"Did Chinese Fight Romans 36BC? No..." Topic

You were asked – TMP link

A Chinese army on an expedition to the far west fought against an enemy in "fish scale formation," as related in Slingshot issue 330. Some speculate this is a reference to the Roman tortoise formation, or perhaps Greek overlapping shields. What do you think?

27% said "no, the Chinese did not fight Romans"
20% said "yes, it was Chinese vs Romans"
14% said "no, it was Chinese vs Greeks"

Defintely tangle as far back as Alexanders time.

I understand the word 'Cathay' comes all the way back from the descriptions in Greek 'kkitsai'.

A lot of the practies seem to time right after that for China for building the wall, coinage, government ideas. Contact, influence and fear of some foreign invasion about some army that crossed the known world to get here would have put them into that kind of mood. and mode.

As for Romans. Battes probably not but contact for sure.
With Parthia in between them,,,the enemy of my enemy,,,.

I recollect reading (yonks ago) that the Parthians used some of the Romans captured at Carrhae as soldiers on their eastern borders. I've no idea as to what sources were used for this claim though.

+1 Huscarle

I've read that too, but no one seems to have any actual historical evidence to prove it.

My issue with the Carrhae theory is that it's 17 years later. Would the survivors still be around in any numbers still serving in a military capacity? I don't recall where but I did read a theory that it was a Parthian unit that was trained by some of the survivors possibly with some survivors to give it a veteran presence. Who knows though… Fun to speculate

Academics have pretty effectively demolished the theory that a group of Roman soldiers captured by the Parthians ended up fighting in China. The dates don't match and it was based upon a misunderstanding of the Chinese sources.

troopwo – I don't believe there was any contact between the Chinese and Alexander the Great. The earliest record of any direct contact between the Greek and Hellenistic world dates to after the collapse of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdoms and the Kushan invasion of Bactria. About 200 years after the death of Alexander the Great.

Certainly the Roman Empire and the Han Chinese never fought directly. Both states almost certainly knew that the other existed. Individuals from the Roman Empire might have ended up in China (or indeed vice versa), but there is no firm historical record to back this up.

Arab armies did directly fight the Tang Chinese in the 7th century CE.

Chinese vs. Sumerians!