Serica

Serica (/ˈsɛrɪkə/, Ancient Greek: Σηρικά) was one of the easternmost countries of Asia known to the Ancient Greek and Roman geographers. It is generally taken as referring to North China during its Zhou, Qin, and Han dynasties, as it was reached via the overland Silk Road in contrast to the Sinae, who were reached via the maritime routes. A similar distinction was later observed during the Middle Ages between "Cathay" (north) and "Mangi" or "China" (south). The people of Serica were the Seres (Ancient Greek: Σῆρες), whose name was also used for their region. Access to Serica was eased following the Han conquest of the Tarim Basin (modern Xinjiang) but largely blocked when the Parthian Empire fell to the Sassanids. Henry Yule summarized the classical geographers:
Some scholars, however, contend the Seres were not the Chinese themselves but tribes speaking Indo-European languages on the western edges of the Chinese dynasties and empires who traded with the ancient Indians, such as the Yuezhi, Saka, and Tocharians.
The Latin forms Serica and Seres derive from the Greek Sērikḗ (Σηρική) and Sḗres (Σῆρες). This seems to derive from their words for silk (Ancient Greek: σηρικός, sērikós; Latin: sericum), which since Klaproth has often been linked to the Chinese 絲, whose Old Chinese pronunciation has been reconstructed as /*[s]ə/. The Greeks and Romans knew of silk long before they understood its origin from silkworms, making sēr (σὴρ) a backformation. Other forms of the name include Serica Regio. Flavius Josephus, in his book Antiquities of the Jews, book 1, paragraph 147, calls that region "Σηρια", that in Latin letters is "Seria".
Some classicists have argued that it was extremely improbable that a nation would be named after an insect. Christian Lassen claimed to have identified references to the Seres in Hinduism's Vedas, as the "Çaka [Sakas], Tukhâra [Bactria], and Kanka [Kangju]".
Beginning in the 1st century BC with Virgil, Horace, and Strabo, Roman histories offer only vague accounts of China and the silk-producing Seres of the Far East. Florus seems to have confused the Seres with peoples of India, or at least noted that their skin complexions proved that they both lived "beneath another sky" than the Romans. The 1st-century geographer Pomponius Mela asserted that the lands of the Seres formed the center of the coast of an eastern ocean, flanked to the south by India and to the north by the Scythians of the Eurasian Steppe. The historian Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330 – c. 400) wrote that the land of the Seres was enclosed by great natural walls around a river called Bautis, possibly a description of the Yellow River. From Turkic peoples of Central Asia the later Eastern Romans (i.e. Byzantines) derived a new name for China, Taugast (Turkic: Tabghach), during its Northern Wei (386–535) period. By the time of the Eastern Roman ruler Justinian I (r. 527–565), the Byzantines purchased Chinese silk from Sogdian intermediaries. However, they also smuggled silkworms out of China with the help of Nestorian monks, who claimed that the land of "Serinda" was located north of India and produced the finest silk.
The first surviving European accounts of the Seres are those in Ctesias's 5th-century BC Indica, where he calls them "a people of portentous stature and longevity". The authenticity of the account is, however, disputed.
Strabo's 1st-century Geography mentions the Seres in two asides. In the first passage, he mentions that "some writers" claim the Seres to be longer lived than the Indians of Musicanus, whom Onesicritus claimed lived to the age of 130. In the second, a passage discussing the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, he mentions that Apollodorus of Artemita claimed the Bactrians' borders stretched "even as far as the Seres and the Phryni".
Pomponius Mela's De situ orbis names the Seres as one of three peoples inhabiting the eastern extremity of Asia. He places the Seres between the Indians to the south and the Scythians to the north. In a later passage, he notes:
Pliny the Elder discussed the Seres in his Natural History, Book VI, chapter xx. He similarly placed the Seres beyond a wasteland on the other side of Scythia; like Vergil before him, he patently misunderstands sericulture, believing the silk to be a product of certain trees:
Ammianus also reports this version, although Pausanias knew that silk came from insects specially cultivated by the Seres for the purpose, suggesting closer attention to Roman diplomats and traders who had visited China.
Elsewhere, Pliny mentions that their iron—which they "send to us with their tissues and skins"—is the highest quality in the world, surpassing even Parthian iron.
Pliny also reports a curious description of the Seres made by an embassy from Taprobane to Emperor Claudius, suggesting they may be referring to the Indo-European populations of the Tarim Basin, such as the Tocharians:
The country of "Serica" is positioned in the 150 AD Ptolemy world map in the area beyond the "Imaus" (Pamir Mountains). This shows that he considered Serica to either incorporate or consist of what is now Xinjiang.
Ptolemy also positions the Sinae quite precisely:
Ptolemy also speaks of "Sera, the Capital of the Seres". Henry Yule argued that Ptolemy's misrendering of the Indian Sea as a closed basin meant that Ptolemy must also have misplaced the Chinese coast, and therefore the idea that Sinae is a separate country from Serica would be a misconception.
In his Geography, Ptolemy wrote of lands in and around the Indian Ocean. He explained that a port city called Kattigara lay beyond the Golden Chersonese (i.e. the Malay Peninsula) and was visited by a Greek sailor named Alexander, most likely a merchant. In an 1877 publication Ferdinand von Richthofen offered the idea that Kattigara was located near modern Hanoi, within the ancient Chinese province of Jiaozhi that existed in northern Vietnam. However, archaeological finds of Roman and Mediterranean artefacts at Óc Eo (near Ho Chi Minh City) in the Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam hint that this was the location of the port city related by Ptolemy. Roman golden medallions dating to the reign of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius were uncovered there, seeming to suggest Roman commercial activity in Southeast Asia during at least the Antonine period (supported by other finds in Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia). Chinese histories affirmed that merchants of "Daqin" (i.e. the Roman Empire) were active in Cambodia and Vietnam. The archaeological evidence seems to correspond with the Chinese claim that a Roman embassy sent by a ruler named "Andun" (安敦; either Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius) in 166 AD first arrived in Jiaozhi, the same region as other Chinese-recorded Roman embassies to follow.
As Ptolemy describes it, Serica was bordered in the north by the Annibi and Auxacii Montes, identified as the Altai Mountains. The Montes Asmiraei, a Serican district, are the Da-Uri Chain while the Cassi Montes are believed to be the mountains of the Gobi Desert. Ptolemy names the principal river of the Seres as the Bautisus, identified as the Yellow River.
The Greco-Roman writers name over a dozen tribes and fifteen cities of the Seres. It is evident from their portrayals that they are not all of the same ethnicity but share a common national appellation. Their capital is named as Sera. Possible candidates include Kashgar and Yarkand. Issedon, the capital of the Serican Issedones, is thought to have been situated on the eastern slopes of the Pamirs or even the Altai Mountains, while the third notable city, Aspacara, was described as located near the source of the Yellow River.
The ancient fathers also describe the pleasant climate of Serica and its plenitude in natural resources. Among these are iron, furs and skins, and precious stones.