This somehow made me think of the Fermi Paradox. When Rome was big enough to have contact the with China, Hans just had a breakup. When China got back together the Roman Empire dissolved. They missed out each other.
Yeah, the bloody three kingdoms fucked Han dynasty up before they made proper contact with Roman. Imagine what would have happened if they really did establish diplomatic ties.
alsouni Han Dynasty was actually fucked by the bureaucrats. The officials had too much power and the emperors in the late Eastern Han were all so young that they can’t do shit to those bureaucrats who just makes shit decisions. So it won’t be possible unless the empire wasn’t fucked by overpowered bureaucrats.
@@alexsolosm Probably nothing beyond trade and exchange of knowledge unfortunately. The distance is really just too far for either of them to impact each other to any great extent.
@@rosskeskin7563 They can both invade Parthia, and split the middle east and central Asia between the both of them Cutting out the middle man, then they can trade directly
There is significant difference on the understanding of Chinese Emperor and Roman Emperor. The Roman terms, Imperator, is more like President for Life instead of passing through the bloodline, which is of course something that neither the Chinese Emperor nor senior ministers/scholars would want to promote in China. Whoever wrote the text was touching the limit of treason.
@@cyrilchui2811 Or they simply either did not understand the system or never got that detail. They were writing down second-hand information that wasn't given to them by any form of intelligentsia most likely.
There was a story before about merchants who would lay out their goods on a beach in Africa then sail just off the coast, the natives would come out and pick what they wanted and left what they thought was a good trade. Then the merchants came back and collected the stuff. They never even talked.
Caellum Kennedy it’s the silent salt trade, I forgot which place in Africa is it although from what I last read there is still negotiations happening between, like if the other side find the trade deal unsatisfactory they would beat a drum to tell so.
Not just Wives like, History books said rich men also wear silk clothes. Even the middle-classes men wear silk as underwear. (Because Romans love bathing, they will show underwear to other Roman men in the public bath room)
Obviously, the Romans saw themselves as the most civilized nation on the planet. And to be fair, they did have plumbing, public heated baths and floor heating.
@@wardeni4806 considering china also had those but in the royal palace only. Every large empire thinks its the best thing since (pick famous thing from back then). Tho the Chinese also had gun powder first. I think its funny how the east always developed shit first but its always the west that steals the fame for it like gun powder, plumbing, and noodles.
Justinian definitely knew about the Chinese and sent spies to steal their silk worms by hiding silk worm eggs in a hollow walking stick. Silk production is what financed the Byzantine Empire for the next 800 years.
Chinese account of Ancient Rome: A fuzzy but not totally inaccurate account of the Mediterranean, democracy, big cities and trade products The Roman account of China: They got wool
@@brettvogel8418 In fact, we Chinese are also a combination of many nationalities. This was the case in the Han Dynasty. We also discriminate against groups that are not under the jurisdiction of the Empire.
The whole 'Rome produces silk' is probably Parthians telling the Chinese that the Romans have silk to order to get better prices out of the Chinese. Sounds like both Rome and China's ideas of each other was ran through the filter of Parthia. With Rome being typically less than friendly with Parthia they probably got less of a picture other than some traders pov. Also as for the Roman Silk, it could also be Sea Silk which is a rare and fine material made from a shellfish. But its always interesting hearing about something we know about today and the ancients trying to figure out what it is from second/third hand accounts. Like asbestos, and some people thinking it was from the samandar. A fire proof creature. They didn't realize it came from a mineral.
From what i can gather, silk was produced in ancient rome, however the quality of roman (european) silk was inferior compared to chinese silk, mostly because ancient chine found a way to make long strands of silk while ancient roman silk was short strands (they cut the coccon, making long strand silk impossible)
Rome had no silk, but they had several dyes China didn't had. Raw silk coming from China was often dyed in western colours, and then exported back in China, so fuelling the mith that Rome produced its own silk.
China: oh look they sent a delegate! Send in the merchants! Rome: oh look they sent a delegate! Send in the merchants! Merchants: thank God we played the delegate card. Can you imagine what they would do if they thought we didn't have powerful backers?
On one hand, there’s the opportunity to make some profit. On the other hand, how do you suppose to verify the credibility of said merchants? Send a pigeon?
Tbf if i was those Chinese merchants back then and traveling to some supposedly real place far to the west, I would bang as many women as I could on the way there and back lmfao.
Probably quite a lot, but the same could be said for the Chinese considering how many times the Mongols and other nomadic tribes before them invaded unfortunately.
That's true for Chinese reports also. We often make the mistake of considering them an accurate and continuous collection of facts dating back to several millennia. In reality they are really sketchy and incomplete.
Imagine if the philosophers Lao Tzu and Marcus Aurelius could meet and exchange ideas. There are already a few similarities in their respective philosophies to begin with.
Yes though the statement as presented would only be true if Bejing was at the antipode of Rome on the surface of the Earth which would place it a bit East of New Zealand 20000 km away. That said by this time there were already pretty good estimates of the size of the Earth at least in Europe and India was far from an isolated civilisation nor one lacking in well educated and informed scholars, philosophers and mathematicians of their own. Thus I would be inclined to suspect there is some hyperbole to the statement to emphasise the great distance rather than them being ignorant of the fact that the diameter of the Earth (12,750 km +/- a bit depending where you measure) is 1.57 times larger and the distance between antipodes over the surface (20,000 km with the same caveat) is 2.46 times larger .
Seraphina I’m really not sure what you’re getting at or why you’re talking about antipodes. I was praising the no name indian philosopher. He was right; the distance between the two empires was greater than the radius of the earth.
@@ThrillaWhale Except, that "no name Indian philosopher" didn't say that the distance between the two empires is greater than the radius of the Earth. He said that a rope stretching between those empires would go through the center of the Earth which isn't very close to the truth. It's still an impressive estimate, but you got it completely wrong.
Why measure distance from Rome to Beijing? Beijing wasn't even much of a city back then. The Chinese capital was in Luoyang at the time when Rome was relevant, and Chang'An (Xi'an) is the starting point of the Silk Road.
i guess it fascinates a lot of ppl how the world's two foremost great civilizations might have interacted. neither of them 'white' the anglos were insignificant then and will soon be insignificant again
I disagree. Two vast and influencial powers would inevitably have become aware of one other. All it would take is for a tiny number of intrepid people to travel from one to the other for news to spread.
The ancient Romans and Chinese didn't know each other, but traded with the same people in Asia, so probably they were aware of one other. But the great distance kept them apart and they were only legends about which merchants told stories often heard by other merchants.
I am thoroughly impressed. I showed my dad this video (my dad is a historian with an exceptional love from Roman history) and he seemed surprised at exactly how far the Chinese had made it in the direction of Rome. Definitely going to watch everything you have because it takes a lot to impress that man lol
Gan Yin in Parthia: "How close am I to Rome?" Parthians: "Oh Rome is very, VERY far. It could take at least two years of traveling. Not worth it." Imagine the 'what if' had Gan Yin discovered the Parthians and Romans actually shared a border.
@@TheSirBrainbug There is simply no way such an alliance would have worked or oppose a military thread. Communication and coordination between the two party's would have been nearly impossible. Look at it this way, the coordination between germany and japan in ww2 was so bare bones that it was almost completely irrelevant on a strategic level. If it was simply not possible for these two nations to coordinate their efforts in the 20th century, how would it work with two other country's almost 2000 years in the past (the distance between their capitals is comparable). Also ancient china had simply no reason to even consider wasting resources on a war efforts that far in the west.
MCoTEDDY no true empire ever wastes resources in attacking people across the world. Literally Genghis khan was a good general But he wasn’t by any means excellent And his nomadic horseman Had really conquered empty land and moslty farm lands and basically just empty lands The Mongolians aaren’t really true conquerors If they were They’d be like Rome and or China A empire that has a capital. Rome would never succeed in its offensive against China And China would never succeed against Rome Literally Too many mouths too feed and the distance is soo far China would collapse from itself While Rome would be holding its own territory And the others (like Gauls and Germanics would revolt But would be affected by the Chinese too) So would have to ally with Rome or be brought down individually. But that still is far fetched Chinese population was 53 million Too supply even a million people 1200 miles away on foot Would be not impossible but close
@@shadowdeslaar 'no true empire ever wastes resources in attacking people across the world. ' 21st Century America: 'Hold my beer, I see some WMDs that need freedom'
fludblud America is thousands of years apart from every empire Empires are older then Superpowers This the 21 century Were you can fly to eroupe in hours and sail to eroupe I’n weeks You can literally fly Back in the ancient eras They didn’t even know America existed They didn’t have the ability to launch nuclear missiles And America isn’t even building an empire We are attacking enemies we could easily crush in literally days But our government makes money if our wars Their wars Political wars I’m sorry But modern era doesn’t count As you can send a million men across the planet I’m literal days Of course I’m not saying your gonna be successful But no true empire attacks an enemy they know they can’t even reach This sounds dumb right Look at Napoleon He attacked Russia during winter He then would have to conquer all all of Russia So much land and territory It’s like mongols taking land with nobody in it Unlike Rome taking Gaul Land that flourished with people And territory that is so close They could climb the alps and view it Not when it’s just a whisper of a civilization Across several seas and thousands of miles of land For fuck sakes Hitler failed ww2 cause he attacked Russia during winter And had too TAKE THOUSAND miles of land Covered in freezing cold and being attacked by the native enemy Making his resources harder to get too and receive It’s called a Supply Train I’n the ancient world It was damn near impossible to supply yourself enough to conquer thousand miles of land and terrain In the modern era It’s made easier But still very hard And America hasn’t conquered shit Just making sure you get that America isn’t empire building If they were They’d be Expanding their empire Witch they aren’t
I've also heard the theory that emperor Hadrian got the idea for Hadrian's wall from tales told by traders from the east of giant endless walls to keep out the nomads, also a roman expedition was sent down the Nile by Nero and apparently reached as far as South Sudan and possibly even the Congo!
You're right. If the two great empires could make friendly contact, perhaps the Roman Empire would learn from the unified thought of the Han Dynasty, so that Rome's vast territory would be unified for a long time and never perish. The Han Dynasty was able to learn the profound philosophy of Rome so that it would not be bullied by the colonists at sea after two thousand years of being strong.
Imagine how it'd have went if the two empires managed to hold things together long enough to meet. Chinese gunpowder and compasses. Roman ships and sail. Put them together and you have the Age of Sail a thousand years earlier.
Han China would be thrilled to encounter another great power and all the knowledge they could now learn. Ancient Rome would be thrilled to encounter a new civilization of barbarians to conquer and control.
If I remember right, Byzantine sources accurately describe the political situation in China at a given point in time and correctly identify the current Chinese emperor.
Yes, many smart people knew it or at least suspected this from observing things like the horizon or lunar eclipses. The idea that everyone was a flat-earther is a recent myth. When Columbus was looking for finacial backers for his trip the argument was about the size, not the shape of the Earth. The Dominican scholars from University of Salamanca were pointing out that his crew will starve to death in their little boats before they reach China, and they were right about it. Fortunately for him there was another continent in the way. Now people think it was "visionary Columbus vs stupid Christian flat-earthers" when in fact it was a group of very smart but cautious scholars vs some ignorant guy who got incredibly lucky.
@Vimar Espiras AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH PLEASE MAKE ME GO TO PRISON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@yellow13_ Most christians and pretty much every christian scholar in the Middle Ages knew that Earth was round. You're the one who appears to be idiotic by not knowing that.
When you really think about it, it’s crazy how we can travel all over the globe in a matter of hours at the most a day. Back in the ancient world it would take years.
roads make a big difference, after all people still have to eat and drink which is heavy to carry. The cost to bring someone over would be the same as the cost for a small army.
This has always been one of my favorite historical topics, even if we can only ever know so much about it. Long before any "age of discovery" or "exploration," we had two major civilizations a world apart hearing mere rumors of each other. It's a shame that no formal embassies were ever established.
Speaking as a Classics/Archaeology Undergrad student and historical enthusiast. It would be AMAZING if you could post/accompany a bibliography with your work. It would be interesting to see al the different sources for your videos, so we could judge/do our own research with the evidence on hand.
Theophylact Simocatta, an Eastern Roman historian of 7th century wrote a relatively accurate chinese history of the reunification of China by Emperor Wen (r. 581-604 AD) of the Sui Dynasty, with the conquest of the rival Chen Dynasty in southern China
Mizzurani Friend smashed by the romans? Didnt they lose to the moors and the Huns? You fracking idiot. Europeans couldn’t even finish the crusades after trying for like a 1000 years. Meanwhile mongols smashed the Middle East In under a decade lmao
The first time I ever heard about Roman/Chinese relations was when I watched a video about the theory that some PoWs settled in China after the war against the Parthians, and then the day after that I went out to a Chinese restaurant for lunch with my Latin class
@@ericwang9348 its entirely possible that happened. Many legionnaires that survived Carrae stayed in parthia or were shipped elsewhere as slaves. We will never know for sure which is why its a theory and not fact. Denying theories outright prohibits future facts from being found.
@VeroMithril dude im not saying its not possible it was brought over at a later date. Im just saying they found one that's all. And it's probably from around Caesars time so yeah i exaggerated the age a bit.
Da Qin/大秦 does not mean Great China. The Chinese called their country 中國 (Zhongguo/Middle Kingdom) 漢/漢國 (Han/kingdom of the Han) or 華夏 (Huaxia/Great Xia) the term “Chin/China” was a foreign transliteration of Qin which was the name of the north western region in China(makes sense since Qin would be the first state to come in to contact with any foreigners coming from the west), so “Qin” was a name to the indicate the direction of the Roman Empire. The Chinese states were collectively called 諸夏 (Zhuaxia/ States of the Xia people), the most western vassal state of the Zhou was the Qin, Qin later unified China under the Qin dynasty but during the Qin dynasty the Chinese still referred to themselves as the Xia while Qin was merely the name of the government.
Thom Al No that’s not true, China or the name 中國 was used since the Zhou dynasty, the concept of China was already founded in the Shang dynasty. The idea that China never existed until the 20th century was in fact a propaganda created by the Chinese communist government, because the communist party promotes the multiethnic “Chinese nation” which was founded by the Qing dynasty and not the original Chinese nation that was homogeneously Han Chinese only. People often confuse the later multiethnic Chinese nation with the original Han Chinese nation. Yes the modern/multiethnic Chinese nation was founded in the 20th century(to stabilise the Manchu rule over multiple ethnicities within their empire). But the Han Chinese identity of China existed since the founding of our earliest civilisation. Do you seriously believe that we Han Chinese a nation with at least 30 million population since the Han dynasty, did not have a concept of who we are? Do you know why the Han Chinese rebels from both northern and southern China during the Mongol Yuan dynasty claimed to restore the “Song Dynasty” and not the Jurchen Jin or Khitan Liao Dynasty? Did you know their slogan was “驅逐(expel)韃虜(nomad savages)恢復(restore)中華(China)”? Because we Han Chinese had a strong sense of nationalism and awareness of our national identity. This slogan was RE-used during the Xinhai revolution by the nationalist Chinese revolutionary army against the Manchu Qing dynasty.
“Seres” is a transliteration of “西域”, which means “the western sphere” in Chinese. The “Zheng Qian” mentioned in the video should be spelled as “Zhang Qian” for it refers to 张骞, the famous militarist-diplomat of Han Dynasty. This is if you want to use contemporary Pinyin. Ancient Chinese at the time were pronounced very differently, somewhat like Cantonese of today.
@@alexanderchenf1 地方 and 域 is the same thing unless you want to debate it literally, not sure I understand your saying about ""connotation", "but when translate into English language the difference between "地方" and “域” is just like the difference between "prime" and "major", but there is no way as you use "the western sphere" to describe 西域。
Ancient Chinese dynasties are one of the best for recording other kingdoms or realms both near and far. They record almost anything they could find, from the people, government types, religions, customs of nobles and commoners, the foods they eat for both classes, any plants, flowers, fruits, birds, animals, to the climate, and how it looks like. And it will be more detailed if those kingdoms are large/strong and the closer to china the better the record. And unlike ancient western historians, their records are "cleaner" (from things like myths, oracles, etc)
@@sabinoluevano7447 There are many kinds of history books in China. Which do you want? The translation of the official history handed down from ancient times or the complete collection of history summarized and compiled by modern people?
@@sabinoluevano7447 The official history of China is boring to read, and it takes perseverance to finish it, while the history summed up by modern people according to ancient books is easier for people to read.
@@greyngreyer5 shorter you mean. When two comparable powers fight for a long time, it drains them. That's how the Eastern Roman Empire got weakened due to their centuries long conflict with the Sassanids.
@@zippyparakeet1074 Well it depends what kind of relationship they'd be in. The Cold War saw both America and Russia tremendously progress in a technological sense. That is what I mean.
@@greyngreyer5 cold war is not all comparable. The historical precedent has been that any two similarly strengthed powers always go to war until the other is broken, the cold war has been a unique period in that regard since it never went hot due to the existence of nukes. Without nukes, there'd easily have been a world war 3. Hell, even the cold war nearly went hot a few times despite nukes. So you can't compare.
I just wanted to say I've always wanted to know more about just this topic, and am so glad you did a video of Chinese/Roman Relations! Keep up the good work Invicta.
@@InvictaHistory I hope you guys do I learned so much from you two and I love it having you two together can help expand all of our mindsets on the world by learning its past together
China Rome and Sassanid empire had connection and met many years ago .Silk road is proof .The last Shah of Sassanid empire fled to Tang after the caliphate invasion .He died in Chang'an .Also there were a lot of Rome merchant in China at that time .
I think they both knew eachother like "yeah there is such a state veeery far away." And traded indirectly. Romans be like "Yeah there are dudes veeeeery far east producing Silk. You know it looks good." Chinese were more like "Those Parthians say there are powerful assholes in the west covering an entire sea. They say their leaders keep dying."
Voices of the past are really good. I believe the the guys over at "History Time" run that channel too. That being said, YES! YES! YES! This is exactly what I wished that someone did and you did it. Thank you so much for this.
Thanks for this carefully made video. A minor cent: there were direct communications between Roman and China, though not much. According to 后汉书 ( Late Han Dynasty: The Official History), in the chapter of 西域传 (Records about the Wester World), there was a record: 至桓帝延熹九年，大秦王安敦遣使自日南徼外献象牙、犀角、玳瑁，始乃一通焉。 The year 桓帝延熹九年 (the 9th year of emperor Yuan of Han dynasty) is 166 A.D., so 大秦王 (the Roman Emperor) refers to Marcus Aurelius. 安敦 sounds exactly like Augustus. 遣使 means "sent messengers". 自日南 means "via 日南", which is a county name. It belonged to China in 166 A.D., but now part of Vietnam. In this history book, there is a lot of text about Roman. Before what I picked above, it told the trials of Chinese messengers to Roman. All of them had to give up for some reason on their way through the mid-east. That is why the messenger from Roman was very welcomed. 始乃一通焉 mean "ultimately the two countries established direct connection". The grammar conveys a strong feeling of excitement.
Aceint Rome:Aceint China is a great country,I would like to trade with them! Aceint China : Ancient Rome is a great country,I would like to trade with them! Morden Keyboardman：Noooo! U two must fight! Or I would never know which of u are greater!
Either way if they really made contact they would probably go to war with each other... im not familiar with Ancient china.. But Roman empire.. they have a history of people greedy for power...... they'll probably go to war with china... to expand..
China: "we bring you things to trade" Rome: "..they must be thoroughly ransacked to supply the Roman women back at home.." Colonialism thoughts before it was a thing.
I recommend checking out the Kings and Generals channel, if you haven't already. They have 3 videos that I think would definitely interest you - How Egypt financed Rome, Roman-Indian trade, and Roman-African trade - all about 15mins long.
Very interesting. My impression is that Chinese silk was very popular among the Roman upper classes, although they may not have realized that it came from China, specifically. In any case, I thought that until modern times, China was the sole source of silk in the world.
What about the Chinese expedition in Greco-Bactria and the siege ,and eventual capture, of Alexandria Eschate , as well as the trade connections these two great civilizations had .
Trade went through intermediaries as discussed in the video sure of course some information would flow with that but like the video points out this is a long distance game of telephone and things get muddied along the way especially when you have multiple language translations along the way also.
The video progression bar on the map showing Eurasia and Africa (the most frequently used map in the video) corresponds with the Equator. A very nice touch!
I think he’s talking about the imperial Rome. Before that Rome wasn’t big enough to reach out to the Far East. By that time Han was half way through it’s 400 year ruling, moved its capital from the west to the east and only resumed the Silk Road trades some 20 years later. So really, Rome and China only had about 150 years time to meet each other.
That mention of the guy who speculated that "if a rope were strung from Rome to China, that it would run through the center of the Earth" was actually pretty insightful for the time... Even back then they would have laughed at Flat earthers! 😂
I thought it was very impressive how the Chinese knew the basics about the Roman republic system, even beign anachronical, the Senate for example was still running during the Empire. Of course, the chinese sources came from the Parthians who were rivals to the Romans, but problably the chinese found some roman merchants there or some people from eastern roman provinces. The hint on that it's when they descrybed the client kingdoms, Armenia, Judea, or the Bosporan Kingdoms were one of these eastern client kingdoms of Rome, at least during the last years of the Republic when Pompeo vassalized numerous kingdoms in the east, like the Bosporan, Pontus, Armenia, Galatia, and Judea. Other "client kingdoms" will appeared afterwards during Caesar government, for example, Cleopatra's Egypt (Otavianus, the first emperor and Caesar's nephew will conquer and incorporate Egypt as a province after his win against Marcus Antonius). Of course, in the "west side" of the late Republic and the early Empire fewer "Client Kingdoms" will exist, mostly in North Africa, just like Mauritanea, Numidia and Gaetulia but they will be de facto rapidilly incorparate by Caesar as a result of the support of these client Kingdoms to Pompeo during the Caesar Civil War. Other "client kingdoms" also existed in Iberia, Gaul, Britain and Germania, but they were mostly just tribal confederation than proper Kingdoms and they will be "short lived" being incorparate as provinces just few decades or even years after the Roman conquests or Rome simply "neglected" them, just like Severus and Caracala did with the north of Britain (Caledonia, nowadays more or less what it is Scotland), or what Tiberius did with Germania east to the Rhine river, or what Adrian did with Dacia and the lands east to the Euphrates after his father (Trajan) conquests, for example. However in the case of Adrian he tried to maintain some of these eastern client Kingdoms, just like Armenia, the Ghassanids in northwest Arabia, or the greek-schytian Bosporan Kingdom in nowadays Crimea penisula and parts of southern Ukraine and southeast Russia (this one still will be a client as far the Bizantine Empire). And yes, some of these eastern client kingdoms were kind of "buffer states" between Rome and Persia (first ruled by the Partians and then retook by the native Persians with the Sassanid dinasty). The Ghassanids will be a kind of a buffer state between then and the so called "Arabia Relicta" and the Bosporan Kindom a buffer state between them and the Schytians (the Samartians to be more specif) and then the germanic Goths who conquered their way from southern Sweden to the Black Sea before being pushed by the Huns to settled as roman clients in Dacia.
I think the reason why the ancient Chinese called the Rome “Daqin” is because the firstly contacted a Rome province called Dacia, which is the modern day Serbia. And you guys can see the similarities between Dacia and “Daqin”
The best supported theory is that the Chinese were so impressed by the accounts of Rome, they respectfully called Rome Da Qin (the Great Qin), giving them the name of a great Chinese dynasty, but greater
A newer theory based upon phonological reconstruction of old Chinese (the classical predecessor of modern Sinitic languages) suggests that "大秦"(denoted by 'Daqin' in pinyin transliteration) might sound like 'ladzin'.
Through Parthian and eastern translators of course. Although both civilization have no direct knowledge of the other’s language, but if the Chinese could talk to the Parthians via some translation, they can surely find Parthian Latin translators to translate Latin to Parthian, and then use their translator to translate Parthian to some middle Asian language, and then to Chinese.
During the later (East) Zhou dynasty as the 7 client kingdoms rose in power, Qin who later unified China originated in the most Western edge back in time. Thus what’s beyond land of Qin is referred as Qin
Erotosthenes calculated the circumference of Earth around 250BC. And he was only off by 66km (41 miles) and 0,16%. Not "assumed" it was *well known among scholars* that Earth was indeed round. One famous historian, Stephen Jay Gould, says that it's one of the most persistent *myths* that ancient people believed the Earth was flat. They myth was formed in the 17th and 18th centuries. The historian Jeffrey Burton Russell says this: "The myth that people in the Middle Ages thought the Earth is flat appears to date from the 17th century as part of the campaign by Protestants against Catholic teaching. But it gained currency in the 19th century, thanks to inaccurate histories such as John William Draper's History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1874) and Andrew Dickson White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896). Atheists and agnostics championed the conflict thesis for their own purposes, but historical research gradually demonstrated that Draper and White had propagated more fantasy than fact in their efforts to prove that science and religion are locked in eternal conflict." Medieval Europe - far from being at the forefront of science in the Medieval world - actually were well aware Earth was round. Thomas Aquinas, the most foremost Medieval "philosopher" always referred to a spherical Earth in his writings. Long story short. The Greeks were ancient scholars in Rome. Anything the Greeks claimed, and Eratosthenes was a Greek, was known by the Romans.
Actually it would be more like “Jeh ngeh” “Jeh angeh” would be Zhong. As in ZhongGuo (China), or 中国. Da 大 is big, not tall (高，gao). Da Qin (“Da Chenh”) would roughly translate to “Big Qin” Qin was the name used to refer to the Qin dynasty (221-206BC). It also referred to one of the warring states during the warring states period after the collapse of the zhou dynasty (770-256BC). The usage here may refer to how these people were Chinese like, so the name glorified them and proclaimed them as the big, far away China place. 大秦 was the Han term for the Roman Empire. 罗马帝国
@@2VeryIceyGaming Well I believe I read in a book that Da Qin literraly meant the big people, Qin being the way the chinese refered to themselves (like han today), and you're right it doesn't literally mean "tall" but I believe that was the idea (because people of the oriental part of the Roman Empire were tall compared to the Chinese). But I could be wrong on that. As for 张骞 I'm quite sure it's written Zhang Qian in pinyin
You know Crassus should really be remembered more for his diplomatic abilities, he basically just handed over legions of solders as slaves who were able to spread roman culture, truly genius!
@jokesonu420 There's this hypothesis that Romans captured at Carrhae finally ended up in China, thus constituting a direct contact between ancient Rome and China. There seem to be accounts in Chinese sources in the decades after of foreign men fighting for the Parthians forming some sort of protective shell with their shields that have been interpreted as being Roman prisoners fighting for the Parthians and forming a testudo.
@@magnuscoles5010 It's about the formation (described as a 'fish-scale' formation), not the presence of shields, and the fact that it occurred at the Battle of Zhizhi in 36 BC, just 17 years after Carrhae. And I didn't claim it's true, it's simply a claim by someone ;)
Well the Chinese name for themselves is really just central state. That's literally what it means, so calling Rome a 'great central state' isn't really that odd.
Da Qin/大秦 in this case does not mean "Great China". Qin/秦 was the westernmost Chinese state (the same state that eventually unified China) during the Zhou dynasty. 大秦 is merely an indication of direction, meaning "further west than Qin"
The last bit about the rope passing through center of the Earth made me laugh because people today believe Earth is flat and this random roman dude guessed there is aprox 180 degrees between Rome and China. Then it became sad.
@@OCinneide they wouldnt. They would say their part, go home, get new things to say, then go back. Unless it was a prime minister or something similar like proconsul, normal delegates wouldnt decide policy.
For the deeper analysis of the ancient Chinese historian's account of Rome, check out our other video: th-cam.com/video/FgsMR5R3P1o/w-d-xo.html
Playing a super long game of 'play by mail'. But thats my 2 cents. Thanks for the vid. :)
Very good work...keep going,sorry for my bad English,i hope to be understand
In China west, A town name milan, people looks like Italians.
Please make a video about Parthian empire
@@stayrospaparunas3062 ... Your english is doing fine.
This somehow made me think of the Fermi Paradox. When Rome was big enough to have contact the with China, Hans just had a breakup. When China got back together the Roman Empire dissolved. They missed out each other.
Yeah, the bloody three kingdoms fucked Han dynasty up before they made proper contact with Roman. Imagine what would have happened if they really did establish diplomatic ties.
alsouni Han Dynasty was actually fucked by the bureaucrats. The officials had too much power and the emperors in the late Eastern Han were all so young that they can’t do shit to those bureaucrats who just makes shit decisions. So it won’t be possible unless the empire wasn’t fucked by overpowered bureaucrats.
@@alexsolosm Probably nothing beyond trade and exchange of knowledge unfortunately. The distance is really just too far for either of them to impact each other to any great extent.
@@rosskeskin7563 They can both invade Parthia, and split the middle east and central Asia between the both of them
Cutting out the middle man, then they can trade directly
Han was fucked by 10 dickless eunuchs
The part about roman emperors being "dismissed unceremoniously" is quite a good euphemism to say how many were murdered
Ahh yes then in that case its an excellent description. Indeed, once dead they don't complain of the arrangement.
That interperetation of sucession is likely from when Nerva stepped down and died of old age after nominating Trajan.
It's obviously an impression he got from hearing of how caeser died.
There is significant difference on the understanding of Chinese Emperor and Roman Emperor. The Roman terms, Imperator, is more like President for Life instead of passing through the bloodline, which is of course something that neither the Chinese Emperor nor senior ministers/scholars would want to promote in China. Whoever wrote the text was touching the limit of treason.
@@cyrilchui2811 Or they simply either did not understand the system or never got that detail. They were writing down second-hand information that wasn't given to them by any form of intelligentsia most likely.
Language barriers? I can just imagine something like
Chinese merchant: holds up fruits
Parthian merchant: nods
DEAL COMPLETE
There was a story before about merchants who would lay out their goods on a beach in Africa then sail just off the coast, the natives would come out and pick what they wanted and left what they thought was a good trade. Then the merchants came back and collected the stuff. They never even talked.
@@OCinneide thanks for sharing this😉
Why would China hold up something as if those Europeans or whatever were something? 😂😂
@Caellum Kennedy I'd like a source for that, sounds interesting
Caellum Kennedy it’s the silent salt trade, I forgot which place in Africa is it although from what I last read there is still negotiations happening between, like if the other side find the trade deal unsatisfactory they would beat a drum to tell so.
China does a good job with its descriptions of the Romans. The Romans pretty much say that the Chinese have cloth their wives may like lol
Not just Wives like, History books said rich men also wear silk clothes. Even the middle-classes men wear silk as underwear. (Because Romans love bathing, they will show underwear to other Roman men in the public bath room)
Obviously, the Romans saw themselves as the most civilized nation on the planet. And to be fair, they did have plumbing, public heated baths and floor heating.
@@wardeni4806 so what youre saying is that every western nation that is descended from Roma gets a pass because it's inherited? SWEET! 🇺🇸
@@wardeni4806 considering china also had those but in the royal palace only. Every large empire thinks its the best thing since (pick famous thing from back then). Tho the Chinese also had gun powder first. I think its funny how the east always developed shit first but its always the west that steals the fame for it like gun powder, plumbing, and noodles.
@@yugitrump435 Well, there's a handful of nations that are descended from Romans and their culture, and still speak a latin-derived language.
"Much smaller Byzantine Empire"
Justinian: "No worries lads were still flying 3/4 of an empire"
Another happy landing!
And stealing silk.
Brian Xu Arabs: “I don’t think so”
Justinian definitely knew about the Chinese and sent spies to steal their silk worms by hiding silk worm eggs in a hollow walking stick.
Silk production is what financed the Byzantine Empire for the next 800 years.
Brian Xu lmfao nice
Chinese account of Ancient Rome: A fuzzy but not totally inaccurate account of the Mediterranean, democracy, big cities and trade products
The Roman account of China: They got wool
*They got wool and we should take it
Chinese didnt care shit about Romans. Ancient Chinese were the most racist ethnic groups, they didnt give a fk about other ethnics lol
@@traydollaz5671 I wouldnt say they r the most rascist, bc EVERYONE was rascist back then if u have a large enough army.
@@h3nry_t122 wouldnt say the romans were racist, they discriminated against anyone they deemed a non-citizen or "barbarian" regardless of skin colour
@@brettvogel8418 In fact, we Chinese are also a combination of many nationalities. This was the case in the Han Dynasty.
We also discriminate against groups that are not under the jurisdiction of the Empire.
The whole 'Rome produces silk' is probably Parthians telling the Chinese that the Romans have silk to order to get better prices out of the Chinese. Sounds like both Rome and China's ideas of each other was ran through the filter of Parthia. With Rome being typically less than friendly with Parthia they probably got less of a picture other than some traders pov.
Also as for the Roman Silk, it could also be Sea Silk which is a rare and fine material made from a shellfish. But its always interesting hearing about something we know about today and the ancients trying to figure out what it is from second/third hand accounts. Like asbestos, and some people thinking it was from the samandar. A fire proof creature. They didn't realize it came from a mineral.
In today's Serbia they produced silk ...
silk is a china only.... who is middeman don't matter...
From what i can gather, silk was produced in ancient rome, however the quality of roman (european) silk was inferior compared to chinese silk, mostly because ancient chine found a way to make long strands of silk while ancient roman silk was short strands (they cut the coccon, making long strand silk impossible)
@Ted Hubert Pagnanawon Crusio why is that?
Rome had no silk, but they had several dyes China didn't had. Raw silk coming from China was often dyed in western colours, and then exported back in China, so fuelling the mith that Rome produced its own silk.
Thanks for the mention! Fascinating video, great bit of context - fits perfectly with our video. Looking forward to more on this topic!
Collaborate!
Looking forward to your Atlantis video man. Hope it's well received
You two should make a family I MEAN make a video together sometime
Chinese: we brought some fruit
Cato: China must be destroyed
China delenda est!
Destroyed in a purely defensive manner. Yup, defensive 😀
@@withastickangrywhiteman2822 what? Can you rephrase that? Or are you ESL?
Until the Mongols showed up....LOL!!!
arabia and china would be so much better if mongols didn't rise up
China: oh look they sent a delegate! Send in the merchants!
Rome: oh look they sent a delegate! Send in the merchants!
Merchants: thank God we played the delegate card. Can you imagine what they would do if they thought we didn't have powerful backers?
Can you imagine being a mere merchant and being able to blag that you have authority to make a trade deal with another empire?
On one hand, there’s the opportunity to make some profit. On the other hand, how do you suppose to verify the credibility of said merchants? Send a pigeon?
That "Merchant" is a big one, Happened to be the Ancient Persians
Tbf if i was those Chinese merchants back then and traveling to some supposedly real place far to the west, I would bang as many women as I could on the way there and back lmfao.
Biggus Dickus A brothel is an essential part of any bustling town.
I wonder how much of the roman perspective was lost because of libraries being burnt down
Probably quite a lot, but the same could be said for the Chinese considering how many times the Mongols and other nomadic tribes before them invaded unfortunately.
true
That's true for Chinese reports also. We often make the mistake of considering them an accurate and continuous collection of facts dating back to several millennia. In reality they are really sketchy and incomplete.
The Chinese had a fair share of book burnings by Emperors.
And a lot of Chinese buildings were destroyed by the succeeding dynasty, and the cultural revolution... I feel pain just thinking about that.
Imagine if the philosophers Lao Tzu and Marcus Aurelius could meet and exchange ideas. There are already a few similarities in their respective philosophies to begin with.
Hmmm truth
@Serena Z effortless
@Avocado Toast nothing I assume
Imagine Joe Biden and ancient China.
@@mass1985 nah, imagine trump and ancient china
Distance from Rome to Beijing: 8120km
Distance to center of the Earth: 6378km
That Indian philosopher was on point.
Yes though the statement as presented would only be true if Bejing was at the antipode of Rome on the surface of the Earth which would place it a bit East of New Zealand 20000 km away. That said by this time there were already pretty good estimates of the size of the Earth at least in Europe and India was far from an isolated civilisation nor one lacking in well educated and informed scholars, philosophers and mathematicians of their own. Thus I would be inclined to suspect there is some hyperbole to the statement to emphasise the great distance rather than them being ignorant of the fact that the diameter of the Earth (12,750 km +/- a bit depending where you measure) is 1.57 times larger and the distance between antipodes over the surface (20,000 km with the same caveat) is 2.46 times larger .
Modern viewers: "Lol , ancients so dumb, they didn't even know where the center of the Earth was!"
Also modern viewers: "ThE EaRTh iS FlaT."
Seraphina I’m really not sure what you’re getting at or why you’re talking about antipodes. I was praising the no name indian philosopher. He was right; the distance between the two empires was greater than the radius of the earth.
@@ThrillaWhale Except, that "no name Indian philosopher" didn't say that the distance between the two empires is greater than the radius of the Earth. He said that a rope stretching between those empires would go through the center of the Earth which isn't very close to the truth. It's still an impressive estimate, but you got it completely wrong.
Why measure distance from Rome to Beijing? Beijing wasn't even much of a city back then. The Chinese capital was in Luoyang at the time when Rome was relevant, and Chang'An (Xi'an) is the starting point of the Silk Road.
They found some roman coins in China showing roman Emperors.
Romans who traded with Parthia who then probably traded with the kushans who then probably traded with the west Chinese who then traded further east.
There were Chinese items found in Rome as well. The lines of trade went through many hands and took years from start to finish.
@@MrAwrsomeness it's incredible how the social and economic networks humans create tend to be vast.
@Serena Zhang qua ora "cousins" nostra caret?
The Han Dynasty of China established the Silk Road and had contacts with the Roman Empire.
China: Hmm, these people from the west do people from the west things...
west people lead west lives
Hmmmmm, This west is made out of west.
Coincidence..... I think not.
Kennan Dunn they created the meme before memes are a thing
Hmm at the time Idk if they were west
Universe: how many videos on chinese-roman relations do you want to make?
History channels of TH-cam: yes
Shit hahah I was beginning to think this was some kind oof joke from TH-cam
I wonder why no one does scythian relations to other civilizations.
I will never get enough info or speculation about their interactions!
the boys just want the next avengers like crossover
i guess it fascinates a lot of ppl how the world's two foremost great civilizations might have interacted. neither of them 'white' the anglos were insignificant then and will soon be insignificant again
Honestly, the fact that they had any minimal knowledge of each other is a miracle.
I disagree. Two vast and influencial powers would inevitably have become aware of one other. All it would take is for a tiny number of intrepid people to travel from one to the other for news to spread.
The ancient Romans and Chinese didn't know each other, but traded with the same people in Asia, so probably they were aware of one other. But the great distance kept them apart and they were only legends about which merchants told stories often heard by other merchants.
Benito Stalini Benito Stalini
It's not a miracle.
People talk, and tells spread.
The merchant routes that linked indirectly Rome to China were very intense
Benito Stalini this isn't true they did have contact
Rome expansion for Three Kingdoms when?
holy shit that would be awesome
You mean a horde like faction like in the Belisarius campaign?
So... Roman invaded China?
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!
No, CA will let you buy every faction and map piece between Rome and Chine one by one as DLCs....sorry, I had to.
Fun fact: The Roman Emperor at 3K’s start date was not only Commodus, but he also got assassinated in the same year as Dong Zhou (192 BC)
I am thoroughly impressed. I showed my dad this video (my dad is a historian with an exceptional love from Roman history) and he seemed surprised at exactly how far the Chinese had made it in the direction of Rome. Definitely going to watch everything you have because it takes a lot to impress that man lol
Gan Yin in Parthia: "How close am I to Rome?"
Parthians: "Oh Rome is very, VERY far. It could take at least two years of traveling. Not worth it."
Imagine the 'what if' had Gan Yin discovered the Parthians and Romans actually shared a border.
Maybe the Parthians didn't want to lose their role as a middleman between the two. Or even worse, what if Rome and China had formed an alliance?
@@TheSirBrainbug There is simply no way such an alliance would have worked or oppose a military thread.
Communication and coordination between the two party's would have been nearly impossible.
Look at it this way, the coordination between germany and japan in ww2 was so bare bones that it was almost completely irrelevant on a strategic level. If it was simply not possible for these two nations to coordinate their efforts in the 20th century, how would it work with two other country's almost 2000 years in the past (the distance between their capitals is comparable).
Also ancient china had simply no reason to even consider wasting resources on a war efforts that far in the west.
MCoTEDDY no true empire ever wastes resources in attacking people across the world.
Literally
Genghis khan was a good general
But he wasn’t by any means excellent
And his nomadic horseman
Had really conquered empty land and moslty farm lands and basically just empty lands
The Mongolians aaren’t really true conquerors
If they were
They’d be like Rome and or China
A empire that has a capital.
Rome would never succeed in its offensive against China
And China would never succeed against Rome
Literally
Too many mouths too feed and the distance is soo far
China would collapse from itself
While Rome would be holding its own territory
And the others (like Gauls and Germanics would revolt
But would be affected by the Chinese too)
So would have to ally with Rome or be brought down individually.
But that still is far fetched
Chinese population was 53 million
Too supply even a million people 1200 miles away on foot
Would be not impossible but close
@@shadowdeslaar 'no true empire ever wastes resources in attacking people across the world.
'
21st Century America: 'Hold my beer, I see some WMDs that need freedom'
fludblud America is thousands of years apart from every empire
Empires are older then Superpowers
This the 21 century
Were you can fly to eroupe in hours and sail to eroupe I’n weeks
You can literally fly
Back in the ancient eras
They didn’t even know America existed
They didn’t have the ability to launch nuclear missiles
And America isn’t even building an empire
We are attacking enemies we could easily crush in literally days
But our government makes money if our wars
Their wars
Political wars
I’m sorry
But modern era doesn’t count
As you can send a million men across the planet I’m literal days
Of course
I’m not saying your gonna be successful
But no true empire attacks an enemy they know they can’t even reach
This sounds dumb right
Look at Napoleon
He attacked Russia during winter
He then would have to conquer all all of Russia
So much land and territory
It’s like mongols taking land with nobody in it
Unlike Rome taking Gaul
Land that flourished with people
And territory that is so close
They could climb the alps and view it
Not when it’s just a whisper of a civilization
Across several seas and thousands of miles of land
For fuck sakes
Hitler failed ww2 cause he attacked Russia during winter
And had too TAKE THOUSAND miles of land
Covered in freezing cold and being attacked by the native enemy
Making his resources harder to get too and receive
It’s called a Supply Train
I’n the ancient world
It was damn near impossible to supply yourself enough to conquer thousand miles of land and terrain
In the modern era
It’s made easier
But still very hard
And America hasn’t conquered shit
Just making sure you get that
America isn’t empire building
If they were
They’d be Expanding their empire
Witch they aren’t
Romans on China: Fantastic Fabric and Where to Find Them
I've also heard the theory that emperor Hadrian got the idea for Hadrian's wall from tales told by traders from the east of giant endless walls to keep out the nomads, also a roman expedition was sent down the Nile by Nero and apparently reached as far as South Sudan and possibly even the Congo!
Their times passed and could no longer meet eachother 💔
Ahh yes, I remember getting recommended that as well, it was really good!
Yup
Thanks! 😁
At least he credits them
@@alexanderl3176 ? More like
*@A LOSER*
Jk bruh
Empires are so friendly to each other when they don't touch each other's borders haha
No reason to be cruel if they arent fighting for reasources lands and people.
"Hey, another great empire, let's fuck over the guys in between us"
@@nkl7345 polish commonwealth here
一方面来说，汉朝和罗马互相有好感，承认对方的发达和强大；另一方面，汉朝和罗马距离太远了，并且以当时的技术条件很难实现长期的有效交流，更不用说打仗了；罗马的最远辐射估计能到波斯，汉朝估计是到中亚，彼此实际的影响很小😮💨
This video actually made me cry.
It's just so sad to think of how much each side could have learned.
You're right. If the two great empires could make friendly contact, perhaps the Roman Empire would learn from the unified thought of the Han Dynasty, so that Rome's vast territory would be unified for a long time and never perish. The Han Dynasty was able to learn the profound philosophy of Rome so that it would not be bullied by the colonists at sea after two thousand years of being strong.
Rome and China should have been allies and fight the world - except my country 🇵🇭
Imagine how it'd have went if the two empires managed to hold things together long enough to meet. Chinese gunpowder and compasses. Roman ships and sail. Put them together and you have the Age of Sail a thousand years earlier.
@@a_l7515 ahahah china already captured Philippine sea now 😂
Han China would be thrilled to encounter another great power and all the knowledge they could now learn. Ancient Rome would be thrilled to encounter a new civilization of barbarians to conquer and control.
If I remember right, Byzantine sources accurately describe the political situation in China at a given point in time and correctly identify the current Chinese emperor.
"if a rope were passed from Rome to China, it would pass through the center of the earth"
So they did know the earth was a sphere
Yes, many smart people knew it or at least suspected this from observing things like the horizon or lunar eclipses. The idea that everyone was a flat-earther is a recent myth. When Columbus was looking for finacial backers for his trip the argument was about the size, not the shape of the Earth. The Dominican scholars from University of Salamanca were pointing out that his crew will starve to death in their little boats before they reach China, and they were right about it. Fortunately for him there was another continent in the way. Now people think it was "visionary Columbus vs stupid Christian flat-earthers" when in fact it was a group of very smart but cautious scholars vs some ignorant guy who got incredibly lucky.
Everyone knew we only got stupider
@Vimar Espiras AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
PLEASE MAKE ME GO TO PRISON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Vimar Espiras AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
@@yellow13_ Most christians and pretty much every christian scholar in the Middle Ages knew that Earth was round. You're the one who appears to be idiotic by not knowing that.
When you really think about it, it’s crazy how we can travel all over the globe in a matter of hours at the most a day. Back in the ancient world it would take years.
roads make a big difference, after all people still have to eat and drink which is heavy to carry. The cost to bring someone over would be the same as the cost for a small army.
No not really back then in Roman time you could easily walk from italy to Greece you need to look at the map when you play Rome total war
This has always been one of my favorite historical topics, even if we can only ever know so much about it. Long before any "age of discovery" or "exploration," we had two major civilizations a world apart hearing mere rumors of each other. It's a shame that no formal embassies were ever established.
Speaking as a Classics/Archaeology Undergrad student and historical enthusiast. It would be AMAZING if you could post/accompany a bibliography with your work.
It would be interesting to see al the different sources for your videos, so we could judge/do our own research with the evidence on hand.
Theophylact Simocatta, an Eastern Roman historian of 7th century wrote a relatively accurate chinese history of the reunification of China by Emperor Wen (r. 581-604 AD) of the Sui Dynasty, with the conquest of the rival Chen Dynasty in southern China
Nice didn't know about this historian
Trump: U.S. had good relationship with Italy since Ancient Rome.
China: Let me check the books! Well...
Ibutisam Zuhair United States didn’t exist when the Roman Empire was a thing
@@jasonmason6910 sorta missed the joke lol.
I wouldnt have laughed if I didnt think he was capable of saying something close to this lol
Biggus Dickus ohhhh
Too bad the Chinese governemnt is erasing its own history to match its own views
Voices of the Past? Subscribed!
Chinese: Your swords are short. Romans: Your shields are small. Both: Our emperor is better than your emperor... WAR!
JustSomeGuy they couldn’t even stop the Huns and you think they could stop the chinese lmaoo
@@mrxx7471 as if the Chinese could even get there
Nero Bernardino they could they just weren’t blood thirsty unlike the Europeans
@@mrxx7471 The logistics would have been hell. I seriously doubt the possibility of waging war so far away.
Mizzurani Friend smashed by the romans? Didnt they lose to the moors and the Huns? You fracking idiot. Europeans couldn’t even finish the crusades after trying for like a 1000 years. Meanwhile mongols smashed the Middle East In under a decade lmao
The first time I ever heard about Roman/Chinese relations was when I watched a video about the theory that some PoWs settled in China after the war against the Parthians, and then the day after that I went out to a Chinese restaurant for lunch with my Latin class
[IGC] Captain Haddock I wish that story were true
@@ericwang9348 its entirely possible that happened. Many legionnaires that survived Carrae stayed in parthia or were shipped elsewhere as slaves. We will never know for sure which is why its a theory and not fact. Denying theories outright prohibits future facts from being found.
They were probably greco-bactrians.
@VeroMithril gets weirder when you learn theyve found a roman bust of an emperor in south america from like 0 BCE/A.D.
@VeroMithril dude im not saying its not possible it was brought over at a later date. Im just saying they found one that's all. And it's probably from around Caesars time so yeah i exaggerated the age a bit.
Two major world powers, knowing of each other's existence but not really knowing who they are.
Excellent Presentation - First Rate Maps! I will be uploading my Lectures on this subject. Well done to all concerned.
Da Qin/大秦 does not mean Great China. The Chinese called their country 中國 (Zhongguo/Middle Kingdom) 漢/漢國 (Han/kingdom of the Han) or 華夏 (Huaxia/Great Xia) the term “Chin/China” was a foreign transliteration of Qin which was the name of the north western region in China(makes sense since Qin would be the first state to come in to contact with any foreigners coming from the west), so “Qin” was a name to the indicate the direction of the Roman Empire. The Chinese states were collectively called 諸夏 (Zhuaxia/ States of the Xia people), the most western vassal state of the Zhou was the Qin, Qin later unified China under the Qin dynasty but during the Qin dynasty the Chinese still referred to themselves as the Xia while Qin was merely the name of the government.
周緒 @invicta you should see this
So Qin = West? And Da = ???
@@Sacrilege83 Da means big in general. In this context I'd guess it means the "further" west
Thom Al No that’s not true, China or the name 中國 was used since the Zhou dynasty, the concept of China was already founded in the Shang dynasty.
The idea that China never existed until the 20th century was in fact a propaganda created by the Chinese communist government, because the communist party promotes the multiethnic “Chinese nation” which was founded by the Qing dynasty and not the original Chinese nation that was homogeneously Han Chinese only.
People often confuse the later multiethnic Chinese nation with the original Han Chinese nation. Yes the modern/multiethnic Chinese nation was founded in the 20th century(to stabilise the Manchu rule over multiple ethnicities within their empire). But the Han Chinese identity of China existed since the founding of our earliest civilisation.
Do you seriously believe that we Han Chinese a nation with at least 30 million population since the Han dynasty, did not have a concept of who we are?
Do you know why the Han Chinese rebels from both northern and southern China during the Mongol Yuan dynasty claimed to restore the “Song Dynasty” and not the Jurchen Jin or Khitan Liao Dynasty? Did you know their slogan was “驅逐(expel)韃虜(nomad savages)恢復(restore)中華(China)”? Because we Han Chinese had a strong sense of nationalism and awareness of our national identity. This slogan was RE-used during the Xinhai revolution by the nationalist Chinese revolutionary army against the Manchu Qing dynasty.
周緒 damn dude you tell them!!!
“Seres” is a transliteration of “西域”, which means “the western sphere” in Chinese.
The “Zheng Qian” mentioned in the video should be spelled as “Zhang Qian” for it refers to 张骞, the famous militarist-diplomat of Han Dynasty. This is if you want to use contemporary Pinyin. Ancient Chinese at the time were pronounced very differently, somewhat like Cantonese of today.
Cantonese is most likely Tang Mediaval Chinese, so yes, it's closer to Ancient Chinese than Bejing Mandarin for sure.
Same for most modern SE China dialects.
How do ancient Chinese know the earth is a "sphere"??? the correct way to translate "西域" is "the western area", thats all.
@@realchinese9834 Area in Chinese is more like 地方. "域" has a connotation of the universe
@@alexanderchenf1 地方 and 域 is the same thing unless you want to debate it literally, not sure I understand your saying about ""connotation", "but when translate into English language the difference between "地方" and “域” is just like the difference between "prime" and "major", but there is no way as you use "the western sphere" to describe 西域。
Ancient Chinese dynasties are one of the best for recording other kingdoms or realms both near and far. They record almost anything they could find, from the people, government types, religions, customs of nobles and commoners, the foods they eat for both classes, any plants, flowers, fruits, birds, animals, to the climate, and how it looks like. And it will be more detailed if those kingdoms are large/strong and the closer to china the better the record. And unlike ancient western historians, their records are "cleaner" (from things like myths, oracles, etc)
interesting. DO you recommend any book about it?
是的，中国历朝都有专门的史官来整理上一个朝代历史和记录本朝历史，这一过程皇帝是无法干预的，不会因为皇帝和其他官员的威胁而改写历史，所以总体来说，中国的史书非常详细且客观的。这一传统持续了接近两千年。而且，中国的史书对越南，朝鲜等邻国也有很详细的记载。
@@xian4957 lol, unfortunately, I don't read or speak Chinese, but if you have some references in English, that would be much appreciated
@@sabinoluevano7447 There are many kinds of history books in China. Which do you want? The translation of the official history handed down from ancient times or the complete collection of history summarized and compiled by modern people?
@@sabinoluevano7447 The official history of China is boring to read, and it takes perseverance to finish it, while the history summed up by modern people according to ancient books is easier for people to read.
Can you imagine an alternate history where both empires actually encountered, fought and traded with each other?
The competition would probably have made them both last longer
maybe interracial marriages between the noble classes.
@@greyngreyer5 shorter you mean. When two comparable powers fight for a long time, it drains them. That's how the Eastern Roman Empire got weakened due to their centuries long conflict with the Sassanids.
@@zippyparakeet1074 Well it depends what kind of relationship they'd be in. The Cold War saw both America and Russia tremendously progress in a technological sense. That is what I mean.
@@greyngreyer5 cold war is not all comparable. The historical precedent has been that any two similarly strengthed powers always go to war until the other is broken, the cold war has been a unique period in that regard since it never went hot due to the existence of nukes. Without nukes, there'd easily have been a world war 3. Hell, even the cold war nearly went hot a few times despite nukes.
So you can't compare.
This. This is what I want to know more about. This was a fantastic breakdown of what I heard from the other TH-cam channel.
Yeah I watched the video and was already itching to know the context. Glad to have been able to put together a context piece.
This ancient history documentary deserves an award. It's so well-made and thoroughly researched! 🏆🔍
I just wanted to say I've always wanted to know more about just this topic, and am so glad you did a video of Chinese/Roman Relations! Keep up the good work Invicta.
Me too! Glad I had an opportunity to finally dive in!
You two should work together. He does a primairy source and you analyse and expanded opon it.
We are in talks over email about doing something like this in the future
@@InvictaHistory I hope you guys do I learned so much from you two and I love it having you two together can help expand all of our mindsets on the world by learning its past together
When two great ancient civilizations met.
Asmoh they met .
@@sisi4361
Nope
"When two great nations... heard from a friend of a friend about each other"
China Rome and Sassanid empire had connection and met many years ago .Silk road is proof .The last Shah of Sassanid empire fled to Tang after the caliphate invasion .He died in Chang'an .Also there were a lot of Rome merchant in China at that time .
@@sisi4361 wrong.
I think they both knew eachother like "yeah there is such a state veeery far away."
And traded indirectly. Romans be like "Yeah there are dudes veeeeery far east producing Silk. You know it looks good."
Chinese were more like "Those Parthians say there are powerful assholes in the west covering an entire sea. They say their leaders keep dying."
Leaders keep dying
@Serena Z But hey, if it weren't for this they wouldn't have discovered gunpowder
Shoutout to Pliny for taking care of the women of Rome.
Such a ladies man.
Who knew pliny was such a SJW!
Voices of the past are really good. I believe the the guys over at "History Time" run that channel too. That being said, YES! YES! YES! This is exactly what I wished that someone did and you did it. Thank you so much for this.
Thanks for this carefully made video. A minor cent: there were direct communications between Roman and China, though not much. According to 后汉书 ( Late Han Dynasty: The Official History), in the chapter of 西域传 (Records about the Wester World), there was a record: 至桓帝延熹九年，大秦王安敦遣使自日南徼外献象牙、犀角、玳瑁，始乃一通焉。 The year 桓帝延熹九年 (the 9th year of emperor Yuan of Han dynasty) is 166 A.D., so 大秦王 (the Roman Emperor) refers to Marcus Aurelius. 安敦 sounds exactly like Augustus. 遣使 means "sent messengers". 自日南 means "via 日南", which is a county name. It belonged to China in 166 A.D., but now part of Vietnam. In this history book, there is a lot of text about Roman. Before what I picked above, it told the trials of Chinese messengers to Roman. All of them had to give up for some reason on their way through the mid-east. That is why the messenger from Roman was very welcomed. 始乃一通焉 mean "ultimately the two countries established direct connection". The grammar conveys a strong feeling of excitement.
Aceint Rome:Aceint China is a great country,I would like to trade with them!
Aceint China : Ancient Rome is a great country,I would like to trade with them!
Morden Keyboardman：Noooo! U two must fight! Or I would never know which of u are greater!
Either way if they really made contact they would probably go to war with each other... im not familiar with Ancient china.. But Roman empire.. they have a history of people greedy for power...... they'll probably go to war with china... to expand..
@@MrBombermann27 Well Parthia was in the way so it was impossible for them to fight unless they war Parthia first.
@@jackwu7028 but that’s the point. They definitely would’ve tried lol
Definitely check out the ancient Chinese account of Rome narrated by Voices of the Past: th-cam.com/video/4XdPodNwSGU/w-d-xo.html
I got that NOTIFICATION bud
@@randomdude9135 haha I feel like everyone did lol! I knew I had to do a video when I saw my brother and girlfriend watching it.
@@InvictaHistory cool. I love your videos. My country didn't teach me much world history. So keep up the great work!! :)
Where is your video on the accuracy of the Chinese source?
Make your what if Caesar vid already.
China: "we bring you things to trade"
Rome: "..they must be thoroughly ransacked to supply the Roman women back at home.."
Colonialism thoughts before it was a thing.
Colonialism was always a thing, and both Romans and Chinese practiced it
just the usual thoughts of empires
even ancient times Chinese are already scattered around the Globe everywhere to do trading
I guess you meant Persians
I find this type of stuff fascinating. I'd love a video about Roman knowledge of sub-Saharan Africa.
I recommend checking out the Kings and Generals channel, if you haven't already. They have 3 videos that I think would definitely interest you - How Egypt financed Rome, Roman-Indian trade, and Roman-African trade - all about 15mins long.
The romans and Greeks definitely knew about Ethiopia
you know it's good when it even pops up on invicta's youtube recommendatioms
I loooove this kind of stuff, i've seen loads of China-Rome stuff and watched that same video as you did
Voices of the past is one of the best channels on TH-cam hands down!!
Veeeeery nice video :) keep up the good work!!!
I dunno, according to my last game of Age of Empires, Rome and China had quite a lot of interaction!
Very interesting.
My impression is that Chinese silk was very popular among the Roman upper classes, although they may not have realized that it came from China, specifically. In any case, I thought that until modern times, China was the sole source of silk in the world.
What about the Chinese expedition in Greco-Bactria and the siege ,and eventual capture, of Alexandria Eschate , as well as the trade connections these two great civilizations had .
Trade went through intermediaries as discussed in the video sure of course some information would flow with that but like the video points out this is a long distance game of telephone and things get muddied along the way especially when you have multiple language translations along the way also.
Dude I watched that video too, now your response is in my suggestions! Love it!
The video progression bar on the map showing Eurasia and Africa (the most frequently used map in the video) corresponds with the Equator. A very nice touch!
China and Rome
What did they know?
Did they know things?
Let's find out!
I just started bojack horseman 2 days ago, enough time to get the reference x)
AHHH great vids as always, hope you will touch on some byzantine content sometime soon too
I do briefly mention it towards the end of the video but did not find too much to be said.
@@InvictaHistory Cool! Can't wait for any content you upload tho because everything is presented fine and well informed!
Me: learning more history in youtube than in highschool
I saw that video after voices from the past uploaded it, I'm glad you made this video
Love these videos so much. So informative. Keep them coming!
I think he’s talking about the imperial Rome. Before that Rome wasn’t big enough to reach out to the Far East. By that time Han was half way through it’s 400 year ruling, moved its capital from the west to the east and only resumed the Silk Road trades some 20 years later. So really, Rome and China only had about 150 years time to meet each other.
That mention of the guy who speculated that "if a rope were strung from Rome to China, that it would run through the center of the Earth" was actually pretty insightful for the time... Even back then they would have laughed at Flat earthers! 😂
Looking forward to the collab with History Time and Voices of the Past now...
damn... it took this channel 2 weeks to make this video. Wow. major props to ya'll.
I thought it was very impressive how the Chinese knew the basics about the Roman republic system, even beign anachronical, the Senate for example was still running during the Empire.
Of course, the chinese sources came from the Parthians who were rivals to the Romans, but problably the chinese found some roman merchants there or some people from eastern roman provinces.
The hint on that it's when they descrybed the client kingdoms, Armenia, Judea, or the Bosporan Kingdoms were one of these eastern client kingdoms of Rome, at least during the last years of the Republic when Pompeo vassalized numerous kingdoms in the east, like the Bosporan, Pontus, Armenia, Galatia, and Judea. Other "client kingdoms" will appeared afterwards during Caesar government, for example, Cleopatra's Egypt (Otavianus, the first emperor and Caesar's nephew will conquer and incorporate Egypt as a province after his win against Marcus Antonius).
Of course, in the "west side" of the late Republic and the early Empire fewer "Client Kingdoms" will exist, mostly in North Africa, just like Mauritanea, Numidia and Gaetulia but they will be de facto rapidilly incorparate by Caesar as a result of the support of these client Kingdoms to Pompeo during the Caesar Civil War.
Other "client kingdoms" also existed in Iberia, Gaul, Britain and Germania, but they were mostly just tribal confederation than proper Kingdoms and they will be "short lived" being incorparate as provinces just few decades or even years after the Roman conquests or Rome simply "neglected" them, just like Severus and Caracala did with the north of Britain (Caledonia, nowadays more or less what it is Scotland), or what Tiberius did with Germania east to the Rhine river, or what Adrian did with Dacia and the lands east to the Euphrates after his father (Trajan) conquests, for example.
However in the case of Adrian he tried to maintain some of these eastern client Kingdoms, just like Armenia, the Ghassanids in northwest Arabia, or the greek-schytian Bosporan Kingdom in nowadays Crimea penisula and parts of southern Ukraine and southeast Russia (this one still will be a client as far the Bizantine Empire).
And yes, some of these eastern client kingdoms were kind of "buffer states" between Rome and Persia (first ruled by the Partians and then retook by the native Persians with the Sassanid dinasty). The Ghassanids will be a kind of a buffer state between then and the so called "Arabia Relicta" and the Bosporan Kindom a buffer state between them and the Schytians (the Samartians to be more specif) and then the germanic Goths who conquered their way from southern Sweden to the Black Sea before being pushed by the Huns to settled as roman clients in Dacia.
I think the reason why the ancient Chinese called the Rome “Daqin” is because the firstly contacted a Rome province called Dacia, which is the modern day Serbia. And you guys can see the similarities between Dacia and “Daqin”
The best supported theory is that the Chinese were so impressed by the accounts of Rome, they respectfully called Rome Da Qin (the Great Qin), giving them the name of a great Chinese dynasty, but greater
A newer theory based upon phonological reconstruction of old Chinese (the classical predecessor of modern Sinitic languages) suggests that "大秦"(denoted by 'Daqin' in pinyin transliteration) might sound like 'ladzin'.
did Alexander hear of such tales of China?
@@froggymusicman why would he disappointed? As soon as you told him you knew of him 2300 years later he would get all giddy and dance around in joy
His disappointment would be dwarfed by his wonderment.
No!
Even if he heard about it, he would not survive venturing through the deserts to reach China.
I just want to know how they communicated when they met with each other...
Use the middle finger to greeting.
@@jxmai7687 666
@@jsc9567 哈哈(∩_∩)
Through Parthian and eastern translators of course. Although both civilization have no direct knowledge of the other’s language, but if the Chinese could talk to the Parthians via some translation, they can surely find Parthian Latin translators to translate Latin to Parthian, and then use their translator to translate Parthian to some middle Asian language, and then to Chinese.
@No Homo roman don't speak english. anyway is a good one
Thanks for this one especially. I've always wondered about this.
3:18 Wait a minute, that's the soundtrack from Total War 3K.
Quite unrelated: but where can I get to hear just the music playing in the background at the beginning, with the flutes?
Anush Ghosh pretty positive it’s music from Rome 2.
No idea what the song name is though.
@@Sonofanoob link, if any? Kinda reminds me of the bridge from The Night Sky by Mostly Autumn.
The song is called deployment
@@Sonofanoob thank you! I'll look for it then!
Invicta, I love your videos and the content. Keep it up!
Thanks! Definitely do spread the word around as it always helps : )
During the later (East) Zhou dynasty as the 7 client kingdoms rose in power, Qin who later unified China originated in the most Western edge back in time. Thus what’s beyond land of Qin is referred as Qin
Whats the background music you are using here? Its just beautiful.
I watch voices of the past all the time.
what a great channel
11:38 So does that quote imply that they assumed the earth was round in ancient Rome?
Erotosthenes calculated the circumference of Earth around 250BC. And he was only off by 66km (41 miles) and 0,16%. Not "assumed" it was *well known among scholars* that Earth was indeed round. One famous historian, Stephen Jay Gould, says that it's one of the most persistent *myths* that ancient people believed the Earth was flat. They myth was formed in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The historian Jeffrey Burton Russell says this: "The myth that people in the Middle Ages thought the Earth is flat appears to date from the 17th century as part of the campaign by Protestants against Catholic teaching. But it gained currency in the 19th century, thanks to inaccurate histories such as John William Draper's History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1874) and Andrew Dickson White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896). Atheists and agnostics championed the conflict thesis for their own purposes, but historical research gradually demonstrated that Draper and White had propagated more fantasy than fact in their efforts to prove that science and religion are locked in eternal conflict."
Medieval Europe - far from being at the forefront of science in the Medieval world - actually were well aware Earth was round. Thomas Aquinas, the most foremost Medieval "philosopher" always referred to a spherical Earth in his writings.
Long story short. The Greeks were ancient scholars in Rome. Anything the Greeks claimed, and Eratosthenes was a Greek, was known by the Romans.
2:30 It's Zhang Qian and not Zheng Qian
2:50 And Da Qin means "Tall people"
Great video btw
Actually it would be more like “Jeh ngeh” “Jeh angeh” would be Zhong. As in ZhongGuo (China), or 中国.
Da 大 is big, not tall (高，gao). Da Qin (“Da Chenh”) would roughly translate to “Big Qin”
Qin was the name used to refer to the Qin dynasty (221-206BC). It also referred to one of the warring states during the warring states period after the collapse of the zhou dynasty (770-256BC).
The usage here may refer to how these people were Chinese like, so the name glorified them and proclaimed them as the big, far away China place.
大秦 was the Han term for the Roman Empire. 罗马帝国
@@2VeryIceyGaming Well I believe I read in a book that Da Qin literraly meant the big people, Qin being the way the chinese refered to themselves (like han today), and you're right it doesn't literally mean "tall" but I believe that was the idea (because people of the oriental part of the Roman Empire were tall compared to the Chinese).
But I could be wrong on that.
As for 张骞 I'm quite sure it's written Zhang Qian in pinyin
*Middle Eastern People was called "Da Shi", Great Eating 大食（阿拉伯帝国）*
I just googled a homework question and now I'm here.
Good materials and one inaccuracy is on 2:30 where "Zheng Qian" should be "Zhang Qian"(张骞)
Wonderful video, thanks!
4:08 Vietnam was once of China. It has left for 1000 years.
Nob
You know Crassus should really be remembered more for his diplomatic abilities, he basically just handed over legions of solders as slaves who were able to spread roman culture, truly genius!
@jokesonu420 There's this hypothesis that Romans captured at Carrhae finally ended up in China, thus constituting a direct contact between ancient Rome and China. There seem to be accounts in Chinese sources in the decades after of foreign men fighting for the Parthians forming some sort of protective shell with their shields that have been interpreted as being Roman prisoners fighting for the Parthians and forming a testudo.
@@AGH331 oh it's not like parthains themselves had shields or anything
@@magnuscoles5010 It's about the formation (described as a 'fish-scale' formation), not the presence of shields, and the fact that it occurred at the Battle of Zhizhi in 36 BC, just 17 years after Carrhae.
And I didn't claim it's true, it's simply a claim by someone ;)
No one:
Absolutely No one:
**Roman empire exists**
China: I am China and you are also china
Well the Chinese name for themselves is really just central state. That's literally what it means, so calling Rome a 'great central state' isn't really that odd.
Da Qin/大秦 in this case does not mean "Great China". Qin/秦 was the westernmost Chinese state (the same state that eventually unified China) during the Zhou dynasty. 大秦 is merely an indication of direction, meaning "further west than Qin"
Awesome video! And thank you for using "AD" :)
Nicely done, video Invicta!
The last bit about the rope passing through center of the Earth made me laugh because people today believe Earth is flat and this random roman dude guessed there is aprox 180 degrees between Rome and China. Then it became sad.
The closest ancient china and ancient rome has ever come was that Jackie Chan movie (a good movie btw, loved the fight scene between both commanders)
How did they even communicate with each other? How's a Chinese envoy going to have a conversation or an agreement with Parthian representatives?
good question, I do wonder how many translators they had to use to jump languages
@@InvictaHistory How could an envoy decide official Chinese policy?
@@InvictaHistory not that many, chinese to greek and greek to parthian.
@@OCinneide they wouldnt. They would say their part, go home, get new things to say, then go back. Unless it was a prime minister or something similar like proconsul, normal delegates wouldnt decide policy.
Tbh all they would need is 1, maybe 2, translators. One well learned Parthian could probably speak both a dialect of chinese as well as Greek/Latin.
Just found ther channel super info! You do a great job!
Where did you find these worldmaps?
I am painting a globe for my daughter, and the world map you use is perfect.