Rome and China

[Cassius Chaerea]

I was reading Tacitus the Annals of Imperial Rome and he had a small part where he said that a group of people form China visited the capital and later the Romans did the same to China. What else do we know about this kind of thing. Rome knew about China and China about them. what is the extent of their connections? Cassius

[Graham Sumner]

Chinese records supposedly document an embassy from king An-tun, believed to be Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

An American (?)author Homer H. Dubs 'A Roman city in Ancient China', also tried to connect stories of strange soldiers, wall paintings and military architecture in China with Roman prisoners taken at Carrhae who escaped the Parthians and fought with the Huns against the Chinese as mercenaries. Defeated again they were taken by the Chinese and settled in China. Occasionally this story surfaces as fact but there is little to substantiate it. Great idea for a novel however and in fact one has already been written, Alfred Duggan's 'Winter Quarters', published in 1956.

See also 'The World the Romans Knew', NHH.Sitwell London 1984

Graham.

[Tarbicus]

[url:10qwwzo1]http://semperegoauditor.typepad.com/ccc/2004/12/romans_in_china.html[/url]

An interesting read about the alleged Romano-Chinese colony, but even the author points to others who discredit it. Apparently the Chinese official who promoted the theory there (erected a statue of a Roman soldier at the top of the main street) is negotiating Hollywood rights to the movie. Chairman Mao must be spinning in his grave.

If you read the pdf linked at the very end
[url:10qwwzo1]http://www.icc.org.hk/PDFs/Lost_Region.pdf[/url]
it mentions a local in the province with blonde hair and an aquiline nose, who claims there are another hundred like him in the province. That is, according to the Italian author who gives no sources or contact details, who also goes on to say that, of course, real Romans did not have blonde hair. Well, I've met Italian ladies from Ostia, etc, who were distinctly blonde.

And no, please, let's not loose off about hair colour as if it were tunic colour.

[Come in Nighthawk]

...let's not loose off about hair colour as if it were tunic colour.

Blue! Green, Sir! :lol:

Seriously, we ought I think to remember that some little time after Romulus Augustus last trod the ground as Imperator, No. Italy saw an influx of Ostrogothic & Langobardic Germans? That said... Isn't it recorded that Caesar was a blonde? And hardly a "dumb blonde," if albeit, a little "imprudent" one day in March???

[Theodosius the Great]

In Marcus Aurelius' biography, written by Anthony Birley, it states that Chinese annals record that "ambassadors" from "An-toun" (Marcus Aurelius), ruler of "T'a-ts'in'" (the Roman Empire), brought gifts for the emperor : ivory, rhinoceros' horn, and tortoise shell.

Also, a golden medallion of Marcus Aurelius was found near Saigon. Birley says that these "ambassadors" were probably, in fact, freelance traders from Alexandria and not official envoys.

[Dan Diffendale]

There's a book from 1875, China and the Roman Orient, by Friedrich Hirth, republished by Ares Publishers. It translates the Chinese annals supposed to refer to Rome and the west.

[Octavianvs]

As far as Romans in china I would think the trade routes from west to east and back would circulate some items from east to west. Also Since the Byzantines saw themselves as Roman and we know that Marco Polo went to china although from Venice is it possable trade routes and traders being the probable contact.