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Roman Legion Founded Chinese City
Ansa ^ | 7-25-2005

Posted on 07/31/2005 12:31:23 PM PDT by blam

Roman legion founded Chinese city

Survivors of Crassus's routed army said to have built town

(ANSA) - Florence, July 25 - Roman soldiers who disappeared after a famous defeat founded a city in eastern China, archaeologists say .

The phantom legion was part of the defeated forces of Marcus Licinius Crassus, according to the current edition of the Italian magazine Archeologia Viva .

The famously wealthy Crassus needed glory to rival the exploits of the two men with whom he ruled Rome as the First Triumvirate, Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar .

Crassus decided to bring down the Parthian Empire - a fatal choice .

His forces were routed in 53 BC outside the Mesopotamian city of Carre - today's Harran - and he was beheaded .

According to the Roman historian Pliny, the Romans who survived were taken to a prison camp in what is now northern Afghanistan .

When Rome and Parthia sued for peace in 20 BC - 33 years after Crassus's last battle - all trace of the prisoners had disappeared .

The survivors of Crassus's legion became a mystery, walking ghosts in Roman legends. A Chinese historian in the Han Empire, China's second dynasty, provided an answer to the riddle in the early 3rd century AD .

The historian, Bau Gau, wrote that a Chinese war leader defeated a group of soldiers drawn up in typical Roman formation .

Crassus's old troops must now have been in their fifties and sixties .

Bau Gau said the foreigners were moved to China to defend the strategically important eastern region of Gansu, near today's city of Yongchang .

This is where the survivors founded the city of Liquian, the only site in China where the mark of Ancient Rome can be seen. 'Liquian' is said to mean 'Roman' .

The city has been virtually unknown outside China although hundreds of people visit it each year, admiring traces of defensive wallworks and pieces of broken pottery .

The number of visitors is certain to rise. Crassus, celebrated as the richest Roman of them all in pre-Imperial days, was never satisfied with his wealth and had an undying lust for glory .

Eighteen years before his doomed expedition to Parthia he put down a slave revolt led by the Thracian slave Spartacus. In Stanley Kubrick's epic film he was played by Laurence Olivier .


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ancientrome; archaeology; china; chinese; city; dna; emptydna; founded; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; history; homerhdubs; legion; liqian; liquan; mtdna; roman; romanempire; romansinchina; uzbekistan; webuiltthiscity
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To: blam

I am Crassus.

No I am Sparticus, yeah that's the ticket.


21 posted on 07/31/2005 6:03:40 PM PDT by beaver fever
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To: SunkenCiv

Amazing. Thanks for the ping.


22 posted on 07/31/2005 6:15:00 PM PDT by ValenB4 ("Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets." - Isaac Asimov)
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To: inquest
This is where the survivors founded the city of Liquian

OK, and where did they get the women from?

Same place Roman legions always got their women on distant posts, from among the local peasants.

So9

23 posted on 07/31/2005 6:15:54 PM PDT by Servant of the 9 (Trust Me)
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Character of Hannibal by Polybius
http://livinghistoryengineer.com/roman/eagle/05May_Eagle_files/May%20Eagle.pdf


24 posted on 07/31/2005 6:22:16 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Down with Dhimmicrats! I last updated by FR profile on Tuesday, May 10, 2005.)
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Lou Zhuangzi:
Google

25 posted on 07/31/2005 6:22:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Down with Dhimmicrats! I last updated by FR profile on Tuesday, May 10, 2005.)
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Must be Roman Empire Week here at GGG. ;')


26 posted on 07/31/2005 6:24:48 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Down with Dhimmicrats! I last updated by FR profile on Tuesday, May 10, 2005.)
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To: SunkenCiv
I didn't realize we'd covered this topic so thoroughly on the other thread.

Here's something I posted on the other thread:

"From the excellent book The Tarim Mummies, page #281: "...Narin Infers that they (Caucasians) had been there at least since the Qijia Culture of c. 2,000BC and probably even earlier in the Yangshao Culture of the Neolithic. This would render the Tocharians as virtually native to Gansu (and earlier than the putative spread of the Neolithic to Xinjaing) and Narin goes so far as to argue that the Indo-Europeans themselves originally dispensed from this area westwards."

27 posted on 07/31/2005 6:25:49 PM PDT by blam
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To: Snake65

bttt


28 posted on 07/31/2005 7:01:39 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: Servant of the 9
Your post just made something occur to me. The article said that Liquian was said to be a Chinese word for Roman. Perhaps it's in fact based on the Latin root of the word "legion". Just a thought.
29 posted on 07/31/2005 7:58:03 PM PDT by inquest (FTAA delenda est)
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To: wildbill
Seems like this would have led to TWO lost legions.

Heh. Well, it more or less did, but it was a novel (i.e. fiction). Still a good read.

30 posted on 08/01/2005 4:23:48 AM PDT by Snake65 (Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun!)
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To: Snake65

Actually I tried to find the book in my local Houston library catalogue without success. I love novels about antiquity.


31 posted on 08/01/2005 7:13:02 AM PDT by wildbill
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To: inquest

Probally some combination of kidnapping and purchasing the local women. Remember that women very rarely had any input on marrage arrangements in any of the ancient worlds.


32 posted on 08/01/2005 8:21:34 AM PDT by Sinner6 (http://www.digital-misfits.com)
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To: wildbill
I tried to find the book in my local Houston library catalogue without success.

Ask them to get it via inter-library loan. You'd be amazed what they can get if you ask.

33 posted on 08/01/2005 10:52:59 AM PDT by CobaltBlue (Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.)
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To: inquest

Camp-followers. Women just love men in uniforms. -g-


34 posted on 08/01/2005 10:53:55 AM PDT by CobaltBlue (Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.)
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To: SpringheelJack
The article doesn't provide any evidence that goes beyond the speculative.

I don't know how the time frame fits with the buried clay soldiers of Xian, China's ancient Capitol, but the faces on some of those soldiers are clearly Caucasian. The emporor who buried the statues was said to have had them modeled on his own army, in lieu of burying his loyal soldiers alive upon his death, as had been the previous custom.

35 posted on 08/01/2005 12:51:19 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: GreyFriar
Ah, those Roman Legions really did a lot of roaming.

Groan ... but yes, they were roaming at least as far north as Hadrian's wall.

36 posted on 08/06/2005 3:25:49 PM PDT by zot (GWB -- four more years!)
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37 posted on 04/11/2006 1:10:46 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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38 posted on 03/27/2008 10:53:44 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/______________________Profile updated Saturday, March 1, 2008)
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