Sino-Roman relations started first on an indirect basis during the 2nd century BC.
Following the reports of the ambassador Zhang Qian
Zhang Qian taking leave from emperor Han Wudi, for his expedition to Central Asia from 138 to 126 BC, Mogao Caves mural
The Chinese Emperor Wudi became interested in developing relationships with the sophisticated urban civilizations of Ferghana, Bactria and Parthia:
On hearing all this reasoned thus: Ferghana (Dayuan) and the possessions of Bactria (Daxia) and Parthia (Anxi) are large countries, full of rare things, with a population living in fixed homes and given to occupations somewhat identical with those of the Chinese people, but with weak armies, and placing great value on the rich produce of China” Hou Hanshu ( Later Han History).
The Chinese subsequently sent numerous ambassadors, about 10 every year, to these countries and as far as Seleucid Syria.
“Thus more embassies were dispatched to Anxi ( Parthia), Yancai , Lijian (Syria under the Seleucids), Tiaozhi ( Chaldea) and Tianzhu (northwestern India)…
In 97 AD, the Chinese general Ban Chao tried to send his envoy Gan Ying to Rome, but Gan was dissuaded by Parthians from venturing beyond the Persian Gulf, because intermediate empires such as the Parthians and Kushans, sought to maintain lucrative control over the silk trade, inhibited direct contact between these two Eurasian powers.
- The Seres (Chinese), are famous for the woolen substance obtained from their forests; after a soaking in water they comb off the white down of the leaves… So manifold is the labour employed, and so distant is the region of the globe drawn upon, to enable the Roman maiden to flaunt transparent clothing in public — ( Pliny the Elder, The Natural History VI, 54 ).
The Senate issued, in vain, several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, on economic and moral grounds: the importation of Chinese silk caused a huge outflow of gold, and silk clothes were considered to be decadent and immoral:
- I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one’s decency, can be called clothes… Wretched flocks of maids labour so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife’s body—( Seneca the Younger (c. 3 BC– 65 AD, DeclamationsVol. I).
The Roman historian Florus also describes the visit of numerous envoys, including Seres(perhaps the Chinese), to the first Roman Emperor Augustus, who reigned between 27 BC and 14 AD:
- Now that all the races of the west and south were subjugated, and also the races of the north, (…) the Scythians and the Sarmatians sent ambassadors seeking friendship; the Seres too and the Indians, who live immediately beneath the sun, though they brought elephants amongst their gifts as well as precious stones and pearls, regarded their long journey, in the accomplishment of which they had spent four years, as the greatest tribute which they rendered, and indeed their complexion proved that they came from beneath another sky.—( Florus Epitomae II, 34).
A maritime route opened up between Chinese-controlled Jiaozhi (centred in modern Vietnam, near Hanoi) probably by the 1st century AD.
It 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 northeastern coast of the Red Sea.
The Hou Hanshu records that a delegation of Roman envoys arrived in China by this maritime route in 166 AD; this may well have been an exaggeration, by the envoys or the scribe, of a party of Roman merchants.
The first one on record, supposedly from either the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius or the later emperor Marcus Aurelius, arrived in 166 AD.
It came to Emperor Huan of Han China, “from Antun(Emperor Antoninus Pius), king of Daqin (Rome)”.
Although, as Antoninus Pius died in 161, while the convoy arrived in 166, if genuine, it may have been from Marcus Aurelius, who was emperor in 166.
The confusion arises because Marcus Aurelius was formally adopted by his predecessor and took his names as additional names.
The mission came from the South, and therefore probably by sea, entering China by the frontier of Jinan or Tonkin.
It brought presents of rhinoceros horns, ivory, and tortoise shell, which had probably been acquired in Southern Asia.
About the same time, and possibly through this embassy, the Chinese acquired a treatise of astronomy from Daqin (Chinese name of the Roman Empire).
The existence of China was clearly known to Roman cartographers of the time, since its name and position is depicted in Ptolemy’s Geographia, which is dated to c. 150.
It is located beyond the Aurea Chersonesus(“Golden Peninsula”), which refers to the Southeast Asian peninsula.
It is shown as being on theMagnus Sinus (“Great Gulf”), which presumably corresponds to the known areas of the China Sea at the time; although Ptolemy represents it as tending south-east rather than north-east.
Trade throughout the Indian Ocean was extensive from the 2nd century, and many trading ports have been identified in India and Sri Lanka with Roman communities, through which the Roman embassy passed.
Sino-Roman relations comprised the mostly indirect contact, flow of trade goods, information, and occasional travelers between the Roman Empire and Han Empire of China, as well as between the later Eastern Roman Empire and various Chinese dynasties.
During this period in Rome, Titus Quinctius Flamininus is chosen to replace Publius Sulpicius Galba Maximus as the leading Roman general in Macedonia.
He then crosses into Macedonia with his army.
Flamininus realizes that future peace depends on breaking the power of king Philip V of Macedon, not merely humbling him.
He secures the backing of the Achaean League and then opens peace negotiations with Philip at Nicaea in Locris.
Though peace proposals are submitted to the Roman Senate, the talks break down, and fighting resumes.
Titus Quinctius Flamininus‘ forces manage to push Philip V out of most of Greece, except for a few fortresses.
He then defeats Philip V in the Battle of the Aous, near modern Tepelenë in Albania.
The rapid growth of Roman commerce with ancient China likely would not have been possible without two major preceding developments, first by Alexander the Great and the ancient Greeks, and second by the spread of embassies of the Han Dynasty into Central and Western Asia.
In Imperial Rome, there were two classes of citizens, the Patricians and the Plebeians.
This was much different from the government in the Han Dynasty.
Background
It was then, he made himself the First Emperor of Qin and ordered that all of the various Chinese scripts be unified into one, also the standard of measurements and policies.
Any resistance~ whether from the local remnants or critical scholars were crushed mercilessly.
He deposed thousands of Confucian scholars and buried them alive, then burned many books that criticized him or contrasted with his severe legalistic leanings.
He sought to transform his new empire with relentless, revolutionary and aimed to shatter everything that was old and obsolete and replace it with something new.
The Qin government was a tightly controlled, paranoid, legalist machine with draconian laws -so nightmarish it conjures up the image of the Galactic Empire, where one is assumed guilty until proven of innocence with an army like an inhumane, robotic legion of outrage and atrocity.
Despite that, he lived during an age that paralleled Rome’s duel with Carthage, even after 2200 years, most of the Chinese today still revile Emporer Qin for his clear tyranny.
Several dozen major rebellions erupted during his reign and at least, ten assassination attempts against him.
On one occasion, an assassin sliced through his sleeves and nearly cut him down, being only inches away from his person.
Qin died, before he was even 50, while touring his empire. It was not even 5 years later that huge rebellions erupted across his former empire.
Millions revolted, leading to the destruction of the Qin court.
The Emperor’s palace was burned down and the vault of his terracotta army (which ironically preserved it for posterity.)
Ironically, what the First Emperor sought to do with force and savagery, in an attempt to create his own dynasty, ended up giving a foundation and buttressing to the Han to rule for nearly half a millennium.
Because the Qin had crushed all local resistances,weakened the city walls, and weakened policies,all local leaders conveniently submitted to Han rule without contention.
Because the Qin had erected the Great Wall along all of China’s northern boarder, the Han conveniently inherited a fortified frontier.
Because Qin had unified all of China’s measurements, language, and organization) the Han conveniently inherited the tools of an Empire, but did not have to be the ones to force people into changing their ways.
Because the Qin pioneered a “nationalized” army with a proven system of hierarchy and approved drafting musters, the Han conveniently,only has to call and the right part of the new nation will contribute the necessary quota of soldiers.
- Han Dynasty
In short~ the Chinese might call themselves Han folk- but to the Romans the Chinese were always the worthy children of “Qin-a.“
But the most important, and arguably most enduring element the Han inherited from the Qin, was the finest and most dangerous parts of the Qin army.
Two rebel leaders, Xiang Yu and Liu Bang finished off the crumbling Qin army and then vied for supremacy, to become the next leader of all China– until only Liu Bang’s army- and his Han Dynasty remained.
It existed contemporaneously with the Roman Empire- though mutual awareness remained low.
Liu Bang, the first emperor of Han China, was one of the few dynasty founders in Chinese history originating from the peasant class.
During his reign, Liu Bang reduced taxes and corvée, promoted Confucianism.
He sought to begin his rule by restoring what was lost, and preserving what worked well under the dynasty Qin made.
The Han rulers restored the deposed Confucian scholars and returned them to esteemed positions as teachers and administrators of the empire. Rulers were to be governed by laws based on Confucian moralistic principles.
It’s leaders would be sober and adhere to tradition, rather than based on a personal cult of personalities. Arts and literature flourished again.
A somewhat personal freedom was restored, on a level unknown for a thousand years, since the golden age of Western Zhou.
Stability, high learning, leisure, and freedom returned during the Han.
Spanning over four centuries, the Han marked a long period of stability and is considered one of the golden ages in Chinese history.
Art, innovation, administrative reforms, standard of living, and military all flourished during the Han.
To this day, China’s majority ethnic group refers to itself as the “Han people” and the Chinese script (which mostly crystallized in this period) is still referred to as “Han characters” even in the age of the internet.
The Han possessed a centralized court with a robust bureaucracy that amplified its imperial powers, the lands of the empire were divided into areas directly controlled by the central government using an innovation inherited from the
Qin known as commanderies, and a number of semi-autonomous kingdoms.
Like Imperial Rome, the Byzantine Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, the Han army was multi ethnic, and frequently included large swaths of auxiliaries from vassalized frontier kingdoms.
Vassal – a person granted the use of land, in return for rendering homage, fealty, and usually military service or its equivalent to a lord or other superior; feudal tenant.
The vast army of the Han enabled it to fight on many fronts, and often simultaneously.
However, in 190BC, China was in turmoil. The Han Dynasty seemed as though it was crumbling before the child-emperor.
He was a figurehead; some say, a mere puppet for the tyrant warlord Dong Zhuo.
It was a brutal and oppressive regime, and as Dong Zhuo’s power grows, the empire slipped further into the cauldron of anarchy.
But hope still blossomed.
Following the defeat of the Han at the hands of the Xiongnu at Baideng in 200 BC, courtier Liu Jing (劉敬) is dispatched by Han emperor Gaozu for negotiations.
The peace settlement between the parties, includes a Han princess given in marriage to the chanyu (called heqin 和親 or “harmonious kinship”); periodic tribute of silk, liquor and rice to the Xiongnu; and equal status between the statez, with the Great Wall as mutual border.
This treaty sets the pattern for relations between the Han and the Xiongnu, for about sixty years.
The Weilüe (Chinese: 魏略; literally: “A Brief History of Wei”) was a Chinese historical text written by Yu Huanbetween 239 and 265.
Yu Huan , whos work below is cited ,was an official in the state of Cao Wei (220–265) during the Three Kingdoms period (220–280).
The Three Kingdoms period is one of the bloodiest in Chinese history.
Academically, the period of the Three Kingdoms refers to the period between the foundation of the state of Wei in AD 220 and the conquestof the state of Wu , by the Jin dynasty in 280.
The earlier, “unofficial” part of the period, from 184 to 220, was marked by chaotic infighting between warlords, in various parts of China.
The middle part of the period, from 220 to 263, was marked by a more militarily stable arrangement between three rival states of Wei, Shu, and Wu.
Although not a formal historian, Yu Huan has been held in high regard among Chinese scholars.
In the text that has survived,Yu Huan’s sources are not mentioned, but this data presumably came to China via traders from the Roman Empire (Da Qin).
Land communications with the West apparently continued relatively uninterrupted to Cao Wei, after the fall of the Eastern Han dynasty.
Yu Huan never left China, but he collected a large amount of information on the countries to the west of China including Parthia, India, and the Roman Empire, and the various routes to them.
The Weilüe contains new, unique, and generally trustworthy material, mostly from the late second and early third centuries, presumably from foreign sailors.
It is this new information that makes the Weilüe a valuable historical source.
Most of the new information appears to have come from the Eastern Han dynasty, before China was largely cut off from the West by civil wars and unrest along its borders, during the late second century.
From a translation by the University of Washington’s John E. Hill
This country (the Roman Empire) has more than four hundred smaller cities and towns. It extends several thousand li in all directions.
The king has his capital (that is, the city of Rome) close to the mouth of a river (the Tiber).
The outer walls of the city are made of stone.
This region has pine trees, cypress, sophora, catalpa, bamboo, reeds, poplars, willows, parasol trees, and all sorts of plants.
The people cultivate the five grains [traditionally: rice, glutinous and non-glutinous millet, wheat and beans], and they raise horses, mules, donkeys, camels and silkworms. (They have) a tradition of amazing conjuring.
They can produce fire from their mouths, bind and then free themselves, and juggle twelve balls with extraordinary skill.
The ruler of this country is not permanent,
When disasters result from unusual phenomena, they unceremoniously replace him, installing a virtuous man as king, and release the old king, who does not dare show resentment.
The common people are tall and virtuous like the Chinese, but wear hu(‘Western’) clothes. They say they originally came from China, but left it.
They have always wanted to communicate with China but, Anxi (Parthia), jealous of their profits, would not allow them to pass (through to China).
Here’s a description of some of Rome’s trade goods:
This country produces fine linen. They make gold and silver coins.
One gold coin is equal to ten silver coins.
They have fine brocaded cloth that is said to be made from the down of ‘water-sheep’.
It is called Haixi (‘Egyptian’) cloth. This country produces the six domestic animals, which are all said to come from the water.
It is said that they not only use sheep’s wool, but also bark from trees, or the silk from wild cocoons, to make brocade, mats, pile rugs, woven cloth and curtains, all of them of good quality, and with brighter colours than those made in the countries of Haidong (“East of the Sea”).
Furthermore, they regularly make a profit by obtaining Chinese silk, unravelling it, and making fine hu (‘Western’) silk damasks. That is why this country trades with Anxi (Parthia) across the middle of the sea.
The seawater is bitter and unable to be drunk, which is why it is rare for those who try to make contact to reach China.
Directions to Rome:
The kingdom of Da Qin (Rome) is also called Lijian. It is west of Anxi (Parthia) and Tiaozhi (Characene and Susiana), and west of the Great Sea.
From the city of Angu (Gerrha), on the frontier of Anxi (Parthia), you take a boat and cut directly across to Haixi (‘West of the Sea’ = Egypt).
With favourable winds it takes two months; if the winds are slow, perhaps a year; if there is no wind, perhaps three years.
The country (that you reach) is west of the sea (haixi), which is why it is called Haixi (literally: ‘West of the Sea’ = Egypt).
There is a river (the Nile) flowing out of the west of this country, and then there is another great sea (the Mediterranean). The city of (Wu) Chisan (Alexandria) is in Haixi (Egypt).
From below this country you go north to reach the city of Wudan (Tanis?). You (then) head southwest and cross a river (the Sebannitus branch of the Nile?) by boat, which takes a day.
You head southwest again, and again cross a river (the Canopis branch of the Nile?) by boat, which takes another day. There are, in all, three major cities [that you come to].
Now, if you leave the city of Angu (Gerrha) by the overland route, you go north to Haibei (‘North of the Sea’ – the lands between Babylonia and Jordan), then west to Haixi (Egypt), then turn south to go through the city of Wuchisan (Alexandria).
After crossing a river, which takes a day by boat, you circle around the coast (to the region of Apollonia, the port of Cyrene). (From there, i.e. the region of Apollonia) six days is generally enough to cross the (second) great sea (the Mediterranean) to reach that country (Da Qin = Rome).
You can read the whole Weilüe here for more of ancient China’s guide to the Roman Empire.
- A dragon and an eagle intertwined,
Other embassies may have been sent after this first encounter, but were not recorded, until an account appears about presents sent in the early 3rd century by the Roman Emperor to the Emperor Taitsu of the Kingdom of Wei (reigned 227– 239) in Northern China.
The presents consisted of articles of glass in a variety of colours. While several Roman Emperors ruled during this time, the embassy, if genuine, may have been sent by Alexander Severus; since his successors reigned briefly and were busy with civil wars.
Another embassy from Daqin is recorded in the year 284, as bringing “tribute” to the Chinese empire. This embassy presumably was sent by the Emperor Carus ( 282– 283), whose short reign was occupied with war with Persia.