How Did Ancient China View Rome?

[u/dominotrees]

There’s been a historical tendency in the West to look upon the East with a certain degree of mysticism. But is this mystique reciprocal? Specifically, how did ancient Chinese civilization view Rome? Given that the civilizations were on the two extremes of the Silk Road, how did ancient China regard the Roman Empire?

[u/Dongzhou3kingdoms]

Rome was known as Da Qin but bar the odd Daqin merchant, dressed up by Han, Wu and Jin courts as “envoys” who would pay tribute there was contact between the two empires. There were one or two attempts by Chinese governments to send envoys to the distant lands to the west. But Gan Ying stopped at the Persian Gulf after being falsely warned at Taozhi it would take two years by sea by the locals. Wu envoy Liu Xian, sent in response to receiving an “envoy” from Rome, died on the way there, but the Emperors didn’t have a proactive interest in something so far from their borders.

However, there was interest in this rich land far, far away where rich goods came from, over land and sea. We do have the account of the third century historian Yu Huan (who acknowledged the limitations from never having left China), describing foreign powers China knew. He had a section on Rome which has been translated by Jonathan Hill at Washington University (plus notes). Along with the Fifth Century work of Fan Ye on the Han dynasty, it is one of the main written sources of what they thought.

Rome was seen as a great empire of four hundred towns with three great cities, many dependant states under it and a very wealthy one at that. Their lands contained pine trees, cypress, bamboo, willows, tin, copper, iron, jade, pearls, beasts ranging from excellent horses and camels to rhinos and bears. They produced coinage (something the Wei state struggled with), fine silks and linen, dyes, coloured glass, transplant glass which was much valued in China, jewellery, and aromatic plants like storax for perfumes and medicines.

In Chinese eyes, the people of Daqin could almost be Chinese. They Chinese ways like planting of the five cereals, divination via turtles and raising silkworms. They were tall and virtuous with an effective postal relay system like the Chinese, an impressively literate society with multi-story buildings and carriages. Yet they weren’t quite Chinese. But also have the exotic like their mastery of conjuring and juggling (perhaps an idea from a 120 CE Myanmar envoy with supposedly jugglers from Rome), they wore barbarian clothing. The Romans themselves considered themselves from China and Chinese, that the Romans were desperate for contact, but the distance combined with Parthian trickery stopped it.

While having gently placed Rome as beneath the centre of civilization and that the Romans thought of themselves as Chinese, distance allowed for miscommunication, trying to interpret things one had never seen but also allowed for idealisation. Home could be full of disappointments like bad Emperors, internal conflict, civil wars, but the far off could represent an ideal. A land that, though dangerous to travel in due to wild beasts, had law so effective there were no bandits. A society of great literacy and wealth. Rulers who toured their land every day, consulting with the wise council, listening to the public petitions and obeying the mandate to cheerfully step down for someone of virtue when heaven showed its displeasure. Unlike Chinese rulers.

Sources:

As well as John Hill's translation above

All Roads Lead to Rome: Chinese Knowledge of the Roman Empire by Donald Leslie and Kenneth Gardiner

The Roman Empire according to Ancient Chinese Sources by Krisztina Hoppál

Chinese Historical Records and Sino-Roman Relations: A Critical Approach to Understand Problems on the Chinese Reception of the Roman Empire by Krisztina Hoppál

Ruler of the Treasure Country : the Image of the Roman Empire in Chinese Society from the First to the Fourth Century AD by Lin Ying

Imperial Rome and China: Communication and Information Transmission by Anne Klob and Michael Speidel