China and the Roman Orient

My interpretation of these records leads to the conclusion that the ancient country of Ta-ts'in, called Fu-lin during the middle ages, was not the Roman Empire with Rome as its capital, but merely its oriental part, viz., Syria, Egypt and Asia Minor; and Syria in the first instance. If applied to the Roman Orient the greater part of the facts mentioned by the Chinese can be traced, and a reasonable explanation may be found for them without resorting to improbabilities; while, if applied to the whole empire, or to Italy, or to any other part of ancient Rome, the matter contained in the Chinese tradition does not agree with reality. As I read the Chinese notices they contain tolerably exact statements regarding the contemporaneous geography of western Asia; they would indeed be puerile nonsense - as I believe Colonel Yule calls them somewhere in his Cathay - if applied to any other part of the world.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.