STUDIES IV

Edited by
an international committee
R.E. EMMERICK (Hamburg [D])
G. GNOLI (Roma [I])
S. KLJASHTORNYJ (Sankt Petersburg [CIS])
S.N.C. LIEU (Sydney [AUS])
B.A. LITVINSKY (Moskva [CIS])
R. MESERVE (Bloomington (IN) [USA])
G. PINAULT (Paris [F])
A. SARK6ZI (Budapest [H])
A. VAN TONGERLOO (Leuven [B]) Editor-in-chief
S. WHITFIELD (London [GB]), Director of the Dunhuang Monograph Series
P. ZIEME (Berlin [D])
A c
Proceedings fron1 the Third Conference
of the Australasian Society
for Inner Asian Studies
(A.S.I.A.S.)
Macquarie University
Septen1ber 18-20 1998
Edited by
David Christian & Craig Benjamin
@
BREPOLS
ANCIENT HISTORY DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH CENTRE
MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY
NSW AUSTRALIA
BYZANTIUM, PERSIA AND CHINA:
INTERSTATE RELATIONS ON THE EVE OF THE
ISLAMIC CONQUEST*
SAMUEL LIEU
The destruction of the Hephthalite En1pire in Transoxiana by the
combined forces of the Shahanshah Khusrau Anushirvan and the
Western Turks in the sixth century (c. A.D. 557) was an event of
great significance to the history of China's trade and diplon1atic
contacts with the western en1pires of Iran and Byzantiun1. Since
Chang Ch'ien's legendary expedition to Bactria and Ferghana in the
last quarter of the second century B.C., the Chinese had rnaintained
intermittent diplornatic and regular con1n1ercial contacts with the
Parthian Empire and through it also with the Romans. The n1ain iten1
of trade for the Chinese as we all know was silk I and possibly iron-
ore - the exact nature of the origins of the 'seric iron' rnentioned by
Pliny the Elder2 is still a n1atter of considerable debate. The Persian
shortage of weapons-grade iron is well known and the trade of it
was banned by the Ron1ans. We have at least three classical sources
which testify to this prohibition.3 Precious metals and horses from
Central Asia were the main forn1s of return payn1ent. Parthian
envoys also brought exotic anin1als, plants and n1inerals to the
Chinese court, and a Ron1an en1peror called An-tun in Chinese
sources (either Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius) sent an en1bassy
to China which was received in 166 A.D.
4
There is no Ron1an
account of the sending of such a mission so it could have been a case
of enterprising merchants giving diplomatic cover to their business.
To this early period of trans-continental contacts belong sixteen
Roman copper coins (ranging in dates from Tiberius to Aurelian)
* Honorary Presidential Address to the Third Australasian Conference or Inner
Asian Studies (September 1998) at Macquarie University.
I Cf. M.G. Raschke, 'New Studies in Roman Commerce with the East',
Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt 11.9.2 ( 1978) pp. 606-37, and H.
Wada, Prokops Ratselwort Serinda und die Verpflanzung des Seidenbaus von
China nach dem ostromischen Reich (Koln: Inaugural Dissertation 1971) pp. 15-
49.
2 Natura/is Historia XXXIV, 145.
3 Expositio totius mundi et gentium 22, Libanius, Oratio LIX, 66-67 and
Procopious, de bello Persico I, 19, 25-26.
4 Liang shu 54.798.
48 Byzantium, Persia and China
found at Ling-shih hsien in the province of Shansi in the early part
of the last century,5 and the copying of a Kushano-Parthian coin-
legend in debased Greek letters onto the base of an ingot of the Later
Han period.6 The civil wars which hastened the fall of the Han
Dynasty and the invasion of northern China first by the Hsiung-nu
(Huns?) and the occupation of it by the Tobas brought about a
prolonged period of chaos to the lands at the eastern end of the Silk
Road. The effect of these political upheavals on mercantile activities,
especially those of the Sogdians, is well illustrated by the letter of
Nanai-vandak, so brilliantly studied by Henning,
7
which tells of the
sack of the major Chinese commercial centres of Y eh and Hsien-
yang by the Hsiung-nu (who were called Huns in Sogdian) and the
difficulty of obtaining accurate inforn1ation about conditions in
China from his contacts. In the three centuries which followed, the
sea-route via India, especially Ceylon, prospered and became the
main avenue of China's trade with the West. This trade was
dotninated at the western end by Persians. Procopius remarks that it
was impossible for the others to buy silk from the Indians, for the
Persian merchants always located themselves at the very harbours
where the Indian ships first put in and were accustomed to buy
whole cargoes. 8
The spread of Buddhism in Central Asia and E. Iran introduced a
new cultural link between Persia and China. The patronage given to
the religion by the rulers of the Liang and Wei dynasties inN. China
led to the development of con1mercial links, albeit of a localized
nature, between China and the cities of the Tarim Basin. The recent
discovery in a ton1b of the Wei period near Xian of a Sassanian
silver plate depicting a boar-hunting scene demonstrates the
continuing eastward flow of luxury goods from Persia.
9
It has been
suggested that the iten1 did not come to China directly through trade
5 Cf. S.W. Bushell, 'Ancient Roman Coins from Shansi', Journal of the
Peking Oriental Society Ilii ( 1886) pp. 2-26.
6 Cf. 0. Maenchen-Helfen, 'A Parthian Coin-Legend on a Chinese Bronze',
Asia Major N.S. III ( 1953); J.E. Cribb, 'Chinese Lead Ingots with Barbarous
Greek Inscriptions', Royal Numismatic Society Coin Hoards IV ( 1978) pp. 76-
78.
7 W.B. Henning, 'The Date of the Ancient Sogdian Letters', Bulletin of the
School of Oriental and African Studies XII ( 1948) p. 607.
8 Procop., Pers. I, 20, 12.
9 Cf. Ma Yung, 'Pe-Wei Feng-huo-t'uh mu chi ch'i ch'u-t'u ti Po-ssu yin-
p'en', We1i-wu iii ( 1983) pp. 8-12, 39.
Samuel Lieu 49
but was taken back toN. China as booty in the expedition of the Wei
against Kutcha in 429.1 o One of the earliest Buddhist n1issionaries
and translators to have worked in Lo-yang was An Shih-kao who,
according to his biography by Hui-chiao, II was an Arsacid prince.
Among his co-workers was a fellow Parthian called An HsUan who
first came to Lo-yang as a rnerchant.l2 Sogdians also featured
prominently among the pioneering Buddhist missionaries. K'ang
ChU, a contemporary of the famous Lokaksen1a, 13 was a Sogdian
monk and K'ang Seng-hui (d. 280) can1e from a Sogdian farnily
which was engaged in the sea trade to the Gulf of Tonkin.t4 The
connection between Buddhism and foreign trade is exen1plified by a
passage in the Lo-yang ch'ieh-lan chi of Yang HsUan-chih
(published c. 547) which is a description of the Buddhist temples in
the eastern capital under the Wei:
To the south of the Yung Bridge and north of the Hu'an ch'iu (Circular
Mound), between the I and Lo Rivers, was the Imperial Drive with
buildings on both sides. On the eastern side were the Four Barbarians'
Lodging Houses: ( 1) Chin ling, south, (2) Yen-jan, north, (3) Fu-sang,
east, and (4) Yen-tzu, west. On the western side were the Four Barbarians'
Wards: (1) Kuei-cheng, (2) Kuei-te, (Return to the Virtuous), (3) Mu-hua,
(Admire the Refined), and (4) Mu-i, (Admire the Righteous). Deserters
from the Wu region were housed in the Chinese Lodge at first, but given
residences in Kuei-cheng Ward three years later. IS
These lodging places were needed because the Middle Kingdom was
a universally popular destination for western n1erchants:
Of the hundred kingdoms and thousand cities in the area extending from
west of Ts'ung-ling Range (the Green Onion Range) to Ta-Ch'in (i.e. the
Byzantine Empire), none did not accept China's suzerainty with gratitude.
Tradesmen doing business with barbarians and peddlers rushed to China's
border every day - indeed, China was the axis mundi of the whole
universe. Those who took delight in China's customs and who had
consequently taken residence in China were too numerous to count. At
10 Cf. ibid. p. 12.
II Kao-seng chuan I, Taisho sihnshu daizokyo (The Tripitaka in Chinese)
2059.323a.
1
2
Ibid. 324b.
13 Fl. 168-89; cf. E. Zurcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China (Leidcn 1957)
pp. 168-89.
14 KSCI, T 2059.325a.
15 Fan Hsiang-yung, (ed.), Lo-yang ch'ieh-lan chi kao chu (Shanghai 1958)
p.160; trans. Y.T. Wang, A Record of the Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang
(Princeton 1984)p. 148.
50 Byzantium, Persia and China
any rate, more than ten thousand households were surrendered, and adapted
to Chinese culture. Wards and lanes were orderly and well-kept, subdivided
into rows after rows of houses and countless gates. Green locust trees cast
shadows over the streets; green willows drooped in the courtyards. Rare
commodities from every corner of the world were all available here.16
In 517 two Chinese monks set out from Lo-yang for a journey
across the Tarim Basin and the Pamirs in search of Buddhist
scriptures. They followed a route which would be followed in parts
a century later by the famous T'ang pilgrim Hsiian-tsang. Like
Hsiian-tsang, they turned south after crossing the Pamirs and did not
enter Persia proper. On the other hand they gave us a rare account of
the Hephthalites who a quarter of a century earlier had lured the ill-
fated Shahanshah Peroz and his army into a gigantic animal-trap
somewhere beyond the northern Iranian frontier, killing him and a
large number of his followers (484). The Chinese monks remarked
on their non1adic way of life, their lack of cities and of literary
culture but noted that they received tributes fron1 many nations
including Persia, and as a result they possessed many valuables and
rarities which had come to them by way of tribute.
1
7 Some of these
would have certainly made their way eastwards. The discovery of a
hoard of Sassanian coins issued under Yazdgard II ( 438-57) and
Peroz (459-84) in a Buddhist relic box along with other jewellery in
the province of Ho-pei c. 1965 shows that foreign coins in precious
metal were certainly traded across Central Asia and valued by the
Chinese who had a base-metal coinage. The presence of Hephthalite
counter-marks on some of the coins gives a clear indication of their
route to China. Of the one thousand or so Sassanian coins recovered
in China, over a hundred were struck in the reign of Peroz and they
were probably paid as tribute to the Hephthalites.18
The Hephthalite ascendancy over the Sassanians in Transoxiana
undoubtedly prolonged the cessation of regular trade between China
and her principal custon1ers in the West. Tinkers and itinerant
peddlers plied the routes once used by caravans. The body of one
such solitary travelling salesman was exhumed in 1959 in the course
of repairs to water-pipes near Hohehot in Inner Mongolia. His
n1erchandise which was found with his body consisted of two silver
16 Ibid., p.l6l, trans. pp. 150-51.
17 Ibid., pp. 288-289.
18 Cf. Hsia Nai 'Ho-pei Ting-hsien t'a-chi she-li-han chung Po-ssu Sa-san
ch'ao yin-pi', K'ao-ku v (1966) pp. 267-70.
Samuel Lieu 51
and one bronze goblets, a small gold decoration (probably once part
of a tiara or diadem) and a gold solidus of Leo I ( 457-7 4) which
gives the terminus post quem of this, his last journey. That his
collection of goods in precious metal was found with the corpse
unplundered shows that the tradesn1an had perished unnoticed and
unaccompanied. l9 At the time of the publication of the find, the
solidus of Leo I is the oldest Byzantine coin found in China, the next
in line being a solidus of Justin II (565-787) fron1 near Hsien-
yang.20 I myself have used the apparent gap between the dates of
these two coins as evidence of a cessation or diminution in trade
between China and the West caused by the stranglehold of the
Hephthalites on an important section of the Silk Road. I was
therefore slightly taken aback when I read of the discovery of a coin
of Theodosius II ( 40 1-50) in Ho-pei. My fears subsided son1ewhat
when I read further in the same report that it was found together with
two coins struck in the joint-reign of Justin I and Justinian (i.e.
527).21 These later coins however do not preclude the possibility
that the coins n1ade their way across Central Asia before the fall of
the Hephthalite En1pire c. 557.
The increase in contact between China and Persia under the
Northern Wei is also evident from literary sources. The account of
Parthia in the History of the Later Han Dynasty (Hou Han shu) is
extremely brief and uninformative. By contrast, Sassanian Persia is
accorded one of the longest entries in the treatise on Western Nations
in the Dynastic history of the Wei (Wei shu). In it we are told that
the capital of Persia was Su-li (i.e. Seleucia) and was situated west
of Merv. The king of Persia possessed ten imperial residences,
similar to the detached palaces in China, which he visited in turn.
When the king ascended the throne, he would custon1arily select the
n1ost able of his sons and inscribe his name secretly in the archives
as his successor. Neither his son nor the chief ministers would
know who it was until after his death when the docutnent was
unsealed. The prince thus named in it would succeed to the throne
while the other princes would take up provincial governorships. I
19 Nei-Mung-ku wen-wu kung-tso-tui 'Huo-ho-hao-te shih fu-chin ch'u-t'u ti
wai-kuo chin-yin-pi', K'ao-ku iii ( 1975) pp. 182-85.
20 Cf. Hsia Nai, 'Hsicn-yang ti Chang-wan Sui-mu ch'u-t'u ti Tung Lo-ma
chin-fi', K'ao-ku hsiieh fun-wen chi (Peking 1961) pp. 135-42.
2 Cf. Hsia Nai, 'Tsan-huang Li-hsi-tsung mu ch'u-t'u ti Pai-chan-t'ing chin-
pi', K'ao-ku vi ( 1977) pp. 403-06.
52 Byzantium, Persia and China
need hardly remind you of the similarity of this to Procopius'
account of how Kawad was succeeded by Khusrau Anushirwan in
531. The latter was named in a document which was opened after
the death of Kawad by Mebodes before the assembled Persian
nobles. Khusrau was duly proclaimed King of Kings instead of the
unpopular Caoses who, as the eldest son, justifiably thought that he
had the stronger claim to the throne.22
The bureaucrat-historian who compiled the article also included
an attempt to transliterate the titles of Persian officialdom. Some of
them are accurate and easily identifiable like fang-pu-shuai for
'queen' (i.e. either banbisin in Middle Persian or *bambust in
Sogdian) or sha-yeh for 'prince' ( = Middle Persian: * sahryaran, late
Sassanian pronunciation of satrdaran) or ni-ho- gan for 'chief
treasurer' (= Middle Persian: Nixorakan and Greek: Naxoragan).
More problematic are i-tso for 'king' ( = A vestan: xsathrya?) and mo-
hu-t'an for 'officials in charge of the judicial department' ( = Middle
Persian *magudan or mobeden).23 Given the problems one faces in
transliterating foreign words into a tonal language like Chinese with
a lin1ited range of syllabic sounds, the fact that we can recognize a
nun1ber of these titles with relative ease gives credit to the Sogdian
or Chinese translator who tnade this attempt.
The article also contains a quotation (in Chinese translation) from
a letter of Kawad which was received by the Chinese court (between
517 and 519) accompanied by presents. It says:
The Son of Heaven of the great nation, born of heaven. I wish on the
place where the sun rises that the Son of Heaven of the Han (i.e. China)
will (reign) forever. K'u-wo-to (i.e. Kawad) pays obeisance a thousand and
ten thousand times.
Kawad's friendship with the Hephthalites who helped him to regain
his throne24 n1ight have facilitated the passage of his envoys across
Transoxiana to China. The greeting formula could well have been a
reworded version of a standard Sassanian epistolary greeting as
attested in Shapur II's letter to Constantius II which, in the Latin
22 Procop .. Pers. I, 21, 17-22.
23 Wei shu 102.2271 = Chou shu 50.919 and Pei shi 97.322-23; cf. B.
Laufer, Sino-/ ranica (Chicago 191 0) pp. 529-34; R.A. Miller, Accounts of
Western Nations in the History of the Northern Chou Dynasty, Chinese
Dynastic History Translations no. 6 (Berkeley 1959) pp. 38-40.
24 Procop., Pers. I, 6, 10.
Samuel Lieu 53
translation of Ammianus l\1arcellinus, reads:
25
'Rex regun1 Sapor,
particeps siderum, frater Solis et Lunae, Constantia Caesari fratri
meo salutem plurimam dico'.
The Sogdians were among the first to seize the opportunities
offered to trans-continental trade by the fall of the Hephthalites, the
new dominance of the Turks and the return to n1ore stable conditions
in China. The story of how the Silk Road was re-opened, as told by
Menander the Protector, is well known and need not be repeated
here in detail. At the institgation of the Sogdians the Turkish
khagahn sent a trade delegation to Persia headed by a Sogdian, but
their request to sell silk direct to the Persians n1et with a negative
response. The Persian king was persuaded by a Hephthalite turn-
coat that Persian comtnercial interests would be at stake if Sogdians,
now subjects of the Turks, were to be allowed to trade freely in the
Persian Empire. The silk brought by the en1bassy was duly bought
from the envoys and burnt in public. Relations between the two
powers were severely strained when, at the ancient equivalent of a
diplomatic reception, the Persians laced the 'cocktails' of the
members of a second Turkish delegation with poison and only a few
of the guests escaped alive. After this rebuff, the Sogdians sent an
en1bassy via the Caucasus to Constantinople and this tnet with
considerably better results. A con1n1ercial treaty with Byzantiun1 was
signed which was n1eant to last for eight years.
2
6
As China became more prosperous under the Sui and T'ang
dynasties, she too began to suck in imports from the West in ever
increasing quantity and variety. The continuing popularity of
Buddhis111 in China stimulated fascination for occidentalia among the
Chinese well-to-do, especially in exotic foodstuffs, wine-drinking,
instrumental music, jewellery, objets d'art, curios, fur garments,
board-games etc. 27 All these greatly benefitted the Sogdian
rnerchants who by now had a virtualtnonopoly on China's overland
trade with the West. There was a well-established chain of Sogdian
colonies east of the Pamirs through which rnost of the trade was
25 Ammianus Marcellinus, XVII, 5 , 3, G. Sabbah (Bude edition).
26 Men. Prot., Fragmenta Historiae 10,1-5, trans. R.C. Blockley (ed.), pp.
11 0-27; cf. N. Pigulewskaja, Byzanz auf den Wegen nach Indien, Berliner
Byzantische Arbeiten XXXVI (Berlin 1970) pp. 163-68.
27 Cf. E.H. Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand, A Study of Tang
Exotics (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1963) pp. 139-94, 222-49, 265-68.
54 Byzantium, Persia and China
conducted.28 As I have suggested elsewhere, these colonies would
have provided hospitality to visitors from the west like Buddhist,
Manichaean and Nestorian missionaries and helped them to adjust to
the new surroundings before they continued their travels into China
proper.29 The subjugation of the Western Turks by the T'ang
emperor T'ai-tsung was, according to Chinese sources,30 greeted by
hu (i.e. Sogdian) merchants with great rejoicing as they could now
travel unmolested. It was during the reign of the same emperor that
Nestorian Christianity was first granted official recognition in China
and a church was established with the title of 'Monastery of the
Persian Barbarians'. This was changed by imperial edict in 745 to
'Ta-Ch'in (i.e. Roman) Monastery' in honour of the land where the
religion had its origins3
1
-probably an indication of the reluctance
of the Nestorians to remain identified in China with a now defunct
Sassanian dynasty. The article on Persia in the T'ang Dynastic
Histories bears further witness to the very considerable increase in
diplomatic and commercial contacts between the two states in the
sixth and seventh centuries. The compiler of the article even
attempted to give a summary of one of the more important chapters
of later Sassanian history:
At the end of the Sui Dynasty (581-618), Yeh-hou (=Jaghbou?) Khaghan
of the Western Turks destroyed the Kingdom (sc. of Persia) and killed its
king K'u-sa-ho (= Khusrau?). His son She-li (= Siroes?) ascended the
throne. Yeh-hou (Khaghan) sent a commander to supervise his rule. After
the death of She-li, (the Persians) refused to be subservient and proclaimed
the daughter of K'u-sa-ho as empress. She too was killed by the Turks.
She-li's son Tan-chieh-fang hastened to Fu-lin (i.e. MP hrwm, the
Roman Empire) where he was received by its people and proclaimed king.
He thus became 1-ta-chih (= Ardashir?). After his death he was succeeded
by 1-ssu-ssu (= Yazdgard?) who was the son of his brother.32
The compiler would not have scored high marks by modern
standards of historiography, but then he did not have at his elbow
28 Cf. P. Pelliot, 'Le 'cha-tcheou-tou-fou-t'ou-king' et Ia colonie sogdienne de
Ia region du Lob Nor' Journal Asiatique, 2e ser. VII (Jan.-Feb. 1916) pp. 111-23;
E.G. Pulleyblank, 'A Sogdian Colony in Inner Mongolia', T'oung-pao XLI
( 1952) pp. 317-56.
29 S.N.C. Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval
China (Manchester, 1985) p. 189.
30 Hsin Tang shu 221 B.6244.
31 Tan hui-yao 49.864.
32 HTS 221B.6248.
Samuel Lieu 55
Christensen's L'Iran sous les Sassanides or the Cambridge History
of Iran iii(l). Despite the major confusions in dramatis personae,
the main event it tries to describe - nan1ely the invasion of Iran by
the Turks leading to the revolt of Bahran1 Chobin against Honnizd
IV and the subsequent flight of Khusrau II (Parwiz) to the Rotnan
empire via Circesiun1 where he was well received by Maurice who
aided him to regain his throne - is readily recognizable. The
Chinese compiler appears to have conflated the account of the revolt
of Bahram with the events after the death of Khusrau Parwiz, with
the victorious Arabs confused with the defeated Turks.33 This
attempt at an account of the internal history of Persia by a Chinese
historian bears cornparison with Theophylact's excursus on Taugast
(Turkish for China) in which he describes a battle between two
states in N. China, one sty led the 'black -robed' and the other 'red-
robed'. 34 In Theophy I act's account, there are neither dates nor
names and the title he gives for the king of China, 'Taisun' n1eaning
'son of God', is a considerable distortion of 'T'ien-tzu'35 though
slightly more Chinese sounding than 'Bagour' (i.e. Parthian:
b g p w h r: 'son of God') given in the anonyn1ous Syrian
commentary, the Gannat Bussame for the King of China. 36 The rest
of the article on Persia in the T'ang Dynastic histories is a unique
account of the history of the Sassanian royal house before and after
the battle of Nehavand, and its value has long been realized by
western scholars. It tells of the Inission of Y azdgard III in 638 to
cultivate the friendship of the Chinese emperor with the gift of a
snake trained to ferret rats fron1 their hiding-places. The article goes
on to recount his subsequent defeat by the Arabs and his death, the
accession of Peroz, and his establishn1ent of a Persian state in
Tocharistan. When pressed by the Arabs, he requested military
assistance from the Chinese who turned hin1 down on the grounds
that effective help could not be rendered over such a long distance.
Later he was granted an honorary Chinese military title and placed
in charge of a Persian enclave under Chinese protection in Seistan
33 Cf. Theophphylactus Simocattes, Historiae III, 6, ll -IV, 14,7.
34 Ibid., VII,9, 1-8; cf. P.A. Boodberg, 'Marginalia to histories of the
Northern Dynasties, I, Theophylactus Simocatta on China', Harvard Journal of
Asiatic Studies III ( 1938) pp. 223-43.
35 The Son of Heaven, cf. Boodberg, ibid., pp. 234-35, who suggests that it
is a transliteration of the Jess usual Chinese imperial title of 'T'ai-shang'.
36 Cf. J. Bidez and F. Cumont, Les Mages Hellenises. vol 2. (Paris 1938) p.
115.
56 Byzantium, Persia and China
with his capital at modem Zaranj. He died some time later in China
but not before his wish for the establishment of a Zoroastrian temple
in the Chinese capital of Ch'ang-an was granted in 677.37 The
Sassanian royal family could have just as easily fled to India as
China. That the latter was chosen was probably influenced by the
diplomatic contacts which had been established on the eve of the
Arab conquest. Perez's son called Ni-ni-shi in (Narses?) was at
first held hostage by the Chinese but was later escorted back to
Tocharistan where he ruled for some twenty years, during which
time the remnants of his followers were said to have drifted away_38
As the victorious Arabs pushed steadily into Central Asia, other
states once allied to Persia also sought help from the Middle
Kingdom. In 713, the King of Sogdiana wrote to the Chinese
Emperor, saying that the Arabs under the Emir Kutaiba had
surrounded his capital city with three hundred mantlets and siege-
engines and had also dug three ditches (mines?). Even a small
detatchment of Han (i.e. Chinese) troops, he said, could have
served the purpose of defeating the common foe. 39 A similar
request was received from the J aghbou (the Khaghan ?) of
Tocharistan in 727. In the most obsequious and self-deprecating
manner, he, calling himself a servant (nu), informs his Chinese lord
and master that he was forced to pay a heavy tribute to the Arabs
who were harrassing and oppressing him in every possible way.
Without Chinese help, he says, neither he nor his kingdom could
survive. He also apologises for the poor quality of his gifts as the
Arabs were pressing him with fiscal demands which he found hard
to meet.
4
0
The Chinese belatedly took action in 751 when an expedition
under the command of the Korean general Kao Hsien-chih was sent
west of the Pamirs, but it was decisively defeated by the Arabs on
the banks of the river Talas.4I To emphasise their victory, the Arabs
carried out a surprise seaborne attack on Kuang-chou (i.e. Canton)
37 Cf. W. Eichhorn, 'Materialien zum Auftreten iranischer Kulte in China',
Die Welt des Orients II (1959) p.537.
38 Cf. HTS 221B.6259; cf. J. Harmatta, 'Sino-Iranica', Acta Antiqua
Academiae Scientarum Hungariacae XIX ( 1971) pp. 138-41.
39 Ts'e-fu yuen-kuei 999.16-17.
40 Ibid. pp. 17-18; Cf. Fang Hao, Chung-hsi chiao-t'ung shih, vol. 2 (Taipei
1960) pp. 139-40.
4f HTS 221B.6246.
Samuel Lieu 57
in Persian ships in 758/9, setting fire to the port's granaries and
magazines.42 The numismatic evidence tells the same story of active
contact between China and Persia in the last days of the Sassanians.
Of the Sassanian coins found and reported in China in n1odern times
up to 1977, 593 out of a total of 1, 177 were issued in the reign of
Khusrau II. Admittedly most of then1 come from one hoard, but
there are also two rare specimens of Borandukht (630-31) and three
of Yazdgard III.
43
By contrast, China's knowledge of B yzantiun1 did not
significantly increase during these centuries of active contacts with
the West. The Chinese had long wished to have direct trading
contacts with the land they called Ta-Ch'in ('Greater China') and
later Fu-lin which they knew to be the final destination of n1uch of
the silk they exported to the West. In 97 B.C., a Chinese envoy was
sent by the great explorer Pan Chao to travel to the Roman En1pire
by sea from the Persian Gulf. However, when the envoy was about
to embark at Mesene, he was told that if the winds were favourable,
he might reach Ta-Ch'in in three months but, if unfavourable, the
journey could take anything up to two years. Moreover, ~ h e sea_
often made the voyagers long for dry land and hanker for ObJects of
their love, and n1any would thus perish. The envoy who had already
made a long overland journey decided that he had reached the li1nits
of his mission and heeded the advice of the Parthians.
44
Chinese
sources speak of later attempts to reach Rome also being thwarted
by the Parthians who did not wish the Chinese to circui?ven.t their
role as middlemen.45 The articles on Rome/Byzantiutn In the
Chinese dynastic histories are much more uniform throughout
Antiquity and.the Middle Ages than those on Persia, interestingly
resembling Roman accounts of China, with both depicting the other
in stylized and idyllic tenns, concentrating on exotica and _the
utopian nature of the other's politeia.
4
6 Nevertheless, cointnon fear
42 HTS 221 B.6259; Cf. E. Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-kiue (Turcs)
Occidentaux vol. I (Paris 1941, originally published in St. Petersburg 1900)
PP 172-73. I ,
43 Cf. Hsia Nai, 'Tsung-shu Chung-kuo ch'u-t'u t1 Po-ssu Sa-san chao ym-
pi' K'ao-ku hsiieh-pao XL ( 1974) p. 98. , . , , .
44 HHS 88.2918; cf. E. Chavannes, 'Les pays d occident d apres le Heou Han
Chou', T'oung-pao 2e ser. VIII/ii ( 1907) pp. 80-81.
45 Ibid., 88.2919-20.
46 Cf. F. Hirth, China and the Roman Orient (Hong Kong 1885) pp. 35-96;
J. Ferguson, 'China and Rome', ANRW 11.9.2 ( 1978) pp. 595-96.
58 Byzantium, Persia and China
of the Arab foe did bring about some formal contacts between
Byzantium and China. A delegation from Fu-lin arrived in China in
643 which is said to have been sent by a king called Po-to-li.47
Since the reigning Byzantine monarchs in this period were Heraclius
(610-41), Constantius III (641), Heracleonas (641) and Constans II
(641-68), the transliteration of the imperial name seems seriously
adrift. Hirth48 has suggested that 'Po-to-li' is an approximation to
the Arabic word 'Batriq', i.e. patriarches in Greek. But it is hard to
imagine the Patriarch of Constantinople playing such an independent
role in Byzantine foreign policy unless the delegation had
missionary motives. 'Po-to-li' could have been simply a corrupt
transliteration of the Greek basileus (emperor).49 It has also been
suggested that the attempt at an alliance with China was made in the
hope of the creation of a second front in Turkestan at the time when
Constans II was preparing an expedition to recover Egypt from the
Arabs. 50 The Chinese source goes on to say that shortly after the
mission, the Arabs waxed strong and the general Mu-i was sent to
invade Fu-lin. The latter thereupon made a treaty of friendship with
the Arabs and became tributary to them. Mu-i is probably
Mu'awiyah, the Arab general who swept the Byzantines out of
Syria and Palestine and whose victory led to a truce for two years
between Constans and the Arabs in 648.51
In the wake of the exiled Sassanian royal family came a steady
stream of Persian refugees to China. Their subsequent careers in
China are not unlike those of the Czarist exiles in China after the
Russian Revolution. The T'ang government valued the military
(especially equestrian) skills of the Iranian noblemen and many were
enrolled into the elite Shen-ts'e chiin, the T'ang equivalent of the
French Foreign Legion. A bilingual tombstone of the sister/wife of
one of the Iranian officers of this corps, found at Xi an and published
47 HTS 221B.6261.
48 Hirth, op cit., pp. 297-95.
49 Cf. K. Shiratori, 'A new attempt at the solution of the Fu-lin problem',
Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko, The Oriental Library
XV (1956) p. 329.
5b Cf. J. de Guignes, Histoire generale des Huns des Turcs, des Mongols, et
des autres Tartares Occidentaux, vol. 1 (Paris 1756) p. 55.
51 Cf. Theophanes, Chronog raphia A. M. 6129-42, pp. 340, 12-344, 24, C.
de Boor (ed.) and Zonaras XIV, 19,8-10 and 14-19, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae
Byzantinae.
Samuel Lieu 59
by Sundermann and Thilo and now restudied by Harmatta5
2
and
Humbach with Wang Shih-ping, 53 attests to the survival of at least
one Iranian aristocratic fan1ily in exile as late as the third quarter of
the ninth century. While the Middle Persian version of the
inscription designates her as the 'sister' of the officer, the Chinese
artfully gives 'wife' to disguise the Iranian practice of incestuous
marriage which would have been repugnant to the Chinese.5
4
In a
recent survey of the careers of foreigners in T'ang China, Tse Hai-
p'ing55 has shown from both literary and epigraphical evidence that
a considerable number of officers of Iranian or Central Asian origin
rose to relatively high ranks in the T'ang forces, and some were
heavily decorated and well rewarded for their bravery in frontier
wars. A handful of Iranians took to the serious study of Chinese
Classics and entered the civil service, but the great non-n1ilitary
rnajority of the exiles went into trades and professions in which
foreigners had already established then1selves, such as painting
(especially religious painting) and decorating, entertainn1ent
(especially in instrun1ental music, dancing and conjuring), trading in
horses, spices and jewellery, n1oney lending, n1edicine and the
proprietorship of wine-houses, bakeries and eating places. 5
6
S01ne
Iranian ladies became servants and/or concubines of T'ang officals
and merchants and merged into Chinese society which showed little
52 W. Sundermann and W. Thilo, 'Zur mittelpersisch-chinesischen
Grabinschrift aus X'ian (Volksrepublik China)', Mitteilungen des lnstituts fiir
Orientforschung XI ( 1966) pp. 437-50; J. Hannatta, 'The Middle Persian-Chinese
Bilingual Inscription from Hsian and the Chinese Sassanian relations', in La
Persia nel Medioevo, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei CCCLXVIII, quaderno no.
I60 (197I) pp. 363-76.
53 H. Humbach, (unter Mitwirkung von Wang Shiping), 'Die pahlavi-
chinesische Bilingue von Xi'an', in W. Sundermann et al. (eds), A Green Leaf-
Studies Presented to Professor J. P. Asmussen (Lei den I 988) pp. 73-82.
54 Cf. Lieu, op. cit., p. I 91.
55 Tse Hai-p'ing, T'ang-tai liu hua wai-kuo-jen sheng-huo k'ao-shu (Taipei
I 978) pp. 80-95. . .
56 Cf. E. H. Schafer, 'Iranian Merchants in Tang Dynasty Tales', Senultc
and Oriental Studies presented to William Popper, University of California
Publications in Semitic Philology XI ( 1951) pp. 403-09.
Cf. also I. Ecsedy, 'Western Turks in Northern China in the Middle of the 7th
Century', in J. Harmatta (ed.), From Hecataeus to Al-fiuwarizml,
Pahlavi, Sogdian, Persian, Sanskrit, Syriac, Arabic, Chinese Greek and Latm
Sources for the History of Pre-Islamic Central Asia (Budapest 1984) pp. 249-
258.
60 Byzantium, Persia and China
sign of racial prejudice against them. 57 Chinese-speaking Sogdians
were particularly appreciated for their language skills as translators
of Buddhist texts or interpreters for the T'ang administration. One
half-Sogdian and half-Turk who rose to fame and notoriety in late
T'ang history was An Lu-shan (Lu-Shan = Sogdian rwxsn-,
'shining, brilliant'). He began his administrative career as an
interpreter with knowledge of half a dozen languages.58 Later, as
provincial governor of Ho-pei, he led a revolt against the T'ang
court in the years 755-66 and very nearly became ruler of the Middle
Kingdom. 59 The revolt is a major watershed in Chinese history as it
inaugurated a period of internal turmoil which caused Chinese
society to turn in upon itself and to close its doors to foreign
influences until they were forcibly prised open by the Jurchens and
Mongols four centuries later, and compelled China to rejoin the
Eurasian oikumene.
ANRW
CHI, iii
CHSC
cs
CSHB
CTS
HHS
Abbreviations
und Niedergang der romischen Welt, H. Temporini eta!.
(eds), (Berlin 1972 ff.).
Cambridge History of Iran, Vol.III The Parthian and Sassanian
Periods, 2 pts., E. Yarshater (ed.), (Cambridge 1983).
Chung-hua shu-chu.
Chou shu (History of the Chou Dynasty, 557-81) compiled by Ling-
hu te-fen (presented in 636), CHSC edition (Peking 1971 ).
Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, 49 vols. (Bonn 1828-78).
Chiu Tang shu (The Old History of the T'ang Dynasty, 618-907)
compiled by Liu Hs7, (completed in 945), CHSC edition (Peking
1975).
Hou Han shu (History of the Later Han Dynasty, 25-220) compiled
by Fan Yeh (338-445), CHSC edition (Peking 1971 ).
57 Cf. Schafer op. cit., ( 1963) pp. 114-266.
58 Chiu Tang shu 200A.5367, HTS 225A.6411; cf. E. G. Pulleyb1ank,
round to the Rebellion of An Lu-shan (Oxford 1955) pp. 15-17.
5 Cf. R. de Rotours, Histoire de Ngan Lou-chen (Paris 1962) pp. 285-94.
Samuel Lieu 61
HTS Hsin Tang shu (New History of the T'ang Dynasty, 618-907)
compiled by Ou-yang Hsiu and Sung Ch'i (completed 1 060), CHSC
edition (Peking 1979).
KSC Kao-seng chuan (Lives of Eminent Monks), compiled by Hui-chao,
T2059, Vol. L, pp. 322c-423a.
Lib. Libanius Sophista, opera, R. Forster (ed.), 12 vols (Leipzig 1909-
27).
LS Liang shu (History of the Liang Dynasty, 502-556) compiled by
Yao Ssu-lien (completed in 636), CHSC edition (Peking 1973).
Men. Prot. Menander Protector, Fragmellfa historiae, trans. R. C. Blockley (ed.),
The History of Menander the Guardsman (Liverpool 1985).
Procop., Pers.
PS
ss
T
TFYK
Procopious, de bello Persico, J. Haury (ed.), 1n Procopii
Caesariensis opera, vol. I (Leipzig 1905) pp.4-304.
Pei-shi (History of the Northern Dynasty, 386-420) compiled by Li
Yen-shou (approved for circulation in 659), CHSC edition (Peking
1973).
Sui shu (History of the Sui Dynasty, 605-618) compiled by Wei
Chang (completed in 636), CHSC edition (Peking 1973).
Taishi5 sihnshu daizokyi5 (The Tripitaka in Chinese) (Tokyo 1924-
1929).
Ts'e-fu yuen-kuei, compiled by Wang Ch'in-jo (d. 1025) and Yang I
(974-1 020), edition of Li Ssu-ching ( 1642), CHSC edition (Peking
1960).
Theoph. Sim.
THY
ws
Theophylactus Simocattes, historiae, C. de Boor (ed.) and revised by
P. Wirth (Leipzig 1972).
Tang hui-yao (Manual of the Institutions of the T'ang Dynasty),
compiled by Wang Po (completed in 961 ), Kuo-hsi.ieh Chi-pen
ts'ung-shu edition (Shanghai 1935).
Wei shu (The History of the Wei Dynasty, 386-534), compiled by
Wei Su (completed in 554), CHSC edition (Peking 974).
62 Byzantium, Persia and China
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