Link to the video from Voices of the Past: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ar6Ug9KVs923d4k.html Get 70% off NordVPN, Only $3.49/mo, plus you get an additional 2 months FREE for Cyber Month at: nordvpn.com/invicta

Almost all of the details that sound wrong or somewhat weird are explainable by correlation to the Han Empire. For example the 400 cities being only 400 (Chinese "cities" were closed administrative centres, heavily bureaucratized and without free movement of people and goods, the entire population of the Empire was grouped in administrative divisions of 100, 1000, 10000 people and so on), and also the description of the capital (which seems way more bureaucratized and way bigger than the actual Rome, since that's the way Chinese capitals and governments worked); but also the mentioning of postal service, original writing systems, silk, stone buildings and walls, tall and educated people are all being done with the intention of portraying the Romans as "equal to us", and not as just another barbarian reign; all of those traits the Chinese linked with their most unique traits, traits of civilization. One last thought: the writer wrote his account when the Han Empire had collapsed, in a time of "chaos under heaven" when the Mandate had been retired from the Sky and corruption reigned in China; his depiction of the Roman Empire, and especially of the Roman Emperors' virtue and their practice of peacefully resigning the throne when Heaven wished, is a classic projection of a utopian world, upon foreigners in lands far away.

The exaggerated time to reach Rome is probably by Persian people who tried to dissuade the Chinese from making direct contact with the romans, also about the word hu (胡), I think it would be more properly translated as barbarian, since everyone outside of China is considered a barbarian, 胡 is among the many word the Chinese used to describe barbarians.

Idk 226 A.D. that sounds about the time peroid where the praetorian guard could unceremoniously replace emperors lol

"A brief account of Wei" >goes and writes a library of books

The Roman "silk" was likely a reference to Sea Silk, a luxury fabric made from the byssal threads of certain pen shell clams. It's been described as even finer than normal silk and almost certainly would of drawn the attention of a Chinese trader/historian. The Romans kept the source of Sea Silk secret so the writer likely assumed they were using worms, and probably reinforced the idea the Romans were descended from the Chinese.

Invicta i wanted to thank you so much. I really loved the voices of the past video, but it alone is not enough. The work you have done to properly contextualize it is so appreciated. You have truly done a massive service to everyone. You going line by line explaining everything really helped me see it in a whole new light.

The ending bit about a feeling of exploration is something I often long for. Sure you can go places you haven’t been, but it’s not entirely new. Either someone else has already discovered it or you’ve heard about it. It’s hard to imagine going somewhere you’ve literally only heard of through legends and tales. Especially somewhere as legendary and advanced as Rome.

I assume these discrepancies are the result of the writer using others as sources like the traders rather than going to Rome himself. It's why the trade goods and travel are described, and little anything else.

The thing about the entertaining jugglers is a legit reference, though, Invicta. Hellenistic period jugglers, especially those from Syria, were very popularly used and present in cities and royal courts throughout large parts of Asia, as far as Burma apparently. It's definitely reasonable to assume some reached as far as China along with some Roman merchants for that matter, especially due to the Indian Ocean trade described by the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and even Ptolemy in his Geography.

Thank you for producing history content beyond the "wars, battles and more wars" that is so saturated on the site

I think that the description of Roman governance and when he says that they exchange their rulers based on virtue might really be referring to the times during the Republic. As far as I understood, the author never actually visited and so he might've been working from accounts decades if not hundreds of years old. All that aside, even if he did have current accounts, many of the emperors throughout the first and second centuries still tried to maintain the facade of at least a semi-democratic system in place as to hide their own absolute power and prevent a rebellion by officially establishing monarchy, even though in effect the Emperor's power was indeed absolute. Great video, thanks!

I can't help but get the impression that a lot of the "no shit sherlock" descriptors of things the Romans are said to do, things common to a lot of civilizations, were likely bits called out to highlight the author's impression that Rome is a civilized land, doing civilized things, despite frequent mention of elements like dress and writing system that the authors likely associated with peoples in between, many of which would likely be regarded as barbarians from their perspective.

I don’t remember where I heard it, but apparently the misconception about silkworms and domestic Roman silk production was a lie thought up by the Parthians so the Chinese would think they *weren’t* a monopoly and thus that they wouldn’t price their silks quite as extortionately. And they reinforced this lie by selling them “Roman” silk textiles which were literally just spools of raw Chinese silk spun into bolts of cloth in the Roman fashion (which legitimately used a different set of techniques from how Chinese craftsmen would spin and weave and therefore had a different finished texture) and then sent right back where they came from.

It's fantastic to see these excellent KZfaq history channels collaborating. It provides us the viewers with a much more rich of the past. Thank you!

Chinese guy had to turn in a report on the Roman Empire in the morning but didn't do the reading so this was his best attempt.

I admit that I am still guilty of viewing the ancient world in silos and being disconnected from each other. This is eye opening.

12:45 I suppose another possible interpretation is that some Chinese historian heard something about Rome's claim to being descendants of the Trojans who migrated to the West into Italy, but the historian assumed that they must have been talking about coming from China.

"They were once from China but left it" part really implies Rome's creation myth of being the decedents of Troy - Troy being an Asian city, to the east.. accounts of this could easily be misinterpreted to mean from much FURTHER east.

As you said, Yu Huan's description was a compilation of many sources, some recent, many older than when he wrote, from many authors. So he was synthesizing what was known, through the "filter" of his own world and beliefs, filling in the gaps.

The conjuring of fire from mouths sounds an awful lot like fire breathers at banquets..

I watched the voices of the past video last week, and this is exactly what I needed. More collabs, please 😊😊

You stated that this "book" was a mix of previous reports. OK, so it was written in the time of the Roman Empire, but the reports could have been from the time of the Republic, when they didn't have a permanent "king".

I love this stuff. Relations between Rome and China have always been a fascination of mine and this video great

Thank you for being honest with us about nord and telling us to make an informed decision and look for reports of our own

The handing of messages that are bagged and reviewed later is factual. Julius Caesar on the day he was killed was handed a scroll with the details of the plot. He handed it to his assistant who put it in a bag, expecting to read it later. Oops. The whole practice was part of the Roman patronage system.

Another great Video. The Roman merchant ‘Lun’ who met the Wu Emperor Sun Quan in AD 226 may have been an Alexandrian Greek named Leon. The incident is recorded in the Liang-shu.

the "came from china" bit is surely a reference to the story of aeneas bringing the roman people from the east to italy

Wow this video amazes me, love the videos Invicta!!! Keep it up!! Cant wait for the next videos!! 👍🤙

Fascinating take, I love this coverage!

fascinating! Hope you can find more stuff like this

I keep coming back to this video because i find it soo fascinating. As my uni school is progressing though, I'm thinkin that i might use this video in a classroom to start teaching students how to analyze primary sources.

3:48 - - - Where today is the Suez Canal, there was also a navigable artificial canal in the ancient times. It was last time improved and maintained during the reign of Queen Cleopatra. After the collapse of the ancient Western civilization, that canal was neglected. It was fully buried by nature and it disappeared by the time the Suez Canal was built in the XIXth century.

Very cool video man, you did a very good historical analysis of the text. If you can do more videos on texts like this, that bring a foreign perspectives on different empires.

Chinese historian: It took 6 days to get to the Roman country Invicta: So this is wrong it's more like a week to Sicily. So what the Chinese guy said.

*Also go check out Voice from the Past's video about the Chinese account of Fulin- or the Byzantine Empire* There they write long sections about the Thedosian Walls, Roman red glass, the Roman air conditions, and also referred to Constans II and Muawiyah I of the Umayyad Caliphate.

Well we shouldn't judge those historians who really based their knowledge from word of mouth decades ago. To them must be like traveling to outter galaxy to us. Even if they've 2 or 3 close descriptions in written text it's already amazing.

"Lol are you Mexican?" "No... I'm Chinese, why?" "Cause Yu Huan"

I'd never considered how ancient historians wrote about each other's lands. This is some fascinating stuff.

This is great background for when I’m worldbuilding my book/creative thinking. Very insightful my friend.

Please do more on Roman trade, but also a video on the ancient postal system in and around Rome.

Have to say watched u first for Total war but that lasted a week or two. Truthfully love the history videos will never stop watching them.

We Chinese have an extremely complicated, sometimes stupid but ultimately interesting way of refering to foreigners. Hu(胡) refers to the Nomadic tribes from the North, for example, "Hulu(胡虏)", means the Northern Barbaric Kingdoms after they settled in Northern China. The word "Man(蛮)" refers to the (Southern) Barbarians, like "Nan Man(南蛮)", literally means southern Barbarians. The word "Yi(夷)" refers to the (Western and eastern) Barbarians, like "Xi Yi(西夷)", Barbarians from the West, who raided Western China during the Zhou period. "Dong Yi(东夷)", the Barbarians from the East, was used to refer to Japan, although after proper diplomatic relation was founded, the offensive use declined. Combined, the Chinese word "Man YI(蛮夷)" refers to the Barbarians as a whole. The word is extremely insulting, as they who cannot use the Chinese language are not seen as "civilized". The more neutral or even positive word for foreigners is "Yang(洋)", which also means "foreign people", but the more respected ones. The Europeans are "Xi Yang(西洋)", foreigners from the west. The Westernized Mingji Japanese are "Dong Yang(东洋)", foreigners but from the east. During the last Empire, the mockery of the Europeans and British was instructed to be kept to a minimum to avoid angering these foreign partners, trade with whom was vital to the Imperial treasury at the time. Thus it was specifically pointed out that one should refer to them as "Yang", instead of "Yi", "Man" or "Hu", "Lu". "Yang" was seen as a legacy of Imperialism and Colonialism after the fall of the Empire and now is mostly used for sarcastic purpose, as "foreign overlords." Today everyone outside the Republic is just "Waiguoren(外国人)", literally means "People from another country," with no deeper meaning attached to it.

Extraordinary issue.İt is remarkable ability that help us to see reality in history.Your channel admired me

This account is very interesting. It raises several questions: First - Did your ancient Chinese traveler understand the Latin of the ancient Romans, and how well did he understand it? Second - How much of this account would have been propaganda, given to him by the Romans, to make their country look good to this obviously foreign dignitary? I understand that the ancient Chinese rulers systematically traveled from one palace to another, so the Chinese traveler may have assumed that the Roman rulers had a very similar plan.

Maybe that chinese historian's descriptions are more accurate than we know, especially since he was an outsider and not , say, a Roman who might feel pressured to not be as accurate? Interesting to listen to. Thanks

Thanks for the commentary. I watched the original video a couple of days ago and was wondering about many of the points you took out and explained here. I came across a couple of ancient Chinese sources about the subject and I couldn't help but think that they can describe almost any place west of china including India, Persia, Egypt and of course Rome. The thing is I couldn't find any definitive answer to where these Chinese names are actually referring to. Most of the scholars working on these texts seem to agree on the translation (of place names) given here, but still, something doesn't add up. Maybe I haven't come across a solid piece of evidence that they actually have access to yet, but to this point, I cannot definitively approve that this is a text about Rome itself. I would be more than grateful if anyone can provide me with some resources on this subject, especially help from Chinese people would be appreciated. Thanks again for your great job on the subject, as always.

The Roman imperial era was much warmer than today. Bamboo moreover can readily grow in temperate climates. And yeah, the Romans figured out how to cultivate silkworms.

I found it very interesting thank you

What a very informative video. It was quite nice to listen to. Still wonder what if these two great empires had made contact with each other.

It's amazing that two civilizations so large and ancient knew of eachother's existence. It's fun to imagine how history would've unfolded had they benn able to engage in direct contact and trade.

Amazing as always! Question: How much time would it take for someone in Rome to walk all the way to China in those times?

Damn the video that many History channels are talking about it went more viral than expected!

Free history. Amazing work from you guys.

love this, thanks. The conjuring... of fireballs and such, might be a translation for a colloquial term for like what a stage magician and entertainer would do, like we don't expect a magic act to use actual magic... This was fun, thanks, Invicta!

One thing you have to keep in mind too is that he's taking a snippet of Rome as a whole, but obviously not all from the same source- which would also imply some of the sources he quoted from could have not only been altered over the course of time, but from a different time altogether. Also the mentioning of something out of play COULD be that such a thing did exist there briefly. For instance, the idea of Bamboo. Well perhaps he spoke to a merchant going to a route to sell some bamboo- only to find out they already had bamboo from another merchant. Without the explanation of a merchant visiting earlier, it might lead the hearer to misunderstand the situation and wrongly conclude bamboo grows there. This is just an example of how something could have been added in good faith, only lacking proper context. They could very well have been talking about something that is true, but mistaking a rare happening with something common place.

I am more amazed at how well the Chinese history has been documented over the millennias than anything else

It always fascinates me how detailed those are. Even if they are not super accurate, its not like "I went there and saw this and that". Its like they try to create a mental map of the land and details of the places.

When I first heard the bit around 9:27 when he talks about the bag and the petitions being put into it , What first came to mind was the concept of "Holding Fasces". Fasces are a bundle of wooden birch Rods bound up in a cylinder shape by leather ribbon strips which symbolizes Imperium and were carried by Lictors. The term "Holding fasces" refers to the Roman republic when 1 of the 2 elected Consuls had his 1 month to bring forth proposals to the rest of the Senate to be voted upon to possibly become law. Each month the "Fasces" or imperium is passed between the two consuls before thier terms were up. I can see where this concept of Fasces may have been misinterpreted by the Chinese. For instance the name Fasces originates from Fascis meaning "bundle" which could have been mistranslated as a bag. There is also the fact that they were bundled together by leather strips and carried around may have been interpreted as a leather bag with the wooden rods playing the role of "Petitions" perhaps. The man holding the "bag" can easily be a reference to the Lictor who would carry the bundle of Fasces alongside a politician to this display his political ranking. the number of rods reflect how much political power aka imperium he has. Consuls obviously has some of the highest power especially in the republic era. The idea of where the petitions concept the Chinese historians had about roman rule are interesting. This sounds like another reference to Roman Senate of the republic era though this does have some basis in the roman empire time period as well. So when the senate held session , they would go down the line in order of rank and let each member voice a concern or simply have a say on a specific matter until the session ended for the day. Theoretically this should mean every politician had a time to speak but this never happened and in fact, debate rarely got past the elite ranks of senators before a motion was voted on or session was simply shut down because there wasn't enough time in the day. This was still practiced in the time of the emperors with the senate playing the role of advisors rather than thier traditional role when the emperor was present This did not stop the roman senate and later Roman emperors from probably spreading this idea that everyone has a say for propaganda purposes and this most likely is the story the Chinese got about roman politics. Personally, this part seems less like a straight up propaganda fable that told about Rome to the Chinese and more like a classic case of "Playing Telephone" where the original message was passed down orally from person to person with the message getting changed slightly as it goes until the message is quite different from what was actually said. In this case explaining that a Roman Consul, whose power is represented by Fasces carried by a Lictor proposes a bill which is then debated on by his fellow senators before being put to a vote may in fact came out as The emperor has a guy collecting petitions in a bag and then approves those that seem fair to him. What's interesting is that this idea of the emperor collecting petitions from the people and listening to those that seem fair to him seems to play along the lines of the idea of the Virtuous and Wise Ruler that the Chinese leadership perpetuated during this time period. This is just personal opinion and speculation of course. I don't think we will ever know for sure. but this was really fascinating to watch

I love your channel, and the artwork in your videos. Is there a way to get wallpapers of it? Or just regular copies?

Very GOOD Job...

The part where he talks about kings being replaced constantly, I assumed he was referring to the 3rd century crisis. Keep in mind he was writing in the 230s, so it makes sense that he would be talking about emperors constantly being replaced via Praetorians.

God this would have been so cool. Imagine if the nations of the world were Rome Persia India China that would have been so cool. People from Paris? Roman. People from Damascus? Roman. RIP SPQR

11:30 I think there are limited amount of silk farmed in the Near East, though not as fine as Far East silks. Silk in general is thought to have emerged in a few places independently from several different species of moths, though the best and most famous is the one from Bombyx mori silkworms.

Regarding safety in the Roman Empire, is it possible that different periods were different as far as public and travel safety? Perhaps the Chinese writer wrote of a period of time when things were relatively calm, perhaps he wrote from his own experience in which he encountered 0 violence on the road and interpreted that as safe from his own travel experiences.

I listened to the original video a fairly long time ago, and while it was intriguing I found the lack of commentary or verification of claims frustrating. Therefore this video was perfect as a follow-up!

So great full to know

I’d imagine the making of Roman Empire seem small is a combination of making their own kingdom seem more powerful and then also taking outdated information from sources.

Little known fact, on his desk, Yu kept a framed embroidery stating "Yu Huan it When?"

Maybe he’s talking about Athens rather than Rome. The time sailing and the size would have been more accurate

Awesome video! I'd love to hear your take on the Greco-Buddhists

10:08 I think that "The 36 appointed leaders" probably refers not to the Senate but rather to the magistrates (Caensors, Consuls, Aedils, Praetors, and Quaestors), which in the late republic and empire amounted to about 36 in total. Their effective functions and power varied during the times, but crucially had the power of oppositio (a kind of veto) with respect to the decisions of their colleagues and the decisions of the inferior magistrate colleges.

Romans did have silk and wanted to produce their own, but the Chinese took measures that nobody else would get access to silk worms. So Roman merchants often bought Chinese silk cloth, unraveled the silk threads, and then had silk thread to weave into their own silk fabrics.

12:17 I think this could be Roman belief that they were descended from Trojans? Maybe in Italy, romans tried to explain to a chinese merchant that their ancestors came from the east and the merchant took that to mean they came from China?

12:35 A possible explanation for why the the Chinese historians thought the Romans said they came from China is that the Romans believed they originated from Troy, they believed the survivors of Troy migrated to Italy and founded the Roman kingdom. The Romans would have said Troy was somewhere in Asia, everything to the east of Greece was considered Asia, the Chinese historians may have interpreted that as the Romans saying they originated in China.

Well i guess it's unjust to expect accuracy from this, for the following points: - The translation from this old Chinese language to modern English - A Chinese would have problems or maybe would not be able to communicate at all with the Latin Romans and all the other languages of the empire so most of it would be wild guess or bullshit told from the translators, who depending of its origin and opinions could demonize, diminish or deify and glorify it. -Yu Huan could have never visited Rome, and it just gathered a bunch of histories and tales from the silk road, which would explain why his information was outdated in comparison to the year of 250. (by the way there are people who say that Marco Polo had never gone to China, and got it's knowledge from the same method.)

Very much corrected by other audiences. The only point that I want to point out is around 12:52. The author is doing some over interpretation, which is not quite right. Hu is a Chinese term used in Han dynasty for Xiongnu, a normandic tribe that was frequently mentioned in Han Dynasty. The northern part of the tribe went west, and vanished from Chinese history mysteriously, causing some ambiguity with Hun, who invaded Europe later. The Southern part of Xiongnu merged into Han Chinese culture, adopted the language and tradition. China, 'zhongguo' in Chinese, can be translated into the center of the world, but that doesn't bear the connotation that everything originates from them. Maybe it is self-evident in English but merely wishful thinking. Quite opposite, terms, such as Hu^2, Di^2, Yi^2, Man^2, marked the variety of 'savages' that does not belong to the 'civilized' Han people - unless those 'savages' also adopt the language (many of them did not have a writing system in their language, including those ancestors of nowadays Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese), the Confucius custom, etc. In short, like many ancient civilizations, Han Chinese did have arrogance/pride of themselves, also marks themselves as the center, but they classify 'other less civilized' and less populated cultural groups as 'savages' for the sake of distinction unless it is a civilization like Roman Empire that is equally civilized as themselves.

Now somebodys gotta go behind this fellow and see how correct he is

He's referring to the Aeneid when he says that the Roman saw themselves as coming from China. For what other strong civilization is East? Apparently the answer must be China. I'm sorry, but it was Troy.

Voices of the Past is a breddy gud channel, 5/5

Id say, the merchant who was writing his accounts of Rome seems to have stayed somewhere East, and traded and took the rest from hearsay.

if haixi （ egypt) is 海西 (Western Sea, i.e. the Med.) then haibei is most likely 海北 （Black Sea) 海ocean 西 4/west 北 north. I wish I had the source in Chinese preferably as a parallel text...

Sometimes i day dream about traveling back to ancient Rome and China, saying nothing, just drawing a map of the world, handing them each one copy and seeing what they'd do ;) I day dream about this stupidly often :)

Some discrepancies could be based on exaggerations and gossips from sailors and merchants not interested in telling a stranger from the Far East the real truth and situation of the Roman Empire...

If king is translation of Chinese character王, that means equivalent of Roman governor. Chinese empires gave a kingship to their imperial family members or major generals/ministers of regime who are not a family member to rule the portion of its massive territory.

I think the reference about the Emperors being deposed is not just a memory of the Consuls and the Republic. By Chinese standards, the Romans were very quick about removing or disempowering incompetent or malicious Emperors and relatively open about saying, once the Emperor is gone, "he was either incompetent or malicious so we got rid of him." To a Chinese person this would be utterly bizarre as the Emperor was not just a man but a divine being blessed by heaven, you were not supposed to look at him directly, you had to walk in a special manner before him, etc. Until Diocletian the Emperor was a very important man, but just a man.

Honestly i like this better than just having the primary script read out loid

Everyone else: "What is the name of this place?" China: "This place is now WHOOSHEEBIIDINGDAO!"

As you mention the fact that descriptions trickled in over the centuries, I think it would have been helpful to view it in this light, perhaps with regards to number of "cities" (I also wonder if this a matter of definition) and governance structure. Could the "36 leaders" refer to something like the magistrates?

It looks like he ripped much "detail" such as there was from an earlier report by Gan Ying who aimed to visit the Roman Empire during 97 CE - the reign of Emperor He of Han & Emperor Nerva of Rome, hammering it into a template that China would understand & yet not appear too prosperous or imposing compared to their own Kingdom Gan Ying probed as far as the Western Sea, which is either the Persian Gulf or the Black Sea, put off from travelling further by the Parthians horror stories of the hardships involved He may have believed that Antioch (At the time a hugely prosperous city with many great buildings) was the capital, possibly through misunderstandings, possibly through eastern Greek speakers being a bit pissy about their Western compatriots He himself could have picked up a few confusing tales of Consular elections, which the Romans still paid some lip service to in the Early Empire, far less so by the Third Century

From the wiki: "In Southeast Europe, the lion inhabited part of the Balkan Peninsula, up to Hungary and Ukraine during the Neolithic period.[25][26] It survived in Bulgaria until the 4th or 3rd century BC.[23][27] Around 1000 BC, it became extinct in the Peloponnese.[2][28] It disappeared from Macedonia around the first century AD, from Western Thrace not before the 2nd century AD and from Thessaly possibly in the 4th century AD; Themistius regretted that no more lions could be furnished for beast-shows.[25][26][2][29][16]" So it seems likely that folk tales and even more recent accounts might have a grain of truth in them.

You miss the part in the end where he commented that this is a compilation of stories regarding those countries in the west which he heard from others like traders.

he was not speaking of imperial rome..he probably had very old information that he put in writing.

Those apps that use to calculate the time and distance a ship takes to travel through the seas, does it take into account ancient technology? And was the map you used to estimate the of cities in the Roman Empire an ancient map?

12:15 Could this be a filtered kind of interpretation of the founding myths of Rome? One of the myths involved them being the refugees fleeing westward after the fall of Troy. Troy was in Anatolia, and Anatolia from the east of Rome. Could the historian have interpreted "We're from the east" as "Hey, we used to be Chinese," as a bit of nostalgio-propaganda? Just a wild speculation. :D

A video about Roman contact with Vietnam would be really interesting.

I wish we could have had an account of Romans and Chinese people bonding over how much they hate central Asia.

It seems pretty clear that this Chinese account is 1/ Gathered from indirect sources 2/ playing down elements so as not to challenge the view that the Chinese of the time had of themselves 3/some details are of regional kings and kingdoms and not the Roman overlords.

I wish there was such text telling about the life in the deepest Pax Romana that there ever was.

This “all great men come from us” is very familiar.