Chinese Roman interaction.

[Eleatic Guest]

The Seres should not be automatically equated with the Chinese, just as, from a Chinese perspective, Da Qian should not be always taken for the Roman Empire. More often, it appears to have the general meaning of 'the Far West'. All in all, the knowledge of one another must have been very fuzzy and very few, although Wikipedia, being Wikipedia, is naturally attracted to the unusual and exotic, and thus inclined to blow up the importance of the few contacts we may have.

A more sober report, though, gives Edwin G. Pulleyblank. Allow me to quote from his survey of contemporary Han Chinese sources:

The earliest datable occurrence seems to be with reference to Gan Ying's mission of 97 c.E. In the preamble to the chapter on "Western Regions" in the Hou Hanshu we read:

In the sixth year (of Yongyuan, 94 c.E.) Ban Chao again attacked and overthrew Yanqi MH (Karashar) and thereupon over fifty countries all offered hostages and submitted. Of them, Tiaozhi, Anxi, and the various coun¬tries reaching to the edge of the sea over 40,000 li distant, all offered tribute through multiple interpreters. In the ninth year (97 c.E.) Ban Chao sent his aide Gan Ying xyz who got as far as to look upon the Western Sea and return. These were all places that had not been reached in previous ages and are not described in the Classic of Mountains [and Seas] (Shdn[hai ] jing xyz. He gave a full account of their land and customs, telling of their precious and strange products. Thereupon distant countries, Mengqi xyz EMC mawrj gia and Doule xyz EMC taw lak, came in submission and sent envoys with tribute.

Gan Ying's mission is again referred to in the same chapter of the Hou Hanshu in the account of Anxi, leading up to the separate account of Da Qin:

The Protector-General Ban and Chao sent Gan Ying on a mission to Da Qin. He reached Tiaozhi, looked upon the Great Sea and wished to cross, but the mari¬ners on the western edge of Anxi said to Ying: "The sea is very broad and vast. With favorable winds those who come and go on it can cross in three months but if they encounter delaying winds it sometimes takes two years. Therefore those who set out on the sea always take sup¬plies for three years. Voyaging on the sea makes people long for sight of land and suffer from homesickness, and many perish." When Ying heard this he gave up his plan.

...One such source of information would have been the so-called embassy from the king of Da Qin, Andun xyz an twan, that reached the Han court by sea in 166 c.E. Since the name Andun can be plausibly identified either with the emperor Antoninus Pius (reg. 138-161) or his suc¬cessor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (reg. 161-180), this provides at least one firm link to Rome itself. There is not much else.

A point that needs to be stressed is that the Chinese conception of Da Qin was confused from the outset with ancient mythological notions about the far west.

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.

Source: Edwin G. Pulleyblank: The Roman Empire as Known to Han China, in: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 119, No. 1. (Jan. - Mar., 1999), pp. 71-79.