Sino-Roman relations

Sino-Roman relations

Between the great powers of the Roman Empire and the Han dynasty, there were early contacts and exchanges from about the 1st century BC to 1453. These were mostly indirect, with goods, ideas, and travelers moving between the two empires. The Romans expanded into ancient Western Asia, and the Han dynasty sent armies into Central Asia, bringing the two empires closer. However, they never met directly because other empires, like the Parthians and Kushans, wanted to control the valuable silk trade and stopped direct meetings.

Some Chinese records tell of a few Roman visitors. In 166 AD, a group said to be from a Roman leader arrived in China. Other visits were recorded in 226 and 284 AD, and much later in 643 AD from the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Along the Silk Road and sea paths, Chinese silk traveled west, while Roman glass and fine cloth came east. Roman coins and glass pieces have been found in China, Japan, and even in what is now Vietnam.

Roman writers sometimes called China by the name Seres, and Chinese writers called the Roman Empire Daqin, meaning Great Qin. Later, they used the name Fulin for the Byzantine Empire. Roman maps gave a rough idea of areas near the Indian Ocean, and Chinese maps showed parts of West Asia and Rome’s eastern lands. These early links between faraway lands helped share goods and knowledge across the world.

Geographical accounts and cartography

Roman geography

Further information: List of Graeco-Roman geographers, History of cartography, Serica, and Indo-Roman trade relations

Roman writers from the 1st century BC, such as Virgil, Horace, and Strabo, gave unclear descriptions of China and the people who made silk, called the Seres. The geographer Pomponius Mela said that the Seres lived in the center of an eastern ocean, with India to the south and the Scythians to the north. Later Roman writers were often unsure about where the Seres lived.

The Romans knew about China, but they did not fully understand it. The writer Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD separated the land of silk, called Serica, from the land of the Qin, called Sinae. He placed Sinae on the northern shore of a large sea to the east. Roman writers like Strabo and Pliny the Elder were slow to use new information. However, Ptolemy used information from traders to describe places well. A book called the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea by an unknown writer from Roman Egypt gives details about cities in eastern trade places. This writer had visited many cities in Arabia, Pakistan, and India.

Later, a monk named Cosmas Indicopleustes wrote clearly about China in his book Christian Topography. He called China Tzinista and described how to reach it by sea. During this time, the Eastern Romans bought Chinese silk but later learned to make their own silk by keeping silkworms.

Chinese geography

Further information: Early Chinese cartography, Chinese geography, Daqin, Pei Xiu, and Daoyi Zhilüe

Chinese histories also talk about far western lands, including the Roman Empire, though they knew little about Rome itself. The book Shiji by Sima Qian describes countries in Central Asia and West Asia. Later books like the Book of Han give more details. These Chinese writers thought of the Roman Empire as a faraway and mysterious place.

The book Weilüe by Yu Huan talks about the eastern part of the Roman world, including the Mediterranean Sea. It describes cities like Alexandria in Roman Egypt and mentions a special bridge over a river in Roman Anatolia. Later Chinese books also describe places like Constantinople and talk about faraway lands such as Nubia and Ethiopia.

Embassies and travel

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

Prelude

Further information: War of the Heavenly Horses

Long ago, some people think there might have been contact between Hellenistic Greeks and the Qin dynasty after Alexander the Great, the king of Macedon. Some old discoveries near the tomb of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, hint that ancient Greeks may have sent gifts to the Han Chinese during the Qin dynasty. Trade and talks between China’s Han Empire and parts of the old Greek world started with the travels of the Han envoy Zhang Qian. He shared stories about faraway places. The only known Roman traveler to visit parts of Central Asia was Maes Titianus, who reached a place called the “Stone Tower”.

Embassy to Augustus

Further information: Reign of Augustus

A Roman writer named Florus wrote about many visitors to the court of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, including the “Seres” — perhaps the Chinese. There are only a few writings about such meetings between Romans and the Seres. Many think these visitors were likely traders, not official diplomats.

Envoy Gan Ying

Further information: Protectorate of the Western Regions, Chinese exploration, Dayuan, Daxia, Kangju, and History of the Han dynasty

In 97 AD, an envoy named Gan Ying was sent to learn about faraway lands. He traveled from the Tarim Basin to Parthia and reached the Persian Gulf. Gan wrote about the countries he saw. He wanted to sail to Rome but decided it was too dangerous and returned to China with new information about the west.

Possible Roman Greeks in Burma and China

Some think a group of Greek performers may have been given to Emperor An of Han in 120 AD. The Book of the Later Han says Emperor An sent these entertainers to the capital Luoyang, where they performed for him.

First Roman embassy

The first group of people saying they were an embassy from Rome to China arrived in 166 AD. They came to Emperor Huan of Han China from “Andun”, the “king of Daqin” (Rome). They brought gifts like rhinoceros horns, ivory, and tortoise shell. This was the first time the two lands had met directly.

Other Roman embassies

Records tell of a merchant from the Roman Empire arriving in 226 AD at Jiaozhou. Roman merchants were active in Cambodia and Vietnam.

Fulin: Eastern Roman embassies

Further information: Cathay and Europeans in Medieval China

Chinese history books tell of contacts with merchants from “Fulin”, the new name for the Byzantine Empire. The first known talk between them happened in 643 AD. Tang Chinese writings also tell how a Sasanian prince named Peroz III came to Tang China.

The last known talks with Fulin happened in the 11th century AD. The History of Song described gifts brought by the Byzantine embassy and things made in Byzantium. The final embassy arrived in 1091 AD.

Within the Mongol Empire, there were enough people from the west traveling there that in 1340 AD Francesco Balducci Pegolotti made a guide book for other merchants. By then, the Eastern Roman Empire was small, only in parts of Greece and Anatolia.

Trade relations

Roman exports to China

Trade links between the lands around the Mediterranean Sea and India began in the late 2nd century BC. Traders used the regular pattern of monsoon winds for their sea voyages in the Indian Ocean. Many trading ports with links to Roman communities have been found in India and Sri Lanka. Evidence shows that Roman commercial activity in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia declined heavily with a plague in 166 AD.

High-quality glass from Roman manufacturers was exported to many parts of Asia, including Han China. The first Roman glassware discovered in China is a blue glass bowl dating to the early 1st century BC and excavated from a tomb in the southern port city of Guangzhou. Other Roman glass items include a mosaic-glass bowl found in a tomb near Nanjing dated to 67 AD and a glass bottle with white streaks found in a tomb of Luoyang.

From Chinese sources it is known that other Roman luxury items were esteemed by the Chinese. These include gold-embroidered rugs and gold-coloured cloth, amber, asbestos cloth, and sea silk, which was a cloth made from the silk-like hairs of a Mediterranean shellfish. There are also 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, with a raised image in the centre depicting the Greco-Roman god Dionysus 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 kingdom of Funan by the 2nd century AD, if not earlier. Jiaozhi was proposed to have been the port known to the Greco-Roman geographer Ptolemy as Cattigara, situated near modern Hanoi. 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. Archaeological discoveries at Óc Eo (near Ho Chi Minh City) in the Mekong Delta during the mid-20th century suggested this may have been its location. At this place, Roman coins were among the items of long-distance trade discovered. These include Roman golden medallions from the reigns of Antoninus Pius and his successor Marcus Aurelius. Furthermore, Roman goods and native jewellery imitating Antonine Roman coins have been found there.

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

Chinese swords and scabbards in the Roman Empire

Archaeological excavations of Roman ruled Chatalka (an area in modern-day Bulgaria) uncovered several swords and other weapons buried inside tombs. These swords include Han Dynasty style swords and scabbards with nephrite-jade scabbard slides adorned with Chinese dragon motifs.

Chinese silk in the Roman Empire

Chinese trade with the Roman Empire, confirmed by the Roman desire for silk, started in the 1st century BC. The Romans knew of wild silk harvested on Cos, but they did not at first make the connection with the silk that was produced in the Pamir Sarikol kingdom. There were few direct trade contacts between Romans and Han Chinese, as the rival Parthians and Kushans were each protecting their 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. In his Natural History (77–79 AD), Pliny the Elder wrote about the cost of this expensive luxury. In 14 AD the Senate issued an edict prohibiting the wearing of silk by men, but it continued to flow into the Roman world.

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. Chinese-produced glassware date back to the Western Han era (202 BC – 9 AD).

Roman currency discovered in China

Valerie Hansen wrote in 2012 that no Roman coins from the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) or the Principate (27 BC – 284 AD) era of the Roman Empire have been found in China. Nevertheless, Warwick Ball cites two studies from 1978 summarizing the discovery at Xi'an, China (the site of the Han capital Chang'an) of a hoard of sixteen Roman coins from the reigns of Tiberius (14–37 AD) to Aurelian (270–275 AD). The Roman coins found at Óc Eo, Vietnam, near Chinese-controlled Jiaozhou, date to the mid-2nd century AD. A coin of Maximian (r. 286–305 AD) was also discovered in Tonkin. As a note, Roman coins of the 3rd and 4th centuries AD have been discovered in Japan; they were unearthed from Katsuren Castle (in Uruma, Okinawa), which was built from the 12th to 15th centuries AD.

The earliest gold solidus coins from the Eastern Roman Empire found in China date to the reign of Byzantine emperor Theodosius II (r. 408–450 AD) and altogether only forty-eight of them have been found (compared to 1300 silver coins) in Xinjiang and the rest of China. The use of silver coins in Turfan persisted long after the Tang campaign against Karakhoja and Chinese conquest of 640 AD, with a gradual adoption of Chinese bronze coinage during the 7th century AD. Hansen maintains that these Eastern Roman coins were almost always found with Sasanian Persian silver coins and Eastern Roman gold coins were used more as ceremonial objects like talismans, confirming the pre-eminence of Greater Iran in Chinese Silk Road commerce of Central Asia compared to Eastern Rome. Walter Scheidel remarks that the Chinese viewed Byzantine coins as pieces of exotic jewellery, preferring to use bronze coinage in the Tang and Song dynasties, as well as paper money during the Song and Ming periods, even while silver bullion was plentiful. 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.

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 Justin II found in a Sui-dynasty tomb of Shanxi province in 1953, among other Byzantine coins found at various sites. Chinese histories offer descriptions of Roman and Byzantine coins. The Weilüe, Book of the Later Han, Book of Jin, as well as the later Wenxian Tongkao noted how ten ancient Roman silver coins were worth one Roman gold coin. The Roman golden aureus was worth about twenty-five silver denarii. During the later Byzantine Empire, twelve silver miliaresion was equal to one gold nomisma. 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, scientists found part of a skeleton in an old Roman cemetery in Vagnari, Italy, from the 1st or 2nd century AD. They learned through mitochondrial DNA that this person had family from East Asia on their mother's side. This shows that people from faraway places lived in Roman times, though they were not from China but from Paleo-Siberian groups.

In 2016, researchers studying bones from Southwark in London, which was part of ancient Roman Britain, found that a few skeletons from the 2nd to 4th centuries AD might have been of Asian ancestry, possibly even Chinese. This idea is based on studying the shape of the bones and faces. However, no DNA tests have been done yet, and the evidence is limited.

Hypothetical military contact

Further information: Sampul tapestry and Chronology of European exploration of Asia

A historian thought that soldiers from Rome, who were captured in battles, might have met soldiers from China a long time ago. After a big battle in 53 BC, many Roman soldiers were sent far away. Later, a leader named Zhizhi set up a place near where we now call Taraz.

Most historians think this idea is just a guess because there isn’t strong proof. Tests showed that the people living there today are mostly related to Chinese people, not Romans. There also isn’t any proof, like old coins or buildings, showing Romans were there.