another perspective to look at history

The "middle" was different to both sides. To the Romans, it was Persia, to the Chinese, it was Central Asia. China never went to war with Persia, and Rome never went to war with Central Asia.  The Greeks did, but only briefly.

Also, the term "Barbaric" used here is the modern definition, because the ancient definition just means "foreign".


Edited by Imperator Invictus

I'm aware of all those, but none of them actually direct contradicts what I wrote lol. 

Edited by Imperator Invictus

Persia is not generaly considered part pf central Asia. It sits unformfortably inbetween Western Asia/Middle East, and South Asia. Central Asia is typicly the landlocked area in the middle of the continent, the ex-Soviet stans. It did play an important tole in the Area though.
He never said that Barbarian is a modern English term, but that the word had different connotations in the classical age, for the Greeks, it was people who didn't speak Greek, for the Romans, it was any forigner they didn't like, not really relevant though, admitably.

And central Asian Arabians? Wtf? At the tme in question they were confined to Arabia and small corners of Eastern Africa maybe, but not Central Asia.


Edited by Cywr

1. There were no meaningful wars between the Chinese and Persians. The "Turks" didn't exist during the Ancient times (They were post classical). Arabians were far isolated away from China during ancient times. The Chinese and Romans actually have never fought agaisnt the same political group until the Arabs. I don't consider Huns and Xiong nu to be the same, and the Huns in Europe attacked from Europe, not central asia.

2.  I was pointing out the fact that "Barbarian" is a latin word that used to mean foreign. China was considered barbarian by the Romans, as did any other foreign nation back then, even one that was theoretically richer than the Romans.

3. Also, another distinction of Persia from the Steppes is that it had "dry" steppes.


Edited by Imperator Invictus

Sources indicating that the Chinese and Romans did fight the same people. Both Chinese and Romans did fight against Parthians.

"By the second half of the 1st century, the Han's general Pan Chao stabilized the Tarim basin region and chased out the Xiongnu who fought to control the trade route in the area. In 97 he decided to directly contact the Roman Empire (Da Chi'en) by sending an ambassdor, Kan Ying, to Rome. Kan Ying set off to the west along the Silk Road with gifts. Kan Ying only got as far as Mesopotamia.

He intended to take ship for Rome but was told by the Parthians that the journey would take up to two years, hearing this he gave up and returned home. Kan Ying did not know that he was misinformed about the time by the Parthians, who feared that any contact between China and Rome might interfere with their profitable role as middlemen. The first direct contact between Rome and China only happend in the second century after the Rome Empire defeated Parthia and controlled the Persian Gulf. In AD 166 the first Roman envoy was sent by Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, from the Persian Gulf and successfully arrived China.

Within a couple of decades Chinese silks became a common sight and was widely worn by the rich and noble families of Rome. The Roman Emperor Heliogabalus (AD 218 - 222) for example wore nothing but silk. In the year 380 AD, Marcellinus Ammianus reported, "The use of silk which was once confined to the nobility has now spread to all classes without distinction, even to the lowest." The demand of silk continued to increase steadily over the centuries. The price of silk was extremely hight in ancient Rome. The best Chinese bark which is a particular kind of silk, costed as much as 300 denarii, that was a Roman soldier's salary for an entire year!

In 408 AD when Alaric, a Goth, besieged Rome, his price for sparing the city included 5000 pounds of gold, 3000 pounds of pepper, 30,000 pounds of silver and 4000 tunics of silk. In 552 A.D., the Emperor Justinian sent two monks on a mission to Asia, and they came back to Byzantium with silkworm eggs hidden inside their bamboo walking sticks, this is the earliest known example of industrial espionage. From then on, sericulture spread throughout Asia Minor and Greece."

http://www.unrv.com/economy/silk.php

"The battle of Carrhae (53 BC), where 20,000 out of 36,000 legionaires may have died, the greatest Parthian victory against Rome, was a very bad moment in Roman history and a very good moment in Parthian history. Even more intriguing, however, is how it may also represent a moment in Chinese history. There are Chinese records about a subsequent battle between the Chinese and the Parthians in Central Asia, where the Chinese describe apparent Roman Legionary tactics -- i.e. locking shields to make a wall. The Parthians may have been using captured Romans to fight where they could not simply desert and return to Rome. The Chinese, as it happened, captured a number of these soldiers themselves and returned to China with them. This, indeed, would have been an extraordinary fate in the 1st century BC, to have been a Roman legionnaire, captured by the Parthians, then captured by the Chinese, and then living out one's life in China. Since Han China and Rome traded silk for gold by way of Parthia, which endeavored to conceal knowledge of each from each other, any occasions for common knowledge would be extraordinary.

"
Besides, the main point of this topic is not to discuss whether Persia is considered as an Ancient Central Asian country. Its core part is to discuss about the perspective of this group of people (Arabian, Persian, Turks etc) towards their Eastern and Western neightbors who both were at a certain level aggressive to them. Calling them all Central Asians is just an easier way of referring to them.

Plus, being advanced has nothing to do with whether one is called "barbarians" by another. It's just a modern standard to evaluate who should be called "barbarians" based upon the level of achievement. For example, The Manchu Qing dynasty during its very last years, still insisted on calling the British barbarians. I bet the Greeks did the same thing to all foreigners.

From the Roman perspective "barbarian" means also peoples that do not have an alphabet and if i'm not wrong the persians had an alphabet

I think the Chinese characters for barbarians tend to mean:

Man: rough people

Yi: uncivilized people

Quan Rong: the dog people (subhuman)

Not because they sound like sheep, but they are just rough, uncivilized, uncultured and subhuman (or that's what we thought).

Turns out that these same people will overrun China in several occasions and be considered Chinese afterwards...

Originally posted by AssyrianGuy7 The Assyrians were powerful people, rough and civilized.

Have you ever posted something that has nothing to do with Assyria?

Coolstorm, stop posting these pointless threads.

 

"The Chinese did go to war with the Persian Empire and the Turks (it wasn't called the Persian empire but was built by Persians) in Han and Tang dynasties. "

No they never fought the Persians. Gan Ying merely traveled across it, no battle was ever fought.

"30,000 Roman captives were transported to an Eastern Persian city later captured by the Han. If you check out the Han VS roman topic again, someone posted the source, the name of the battle, and the article. Both also fought against the Huns."

And this imaginary battle most likely didn't exist.