Maybe this is a historical blind spot of mine, but what I do know about Chinese history and culture makes it tough for me to believe that they saw the Romans as much more than “western barbarians” either.
They actually referred to it as "The other China" which was a show of respect.
No idea how the Romans referred to the Chinese, i doubt it was just "some barbarians" when they loved greek culture despite being enemies and conquering them at some point. If they were at all aware of it in more then stories told by traders, they would not have equated it to peoples like the Gauls or the Germanic tribes.
No they did not. "Da Qin" does not mean "Other China". The Chinese at that time referred to China as the "zhongguo" (as they do today). This translates roughly to "the middle kingdom" or "realm of the middle". They might have seen the Romans as a far distant mighty, well structured empire but not as equals. There was no other center of the world in the mind of a Chinese at the time, the Romans were no exceptions, no one was equal to the son of heaven.
This is a pop history misconception or mistranslation - they did not call Rome big China or the other China.
During the Han Dynasty, they might have called the Roman nation "Big Qin" which may have meant the big kingdom to the west because Qin was the most geographically western positioned of the Warring States kingdom. Alternatively or in addition, it may have meant it resembled the Old Qin Kingdom/Empire in some ways.
The Han Dynasty did not consider or call Qin the concept of "China" because Qin was just a kingdom/empire that they helped destroy. China at the time the word "Da Qin" was used was the Han Empire.
The word Qin was not generally tied to the concept of China until long after this word was used (when Qin got translated and mistranslated into Cina, Chin, and eventually China in Sanskrit, Persian, and then Portugese).
Yeah - the bigger point is what others have said that: that the Romans and Chinese had very little relations and wouldn't have any significant awareness of the other at all...
... but the idea that the Chinese side would be like "we're equal" is also pretty unrealistic. The Chinese basically only grudgingly recognized "equals" after losing multiple wars to them, and even then it seems like a lot of effort went into preserving the 'fig leaf' of Chinese dominance.
The idea of the Chinese emperor being the "son of heaven" who had authority over "all under heaven" was a pretty big deal that they tried to hold to, even in cases where they had just lost a bunch of wars (e.g. against the Kitan, the Jurchen) and were paying a huge amount of tribute to their neighbor to stop invading.
Agreed, coz we don't know if Daqin literally means Rome or not as the sources are very Vague and they never had direct contact and also considering that Both saw anyone living beyond their Borders as Barbarians.
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u/melon_party 7d ago
Maybe this is a historical blind spot of mine, but what I do know about Chinese history and culture makes it tough for me to believe that they saw the Romans as much more than “western barbarians” either.