Shout out to History Matters and Invicta
If I told you about an ancient empire back in 100 AC, spread over 4 million Km squared, governing a population of around 50 million and which its power and influence in the world reached a scale never before seen in human history, you’d already have a name in mind and be quite sure you know who I’m going to talk about. But depending on which place in the world you’re from, your answer could be completely different. All of the stats I just mention can be applied to 2 major states in power at the time, the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty.
But what if I told you that although their immense size and influence in their respective regions, they barely knew about each other. Both the Roman Empire to the West and the Han Dynasty to the East were aware of each other’s existence and both knew that the other was a great empire. But their only source of information was the long and dangerous silk road and the merchants who dared to travel on it. To give you some context, the silk road was a living hell to cross, not only did merchants have to survive its hot sand dunes in the desert sections, steep mountains and brutal winds, but also thieves and venomous snakes that would lurk in the shadows waiting for an opportunity. This gave rise to a host of middlemen and trading posts along the way, where people there would survive by taxing the travellers and keeping secrets about the region so their jobs couldn’t get replaced, and so you can start to understand why the information was so hard to come by.
But this doesn’t mean the there wasn’t trading between the two. In fact, the Romans knew the eastern empire by the name of Serica, meaning silk in the roman language due to the fact that they imported this luxurious material from this almost unknown nation. The Han Dynasty on the other hand, didn’t import many things from the then known Da qin meaning Great China. This alludes to the fact that the Roman Empire wasn’t very interested in recognizing a possible rival and thought of them as they thought about any other civilization that crossed its path, utterly inferior.
The Asian ruler at the time was the first to seek more information about the unknown world on the other side of the Himalayas. He ordered an expedition in 138 BC commanded by a trustworthy messenger, Zheng Qian, who then returned with detailed reports of sophisticated civilizations to the west a full decade after the departure. These, being the first statements declaring the existence of another empire forming on the other side of the world, naturally raised the interest of the emperor, who later sent multiple envoys and even armies to the region in the efforts of making contact. Within the next century the rumours turned out to be quite true, with Rome expanding its sphere of influence much closer to the Asian nations and hearing whispers of this great empire from the East. When 97 AD came around, an eastern General was commanded to venture further west to once and for all make contact with the other great China, but the same happened as it did one century prior but this time, the civilization living in modern day Iran were the Persian, which although they gave a lot of info about the known world to the General, explaining how the empires in the region worked, how politics was practised with 36 men gathering every week and no ruler was permanent, they again discouraged the two empires to meet afraid that this would diminish their power of being the middle man between them.
Although these efforts only managed to reach modern day Iran, they helped establish new trade routes and relationships with middle eastern civilizations who knew much more about the rising empire in the Mediterranean. With the expanded access, new products and information started being exchanged between neighbouring civilizations, such is the case with livestock, leather, tools, religion beliefs, language, culture, philosophy and science, improving the lives of everyone in the province.
One notable expedition from the Han Dynasty, happened in 100BC where an envoy managed to reach Anxi in the Parthian Empire and was greeted by 20,000 horseman. The meeting went quite well with both parties setting up new diplomatic relationships, but it is said that the Parthian Empire didn’t want to lose trading perks with its new friend and advised the expedition to not go any further, claiming it would be too dangerous to venture towards the west, where the Roman Empire was just starting to expand.
According to books written at the time, it can be noted that the Persians passed on to the Chinese information that the Romans already had Postal services in their vast empire with nearly 6000Km in length and 400 walled cities.

Select video clips courtesy of Pexels