A Fragment Of History: The Romans In China And Today

[Forum Boario, Rome, Italy] (LOC) (Photo credit: The Library of Congress)

Just done watching “The Romans in China” video on YouTube, and I think it’s quite intriguing. I don’t know about you but when I was in school, in United States of course, from elementary to college, even in world history classes, the school had not touched at all on the relations between Rome and the Han China. Nonetheless, we’ve always knew that these two empires in antiquity time, both empires were comparable but also shown extreme differences in cultures and a lot of other facets of the empires. According to Wikipedia’s “Sino Roman Relations” article, both empires, one dominated the West and the other dominated the East, wanted to have more direct relationship such as trading, but their attempts of establishing relations were futile. According to Wikipedia and the video I mentioned, the Parthians empire which located between Rome and China was powerful enough and provided problems that prevented Rome and China from forming any real connection. Nonetheless, trades were established indirectly still, mostly through agents such as the ones came from the Indian kingdom at the time.

Near the end of “The Romans in China” video, the speaker mentioned how Rome overspent, leading to financial ruin, and eventually a collapsing of an empire. At the time, Rome’s golds were rushing out to the East for luxury items. Eventually, Rome’s revenue could not keep up with the spending, and Rome’s military might eventually fell into ruin since there was not enough money to sustain the military expenditures. The video mentioned Rome got split into West and East, and the West of Rome got invaded by Western forces at the time (I think Rome called them barbarians). The East of Rome became Byzantine empire. According to Wikipedia’s “Byzantine Empire” article, this part of Rome lasted for a thousand year more after the fallen of Western Rome. Unfortunately, even the Byzantine empire couldn’t last. According to Wikipedia’s “Byzantine Empire” article, the Byzantine empire eventually conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

With the knowledge of Rome and China of the antiquity and how these two empires were vaguely acknowledged each other presence and how Rome got destroyed and how China got evolved, I just can’t help to think how we’re doing today! Today, our modern society behaves somewhat similarly to how the society of the antiquity time (of the Roman and Han China empires to be exact). In United States and the West, we are currently experiencing debt crisis still. The West is being weakened by waves of instabilities such as financial crisis in 2007 and the aftershocks of such calamity long afterward. I’ve heard golds are on the move, mostly from West to East. Rome was not only got weakened by debts, but they were also got weakened by wars. With this knowledge, I think it’s safe for us to acknowledge that when a country or empire is in financial trouble, a perfect storm to take a country down would be all about having prolonged, protracted war(s). Anyhow, as the current events unfold, I can’t help but see similar historic patterns (of the Roman and Han China empires) are being played out in our modern time.

Check out “The Romans in China” video right after the break. Enjoy!!!