The Legate\'s Daughter by Wallace Breem

[Michael Kerr]

Right, Professor Homer Dubs was an American born Sinologist who believed that Roman survivors of Carrhae fought as mercenaries for Xiong-nu leader Chih-Chih who was defeated and killed by Chinese General Chen-Tang in 36BC . Most notable to Dubs was how Chen-Tang described in his field journal that more than a hundred foot soldiers fighting for Chih-Chih, who was besieged by the Han in an unnamed Central Asian fort or town lined up on either side of the gate of the fort/town with linked shields in a fish-scale formation which Dubs surmised as Testudio which the Chinese had never seen before, Chen-Tang also mentioned that the town/fort was surrounded byan earthen wall with a double palisade of wood which Dubs stated was a standard feature of Roman fortification and not used by Xiong-nu or the Han. The survivors of the siege were taken east and posted as mercenaries and built a town near the great wall called Li-jien, which was the ancient Chinese word for Rome or so the story goes. While there may have been western mercenaries fighting for Chih-Chih they could have been Bactrian Greeks and there is no evidence that Romans ever fought there but who knows like you said, something that captures people's imagination. Chen-Tang was known by later Chinese writers to have a vivid imagination and used his descriptive reports to rise in Han circles and because he disobeyed the emperor's orders, as the emperor was all for appeasement, by organizing an army, made up of conscripts and allies (Wusun & Kang-ju) and attacking Chih-Chih while he was holed up in his fortress, he may have made the victory sound more exciting and fantastic than it really was to save his own skin and justifiy the attack or so Dubs believed. But apart from some photos of very western looking Chinese from around the supposed region of Li-jien, and these could very well have been of Greek or Sarmatian/Alan/Iranic heritage or descent there isn't much credence to Dubs theory. There is a book called Black Horse Odyssey by Australian author David Harris which describes his attempts to look for evidence in which he states the Chinese authorities constantly stonewalled his attempts to find answers. Still a good read even if evidence is pretty slim. George Rawlinson in his book about the Parthians in The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6: Parthia sort of lines up with Duggan's fictional story or Duggan used Rawlinson's theory for his story, however it was written in 19th century so is pretty dated, Rawlinson mentions that a large group of Roman survivors, some now married to Parthian women were sent, with their families by the Parthians to Margiana to guard Parthia's eastern borders, well away from the Roman border in the west but I doubt that they became mercenaries fighting for the Xiong-nu against the Han. But it would make a great movie, I feel. :grin:

Regards
Michael Kerr