Probably Rome's Furthest Expedition
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 พ.ค. 2024
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Did Romans travel all the way to China, through Vietnam? I reckon so.
Sources:
www.badancient.com/claims/rom...
www.ancientworldmagazine.com/...
theconversation.com/how-did-4...
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Not my usual topic this week but just felt like talking about it whilst I was in Vietnam. Next week I have a certified banger for you, "Humanity 1,000,000 years ago". You're going to love it!
That's one way to write off the holiday as an expense! Great video as always though. Hope you have a great time in Vietnam!
There is a roman amphora at the sabah state history museum in borneo. IIRC they aren't entirely sure how it got there. Might tickle your interest.
We don't deserve you, Sir. 😪
Which body are you using for banger certification Stefan?
Wow, great vid. Thank you so much Stef!
hey Stefan, it's An, thank you so much for the shoutout in your video! I'm truly honored to have contributed to your amazing video, cheers, mate!
That was your article? Nice!
@@willmosse3684 no, it was all Stefan's, I just simply helped him on what, where to go when he was in Viet Nam.
Man, it must have been a bitch to have to walk all the way from Rome to China while wearing all that armor.
Its not that heavy. I have a suit of roman armour, if it weren't for the looks, I'd wear it everyday. Good protection against getting stabbed at the train station
BOAT
Dude horse 9
@@propagandalf123Do you live in London by any chance?
@@ShmingleshmangleNo, I am German. We have it equally as bad as you brits, maybe even worse
I do wanna say, just because the tributes weren't considered all that valuable by the Chinese doesn't mean they weren't considered valuable by the Romans, or even that they weren't that valuable because this was the first journey of its kind and an empire at war isn't gonna load chests of gold it needs to pay its armies onto a ship to send to the other side of the world with no guarantee it will get there or even really Can get there. The chances of success for a voyage like that with Roman era ships would not be high.
Ships had been crossing the Indian Ocean from India to the Red Sea for thousands of years by the Roman Empire period. It's well documented, the trip took almost a year due to tradewind patterns.
Also, the Romans may have actually been trying to preserve hard currency by seeing if the Chinese wanted anything else. Rome tried to ban silk at a point, because they were trading finite silver for renewable silk, which isn't a great economic position to be in.
the use of tri-remes or w/e other mediterranean ship types lkikely would have ended before reaching the red sea, no? i mean, is there evidence for roman ships outside the Med?
@@wolfgangBuonarottiyes, there is.
@@wolfgangBuonarotti triremes were military vessels, not trade vessels. the vessels used to make trade missions between India and Egypt would've been locally crafted in the Red Sea and India as they knew the craft of making a seaworthy ship for the job. Rope manufacturing was a major trade along the Red Sea as well, and one of the earliest recorded trades in the region, which is how we know that they were conducting trade via boat for thousands of years before the Romans. It's not a question that Romans were trading in the far-east, but as far as a full-blown expedition is concerned, it's far less clear. First century Romans were at least aware of the Spice Islands, and Roman coins have been found in Java, which suggests Roman traders likely enjoyed some amount of trade before the empire began to decline.
Oh look, my best friend Stefan just sent me a video from his trip.
Imagine if he set up a hotline to send us his videos with detailed friendly texts
@slimtim9570 least parasocial viewer
He is taken as a best friend by me, beat it
From a middle school teacher at an international school in Vietnam - thanks for this content! Will make for an interesting (and relevant!) critical thinking activity during my 7th graders' Rome unit!
Nooooo, not Better Help.
They were fined millions of dollars by the US government for violating HIPPA and selling patient data to big tech. Please don't renew your sponsorship 😊
Stefan, please overthink your sponsorships
I'm not familiar with that website - could you explain why it's so bad? I'm just curious
@@guillervz boiled down: handling user data/patience data in the worst possible way including providing all the sensitive data (even of people that only take the initial questionnaire without actually becoming a customer) to Facebook for advertising and basically fb was allowed to use the data in any way they want. This was not the only instance but that's just a no no. There are videos on TH-cam that go into detail with that, I think one video is called "overthink your sponsors" or something like that.
@@guillervz Also, numerous horror stories about lack of professionalism (and sometimes even a lack of appropriate credentials) from the therapists. Not to mention the company was founded by a hard-core former IDF guy.
Speculating here, but presumably elephant tusks and rhino horns would have been very valuable in Rome, since they would have had to mainly come all the way from sub-Saharan Africa. But Han China most likely still had its own rhinos and elephants in the 2nd century CE, meaning that their horns and tusks would be comparatively more common and less expensive. But the Romans would not necessarily have known this. The gifts being seen as not particularly valuable by the Chinese might be a result of the differing value placed on them by China and Rome. Maybe Marcus Aurelius accidentally bought Huan presents he already had plenty of at home.
I was about to say the same thing. What was impressive in the West at the time was pretty normal in China. Ibn Battuta the Islamic scholar roads that every man in China where is fine silk so the country must be super rich, which is kind of was but to Chinese people silkworms weren't uncommon or hard to raise like where Battuta was from.
I’m speculating here because I can’t recall my past life as Marcus Aurelius but I imagine that China just had a big ego feeling like they had the best everything so would be underwhelmed by most outside gifts of the time.
I thought the same thing about this! This would make a great movie if done right.
Rhinos and Elephants are present in India and SE Asia as well.
Maybe Romans just picked up something on their way to China as they didn't want to go empty handed😅
@@noneoftheabove666
My thoughts too. None of these are particularly Roman. On a long trip with low odds of getting through why invest in goods and drag them all that way?
Instead, once you're close and it looks like you'll make it, you spend some of your gold coins on gifts. Faced with "what do you get the man who has everything" you buy what looks novel or exotic to your Roman eyes.
Not only the Romans were used to sailing very far, but they had permanent outposts in India.
So, it's not absurd that a few merchants decided to have a look in East Asia.
Entirely possible. IMO more likely as either passengers on a trading vessel or they charted a trading vessel. That vessel could have originated in either India or SE Asia. The spice merchants along the Malabar Coast knew they had a good thing going. They were getting rich buying cheap and selling high. The last thing they wanted was the Roman's or their agents finding a way of going to the source. In the 1600s when the Dutch started sending fleets to the "Indies" they ould lose every ship in the fleet except one that got back and still make a fortune.
And if those ambassadors never made it back to Rome, that could be another reason why Rome maybe never even wrote about it. I imagine they weren't too keen to detail presumed failed expeditions, especially if they only sent a few somewhat unimportant people to do it. I often wonder when ancient rulers sent people out to explore, how long did they wait for them to come back before assuming it was a failed mission? And how many of them actually made it to their destination, but just not all the way back home to tell anyone? This reminds me of the story of an African king who sent a fleet out into the Atlantic Ocean and never returned, but possibly discovered South America and left evidence on an island along the way. Might be another good video topic for you!
Possible origin of the Olmecs?
That story would be about the predecessor of mansa musa, which most historians think was mansa muhammad ibn qu. He lived around 1300 ad. The olmec civilazation started around 1500 BC and in 4000 bc there were already agrarian settlements. Its also a pretty racist pseudoscientific theory to believe
@@danielvanhuizen1253 Mansa Muhammad sounds like the one I was thinking of, but I thought it was speculated they might have made it to Brazil or thereabouts. It's been a while since I heard the story in some videos, so my memory is foggy.
*History repeating ?*
Romans wishing to possibly find an 'alternate' route to the east --
- ends up being repeated over a thousand years later by Christopher Columbus.
*Now just imagine the Romans leaving the Mediterranean & striking west across the Atlantic ?*
@@charleshash4919 Sure, some -hypothetical- african castaways from the XIV century somehow appeared in neolithic north america, and they alone, a bunch of men with no communication with any metropoli, made an entire civilization. In the past. In a continent far away from their home. And leaving no trace in the closer lands.
I'd sooner believe the aliens built the pyramids. At least it doesn't involve time travel.
This channel is such a gem. Lucky to have found it recently.
I have been going through your older videos and you definitely have a unique way of humanizing history.
Great stuff. Seems more likely that these sorts of long range contacts came from trade missions that may have claimed to represent Rome whether the central authority were aware of such or not. I don’t think that makes the possibility of such contacts any less remarkable.
yes!
Since the time of Augustus the Romans had trade contact with Southern India who in turn had trade contact with Southeast Asia so that seems a more likely explanation than a one off expediton. Fun fact: this trade route brought most of the silk and spices to the empire and even a Hindu statue that was found in Pompeii. The coin was turned into a necklace, this could mean it was done by the local elite at some point. However again the more likely senario here is that is was brought there by colonial rulers (the French) since making jewelry out of Roman coins was common among the European elite after the renaissance.
Our main source on Roman Trade is a book called the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, which lists ports and gives a rough idea of distance, politics and what you can buy and sell there. It covers the Red Sea, East Africa, the Gulf and the India but I don't remember it giving anything beyond India. Trade with India was so frequent that I'm sure curious merchants, especially ones who did business with local merchants who went east, would have asked question about what lay beyond and that information would have made it back to Alexandria and Rome. I could even see a geographer like Ptolemy and Roman officials chatting with the merchants who'd been India and enlisting them to gather information in Indian Ports, both about India itself and what lay beyond. That said, I could easily say, well we have plenty of ships going to India, and the captains all say there are ships in port trading with China via Vietnam. Let's send some men to India with a bag of gold and tell them to try and get to China and see what you can find out.
@@scottn2046look at this video is in Italian but it should be with subtitles the guy usually doesn’t post fake info in his other documentaries but I didn’t fact check this so take it with a grain of salt. It seems like the romans had even some permanent settlements in India at some time
th-cam.com/video/yBxDfxbWBeI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=zWG_Xyf53N8teVwg
I always find it a funny thing that Buddhism was popular in the Hellenistic world and later the Eastern part of the Roman empire, and might even have provided some inspiration for Christianity.
@@frankvandorp9732 Known by certain intellectuals in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Hellenistic and Roman period, yes, but popular, no. But it'd an intriguing question how much two way connections there were between Buddhists and Greek Philosophers, both BC and AD, particularly Alexandria, and whether that had any influence on religious free thinkers in the upper Red Sea in the early Christian era ...
The importance of considering something that seems unlikely is that if we don't hold it as at least a possibility, and we toss the idea aside, then if new clues or evidence do show up, we will dismiss them because we have already decided it couldn't have happened. Keeping an open mind allows the possibility for recognizing new evidence, either for or against the idea, and allowing the possibility of new discoveries and further understanding.
We are so back! Thank you for everything Stefan ❤
Genuine joy when I saw you upload a new video! Thanks!
I discovered your channel quite recently and I have to say it's quickly becoming my absolute favorite. Keep up the good job and you will have a million subs by this time next year!
Your content is pure quality! Been watching for years now 📖
Same here
What a beautiful sight to come home to, another BANGER video by Stephan the don! Always good to wind down listening to how and who got us to where we are today.
Voices of the Past reads a first hand account of an earlier Chinese embassy to Rome. I can't quite remember but I think it was during the reign of Augustas Caesar.
Just to nitpick, Okinawa didn't become part of Japan until the 19th century, so calling it Japan at an earlier period is a tad anachronistic, like referring to Roman-era Constantinople as Turkey.
Edited to add: I should clarify since some people have misunderstood my point. I'm happy to talk about ancient Japan even before any states existed there, e.g. paleolithic Japan. But Okinawa is geographically separate from the main islands of Japan, lying roughly halfway between Taiwan and Kyushu, the southernmost of the main islands of Japan. And Okinawa was historically the centre of the maritime kingdom of Ryukyu, which was a separate state that established diplomatic relations with Japan, Korea, and China. It is linguistically separate, home to Okinawan and other Ryukyuan languages which are distantly related to but not mutually intelligible with Japanese. Because of all this, historians of the region treat Ryukyu as its own thing and don't refer to premodern Okinawa as Japan.
wow such big brain. you must be fun at parties.
He wasn't calling it Japan "at an earlier period". He was merely stating the location where the archaeologists found it. The ruins are located at Okinawa, Japan.
@@ronangelox He called it a Japanese castle, which is a bit like calling the Hagia Sophia a Turkish building. Correct in a way, but misleading.
Even geographically, it's not very satisfactory since Okinawa isn't part of the main islands of Japan. It's like calling the moai Chilean statues because Easter Island is today part of Chile.
Obviously he calls it Japan because thats what be called for most of its history. Just like Egypt
@@reeyees50 No, Okinawa was not a part of Japan before the 19th century, any more than Corsica was a part of France before the 18th century or Kaliningrad was a part of Russia before the 20th century. It was the centre of its own kingdom, Ryukyu, situated between Japan and Taiwan. Ryukyu was always seen as foreign to the Japanese before it was annexed to Japan in the 19th century, with its own language and culture. Historians treat Ryukyu as separate from Japan. I'm not faulting anyone for not being familiar with the history and just assuming it's always been part of Japan, but I think viewers of this channel would be interested in getting this right.
I was wondering where my favorite guy Stefan was. I have been thinking about your channel off and on at random throughout the past two weeks and I NEVER think about any TH-cam channel ever except yours recently. I think the cannabis docu you said you were working on peeked my interest on some level. Always good to see your videos. I write a cool comment during the advertisement so that’s why a lot of my comments are so long.
This is a really fascinating topic as the interactions between Europe and Asia have been a particular interest of mine for a while. Thank you for making this video, your content never disappoints!
Looking forward to that next video, sounds really interesting!
Thats some good digging! Fascinating stuff and lovely maps
Ive been to that Okinawan castle, the view and sunset is indeed nice, missed the coins though :/
Thank You for this, Stefan. It's always a joy to watch Your content. Love it!
Greetings from Sweden 🇸🇪
Two of my favorite things, Stefan Milo and Rome! In one video! I'm not worthy!
My favourite TH-cam channel right now! So informative and fun always:)
Thank u Steven dope video , I been subscribed for like 3 years.
Have a blast mate, I'm really enjoying having 'discovered' you just a few weeks back
interesting, thanks. so grateful for your channel
DUDE ! . Love it ta for your efforts , love you
guy .
There was an Ancient Indian Expedition to Egypt where few people survived.
where can I read more about this?
Lê dot
I watch your videos in amazement. You cover topics which I find fascinating, just like this video.
You're a great science and history communicator. Thanks as always for the content
Interesting video. I look forward to more information about thus!
01:20 for an instant I thought you said “it’s Chile” and my mind hoped for a video on Monte Verde and early populations of the Southern cone of South America. One can only wish. Love all of your videos, by the way, many thanks for your work!
Another excellent spot of work by Milo
Wow, that was so cool! Off the beaten track for your usual prehistory stuff. But suuuper interesting.
Absolute BANGER of a video
Steven Miller makes the most of his trip to Vietnam and gives us this compelling video. What a guy!
Thanks for this video, I learned a lot. This story makes for a pretty cool movie or TV series !
Interesting topic, and lovely to hear about Vietnam!
My man amazing video 🙏📹
Great content!!
Glad you made it home!
Would tusks and shells have been rare and expensive in ancient Rome? Maybe the Romans thought they were valuable gifts
Or maybe it was very valuable to other areas in Asia so the Romans just assumed it would be the same there
As African elephants are larger than Asiatic elephants I think that very large African tusks would be impressive to the Chinese.
@@michaelh6551 Roman and Greek sources always claim the opposite: that Indian elephants are bigger and stronger than African ones. This is because the African elephant they knew was the extinct North African population, which would have been more like modern forest elephants, and might have been a subspecies of them.
@@michaelh6551 Big Asian tuskers from ancient times could probably just about compete with African tuskers, they can be very impressive even today
Hey Stefan this video is absolutely crazy and man this shocks me, from West Africa to East Asia the Romans sought to discover the expanses of Earth but alas it was not but thank you so much for clearing the Easternmost expansion of the Ancient Romans ❤❤❤
This video was great man! Thanks so much. Maybe the Roman ambassadors just decided to chill and make a life for themselves at their final destination after their over 12,000 mile expedition. I think I would lol
Another banger from you !
Wow, at the end you wonder about how hard and uncertain it must have been for the Romans on this expedition. You always bring your videos to the perspective of the human experience. For modern humans, for early ancestors or cousin species. I appreciate that.
That is a neat video, I wish you do more video on Ancient mainland Southeast Asia like Angkor or Champa temples.
One of my favourite things at my advanced age is learning history that I don't know! Thanks, Stefan!
Keep up the good work 👍💪
6:54 this fresco is amazing
No way! I just moved to Vietnam recently, I'm living in HCMC. I've been watching your vids for years, funny coincidence 😅
I haven't been to the history museum yet but it's on my list 😊
Great Content. The OC EO insription on the tablet at 4.43 looks more Brahmi than Sanskrit
My step-nephew lives in Vietnam as does an American Facebook friended several years ago. The nephew is in the hospitality trade. And the son of my colleague from uni also lives in Vietnam. So… I would say it’s a popular destination and sometimes residence. Good to see this side venture positing an expedition of such length. I think of how far Alexander the Great went and pretty sure he at least got to China but yes it’s a crazy long way and even further to Vietnam.
Great video. What I wouldn't give to be an ambassador to a land that I had no idea what it was like, what was out there, or how far it went
I love Stefan, I love Rome. When he covers Roman expeditions I think I've died and gone to heaven.
Hi Stefan! Have you ever considered writing a book? I think something containing loads of stories like this or just interesting archeological finds would be really cool, especially if done by you!
I saw a LOT of coins from that era, many of Cesar getting pulled out of tombs, turtle tombs, in Anatolia. Deifineci Deniz has many videos, but there are dozens of treasure seeker channels for the area. Thank you.
Huzzah! Stefan dropped another historical arch video!!! Great work!!
Fun fact: an author just wrote a historical fiction book called Silk Road Centurion. It's about a Roman centurion being sold off into slavery in China.
Living in the golden peninsula, being sandwiched by great civilizations west and east of us with at least 2 millennia of written and archeological history, makes me pretty envious. Our written history goes back barely 600 years.
You are wrong about that and need to learn more about the pre European years. America has known great civilizations for thousands of years. And a lot of it has yet to be discovered.
@@telebubba5527 the golden peninsula is the Malay peninsula. Not everything is about amerifats
There was a ghost stories TH-cam story recently about a man who saw a ghostly Roman legionary apparition in Vietnam. Fascinating
We have been covering the Roman Empire for the past few weeks in one of my classes!
By the time the Chinese historical account was written, the Chinese had decided that the rest of the world had little to offer, so it would not surprise me that the gifts were denigrated. Something that makes me skeptical though: the Roman elite were contemptuous of merchants and thus also of seafarers, I think an emperor would be more likely to send a land-going expedition.
I see a new Stefan Milo video -> I couldn’t possible press the like button faster
Nice job!
Interesting video. I highly doubt it was Roman expedition.
Maybe some Roman traders heard about Vietnam when they were just walking around in the markets of Southern India and decided to take a trip there?
Or maybe the coins reached Vietnam from some other traders from Southern India, the Middle East or Sri Lanka?
Fascinating stuff.
Thanks, really interesting.
Awesome topic , always wondered what did these ancient civilizations knew about the rest of the world and its inhabitants .
Interesting video. Videos about Carthage please.
I totally thought this was gonna be about the lost Roman legion. Neat to learn new stuff! Also I find it funny that they deemed the alleged tribute not valuable, since today (and years since), those are v rare, valuable things.
The subtitles just said, “Titus Pullo being a legend.”
First of all, based.
Secondly…Lol wtf?!? Did SMilo or an algorithm write that?
Thank you, sir, for yet another incredible vid. Being a sort of “fighting naturalist” like that kid in the film Master n Commander stated, history is often the thing that gets pushed to the background. What a wonderful way then to start a day, sipping coffee and learning of a wider world. May your travels bring you sunsets in Japan and more.
:-)
Peace.
*_'Pullo --- get back in formation you drunken fool'_*
Lucius Vorenus-bot in the comments
Love doing nerdy things while traveling.
7:20 Nicely done, navigating that tunnel just like Indiana Jones!
Now living near the small city you grew up in, I can attest that there are lots of mental health resources in the area, even if they are not free on the NHS.
Fascinating presentation otherwise, which I enjoyed very much.
That's a heck of a journey, but certainly possible! I hope more evidence surfaces one day
Stephan, I am writing a book on people who practice “Immersive History”. I’d like to interview you for about 15 minutes because you make these things do interesting! It’s an art!
Excellent and captivating video. Loved the part about the Roman and China connection. I think quite a few people can possibly point a portion of their DNA markers to Roman ancestry. I would love to see a future video featuring tools used by current paleontologists in the field and lab. You are very good at explaining things, and I think you would do the topic justice.
I remember reading a historical novel about this expedition. It was fun! I can't remember the name though, lol. But just thinking about how hard the expedition must've been is crazy
I love nothing more than a “cheeky little archeology video’. 😀
Fascinating as always 😊. But you start by saying that the coin could have land here through trades centuries later. So wether the travel really happened or not and Ptoleme is another clue there were some kind of contacts, still, it could be completely unrelated to the coin.
amazing video thank you! i hope the algorithm treats you well, here’s a comment for ya
Love your videos Stefan! Great as usual, could do without the betterhelp sponsorship though (not a good company mate!)
Cui Chi tunnels to Ha Long Bay? Bit of a departure from your usual stuff, but fun. There's always the old "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" saw if all other arguments fail.
Great Vid! ...Even if not in this particular circumstance, it is probable (In My Amateur Opinion), that SOME kind of semi-regular trade must have happened between such far-flung wealthy empires, given their technology, stability, and knowledge at this time.
...There is SO much there, buried and/or forgotten, waiting to be found (And disseminated by great channels like this one.) Cheers!
China Also sent ambassadors to Rome as well, but same as what stopped the Romans, the Parthians convinced the Chinese envoys it was not worth going further, Glad you did a Roman video on the Ides of March, Ave Caesar!
Guy at 12:37 Its cool these are my food safe flops
Maybe the reason the chineese didn't think much of the roman gifts was that they weren't exceptionally exotic to them. Ivory and turtleshells they could find at home, but the romans possibly didn't know that. ??
My understanding is that the most valuable Roman commodity for the Chinese --------- was Roman glass -
I think you made a solid case! As for "why not better known?" Like you said, they may not have made it home. I've noticed that any trip that didn't lead to anything permanent gets forgotten. Whether it's the Vikings in Canada, Brendan the Navigator reaching North America, the Chinese circumnavigating the world in 1421, or this Roman delegation... no effect, no glory.
Thanks!
Venetian trade beads made it to Alaska. Pre Columbus.
I was just at that museum this summer. And at the Cu Chi tunnels. I think I saw that coin!
You are so funny. You should do more travel videos. :D
Nice of you to include the distance in Centimeters. 😂 Might have been just as useful to measure it in Danny Devitos.
5:50 WILD coincidence but I'm researching Ptolemy's world maps for a paper in another window RIGHT NOW as this section played in the other window! lol
Best content on TH-cam
Back in the early 2000s.
Construction workers in Silay City, the Philippines dug a wooden box that contained roman coins.
But well it also contains Spanish and Chinese coins.
So it could have been part of a collection of someone who lived during the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines up to the Japanese Occupation or probably later.