Romano-Chinese Relations - Hypothetical Military Contact

Hypothetical Military Contact

The historian Homer H. Dubs speculated in 1941 that Roman prisoners of war who were transferred to the Parthian eastern border might have later clashed with Han troops there.

After losing at the battle of Carrhae in 54 BC, an estimated 10,000 Roman prisoners were displaced by the Parthians to Margiana to man the frontier. Some time later the nomadic Xiongnu chief Zhizhi established further east a state in the Talas valley, near modern day Taraz. Taking up these two strands, Dubs points to a Chinese account by Ban Gu of about "a hundred men" under the command of Zhizhi who fought in a so-called "fish-scale formation" to defend Zhizhi's wooden-palisade fortress against Han forces, in the Battle of Zhizhi in 36 BC. He claimed that this might have been the Roman testudo formation and that these men, who were captured by the Chinese, founded the village of Liqian (Li-chien, possibly from "legion") in Yongchang County.

However, Dubs' synthesis of Roman and Chinese sources has not found acceptance among modern historians on the grounds of being highly speculative and jumping to too many conclusions. Even though DNA testing in 2005 confirmed a predominantly "Caucasian origin" of a few inhabitants of Liqian, this influx of Western genes could be explained just as well by transethnic marriages with other peoples along the silk road. A much more comprehensive DNA analysis of more than two hundred male residents of the village in 2007 showed a close genetic relation to the Han Chinese populace and a great deviation from the Western Eurasian gene pool. The researchers conclude that the people of Liqian are probably of Han Chinese origin. Moreover, the area lacks clear archaeological evidence of a Roman presence.