Chinese Roman interaction.

[tlclark]

So, overall not very spectacular. Romans and Chinese might have met in India though, but then again, the first Chinese in India we know of, a Buddhist monk in search for Sanskrit textes, came as late as the 4th century AD. At that time, the heyday of Roman-Indian trade was already over, although we have literary and archaeological evidence for trading as late as the 6th century AD.

I agree the evidence for any Sino-Roman contact is virtually nil, but the above is not at all accurate.

Trade to India intensifies, not lessens in the late period and there are extensive trade contacts to India through the Byzantine empire up until the 7th C. where it stops for obvious reasons, but it is still happening through the agency of the muslims so contact is still ongoing, though much less direct.

Travis