had been seized by Chinese forces in Southeast
Asia. Leon remarked
that these people were rare and valuable in Rome, so Sun Quan gave twenty of
the captives to him as a gift, possibly hoping to ensure the return of further
Roman merchants to the WuKingdom. Leon left China
around AD 227, but there is no record
that his ship ever made it safely back to the Roman Empire. The vessel may have
been wrecked by storms, attacked by pirates in the Gulf of Thailand, or perhaps
succumbed to the paralyzing calms in the Straits of Malacca. The Liang-shu recorded that ‘Lun returned
directly to his native land, but Liu
Hsien must have died on the way.’⁴¹ The contemporary Roman sources make
no mention of this contact or the arrival of any distant foreigners at the
court of Severus Alexander (AD 222–235).
Once again, an opportunity to establish direct political and commercial
contacts had been lost.
1. The Geography of Strabo. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924, 17.1.45.
2. The Periplus of
Hanno a voyage of discovery down the west African coast. Translated by Schoff, H. 1912, 64.
3. Epistulae (Pliny), the letters of Pliny the Younger, 6.26.
4. Ptolemy,
Geography, 1.14.
5. Ibid., 7.3; 7.5;
7.7; 8.1; Berggren and Jones, Ptolemy’s Geography (2000), 22.
6. Hou Hanshu, Book of
Later Han《後漢書》88.10.
7. Procopius of
Caesarea (Greek: Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς
Prokópios ho Kaisareús;
Latin: Procopius Caesariensis; c. 500 – c. after 565), Secret History, 25.
8. Ptolemy,
Geography, 1.
9. Ibid., 1.11.
10. Cary, "Maes, Qui et Titianus" The
Classical Quarterly, New Series, 6.3/4 (July–October 1956)(1956).
11. Velleius Paterculus,
2.94; Suetonius, Octavian, 21; Orosius, 6.21.
12. Strabo, 16.1.28.
13. Strabo, 11.33.1.
14. Ptolemy,
Geography, 1.11.
15. Hou Hanshu, 4.14 (November, AD 100).
16. Ptolemy,
Geography, 1.11.
17. Leslie and
Gardiner, The Roman Empire in Chinese Sources (1996), 148.
18. Hou Hanshu, 4.14; 88.1.
19. Ibid., 4.14.
20. Juvenal, DECIMVS
IVNIVS IVVENALIS 6.400–3.
21. Hou Hanshu, 88.12.
22. Equator: 24,901
miles.
23. Rose Sheldon,
Rome’s Wars in Parthia (2010), 155–7.
24. Tacitus, Annals,
14.25.
25. Hou Hanshu, 88.15.
26. Leslie and
Gardiner, The Roman Empire in Chinese Sources (1996), 137; 153.
27. Joseph Needham,
Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 4 (1971),
3–38.
28. Buddhist Parthian
prince An Shigao: biographies in Chu Sanzang Jiji and Gaoseng Zhuan.
29. Hou Hanshu, 88.12.
30. Friedrich Hirth, China and
the Roman Orient (1885), 173–8.
31. Dio, 71.2.
32. Historia Augusta,
Lucius Verus, 8.1–4.
33. Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia,
19.17–18.
34. Historia Augusta,
Lucius Verus, 11.
35. F. Preisigke, Sammelbuch Griechischer Urkunden aus Aegypten (Scrapbook Greek
documents from Egypt), 16.12816.
36. C.I.L. 3.5567.
37. Hou Hanshu, 65/55.2133 (4a–b).
38. Leslie and
Gardiner, The Roman Empire in Chinese Sources (1996), 100–1.
39. Yao Silian (姚思廉)
Book of Liang (Liáng Shū),
, 48.
40. Li, China at War
(2012), 454–5.
41. Yao Silian, Liang-shu, 48.
For updates click homepage here