A friend of mine has been telling me about a lost legion of Romans who are said to have settled in China around the time of Christ. Recently I watched a documentary on Discovery about this. The documentary featured scenes from a city referred to as 'Li-Jien'. A Google search has produced tidbits of information, but not much on the present day location. The Discovery docu just placed the city in 'Northwestern China', which correlates with my friend's info, which claims the city is in Gansu. In another article by an Italian researcher Li-Jien is said to be at present day Zhelaizhai, somewhere near Lanzhou. Although this is only speculation it would comfirm the other sources. Apparently the name Li-Jien is derived from the Roman word legion, which was also the word the Chinese used for Rome.
So; does anyone know the location of this place? I would very much like to visit sometime.
Thanks all.
I am, to say the least, skeptical. I know a little Chinese history, can read Classical (lietrary) Chinese and am familiar with the general historiography.
The first problem is the name itself, Li-Jien. The "Li" part is fine put "Jien" is not. "Jien" does not fit any existing Chinese phoneme in pinyin nor Wade-Giles. Wade Giles romanization is still the preferred method in premodern Chinese history. The closest possible sound would be the pinyin "jian" but that is written "chien" in W-G. I have no idea where "jien" came from but the only plausible conclusion for me is that it is a typo. If that is the case then it makes this entire story not very credible. Without the correct correspnding sound to match it to, I cannot see how they could have identified it in Chinese written records at all because it doesn't match any charatcer. Chinese is a wirtten language of charatcers not sounds.
This Li-Jien runs into problems of historical Chinese phonology. Like any language, Chinese evolved over the years. We have a fairly good idea of what Middle Chinese sounded like. Middle Chinese is the term given to the Chinese language spoken during the period 6th-10th Centuries. Most characters that are pronounced "jian" in modern Mandarin actually had an initial "k" sound in Middle Chinese instead of a "j" as it does today. I cannot be more exact because again I do not know what character is meant by "jien". So while Li-Jien for "legion" may sound plausible to the casual listener, 1300 years ago, the same two characters would have been pronounced "Li-Kien", which is not only less plausible but sounds downright suspicious. Could it have been simply fabricated by someone without the knowledge of historical Chinese phonology?
Furthermore, the alleged arrival of the Romans was 700 years before that. This is halfway between Middle Chinese and Old Chinese which was spoken during the time of Confucius. Old Chinese was even more different and while cannot be proven due to lack of evidence, may have 1) contained consonant clusters like "kl" and "gl", 2) not been a tonal language and 3) not monosyllabic. Needless to say, what is Li-Jien today would have most likely sounded even more different from "legion" 2000 years ago.
The final inaccuracy is the assertion that Ancient Rome was known as Li-Jien in China. Not true. The term used for Rome was ‘å�` Daqin, Great Qin.
I did a quick google search for Li-Jien. Sites came up but those from scholarly and academic domains were suspiciously absent. It should be noted that Chinese love these grandiose historical rumors and stories.
A6 gives a great answer! I can't beat that. I can only say that I've read about this, though I can't remember where. IIRC, DNA tests were done to see if the inhabitants of the area had European blood, and it turned out that they were closer in DNA to Persians. The writers said the story of Roman (or Roman slaves) settling there is incorrect.
alexander_vi: thanks for that very thorough reply.
A few notes: I also read classical Chinese to a certain extend, and am familiar with the structure of the language. The Li-Jien spelling and pronouncation is the Discovery adaption, which naturally does not make it right. As with many other docus the voice-over person approximates the pronounciation to what he/she can actually pronounce. The spelling Li-Jien was - according to the docu - from some ancient texts, although it didn't specify anymore.
During futher research I have now found material describing the exodus of Roman legionnaires just before the birth of Christ. According to these texts it is certain that Romans made it as far as present day Xinjiang.
As for the time of the Romans' arrival in China; the 700 B.C. date seems incorrect. The Roman Empire was at it's height in the 1st and 2nd centuries, and according to every scrap of information I have gathered so far the alleged exodus was the result of the empire's loss in a battle sometime in the dying days of the empire - most sources dates it to mid-late 1st century.
I dunno. I am very fascinated by this, and would certainly like to know more, even visit the place if possible. I haven't been able to locate this Zhelaizhai place on any map, though.
the cool takeaway I did get from the documentary was the soldiers (mercenaries? roman legion?) apparently fought using roman tactics - although, it's not inconcievable they were just persians who fought against the romans (or for them) and adopted the turtle formation.
was legion even pronouced "legion" in ancient latin?
<blockquote>Quote
<hr>was legion even pronouced "legion" in ancient latin? <hr></blockquote>
Probably not. It's like Gavin Menzies claim that some city in the New World, whose name is vagely similar to 'Shanghai', was actually first settled by Zheng He's crew. The linkage between the Roman and Chinese name was most likely Discovery's own take on it.
<blockquote>Quote
<hr>As for the time of the Romans' arrival in China; the 700 B.C. date seems incorrect. The Roman Empire was at it's height in the 1st and 2nd centuries, and according to every scrap of information I have gathered so far the alleged exodus was the result of the empire's loss in a battle sometime in the dying days of the empire - most sources dates it to mid-late 1st century.<hr></blockquote>
That didn't come out quite right. What I was trying to say was that most sources seem to agree that the exodus of a Roman legion happened when the empire was at it's height. The legion in question lost a battle and fled East, ending up in China. The result of the battle and many others in that period led to the fall of the empire.
@ZHET: If you think of the name or source of that article I would be grateful if you could post it here. Thanks a lot!
I just did a google search only using "romans" and "China". I thought it was too broad to find anything, but it turned up a number of articles. After checking a couple dozen of them (yes, I have too much time on my hands), I finally found one that showed the location of the town.
Interestingly, in none of the articles I scanned, did I find anything about DNA showing that the people's ancestors were Persians. I guess my memory is faulty on that one.
I doubt a Roman legion of 4,000-6,000 soldiers would have run far beyond the known borders of the Roman Empire at its height. Retreating from eastern Turkey to China is the wrong way from Rome and even Alexander the Great didn't get far beyond the Indus River. There was a little trade with the Han (?) dynasty but the idea of a "lost tribe" doesn't make sense.
I thought saw a story on TV about it. The idea of finding mummies with red hair in Western China is puzzling.
trusted partner
