Romans In China

[Primus Pilus]

A visitor sent me this via private message... truly a fascinating read, even though I am skeptical. It is certainly believed that the survivors of Carrhae went on to serve their new Parthian masters, and even were granted their own lands, but this article takes it a step (or several) farther east into China.

 

I wrote a paper last semester for a Roman history class I had that you might be interested in. It goes over the basics of Roman-Parthian-Chinese silk trade and details/examines/criticizes the 1950's proposal by Oxford sinologist Homer Dubs that stated that several hundred Roman legionaries captured at the defeat at Cannae later found themselves as merceneries in the army of Jzh-Jzh, a hunnish warlord, and then were given their own city in western Han China nearly two decades after Cannae.

 

The URL is: Romans in China

 

The page 9 formatted is a tad messed up because of the exportation to pdf.

[Komet]

Oops. I didn't realize I wrote Cannae in the PM instead of Carrhae.

[Komet]

In any case, something relating to the paper showed up in one of the latest editions of the Economist. Apparently, Chinese living in the modern location of "Roman" Li-chien (or Li-xian or Li-jian depending on your transliteration of Chinese "Alexandria") claim that they are descendents of Romans settled there. This is ridiculous, especially considering the Latin genes could not possibly remain intact after 2000 years of mixing with the local Chinese population.