ABSTRACT
From Eat, Drink, and Be Merry (Luke 12:19) – Food and Wine in Byzantium. Copyright © 2007 by the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies. Published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd,
In ancient and medieval Chinese texts the Byzantine state is called Da-qin (Ta-ts’in) and Fu-lin, and the identification of the source of these names has been an extremely controversial issue since the end of the nineteenth century. The name Ta-ts’in was first used in the Bie-guo-dong-ming-ji,1 while Fu-lin was used in chronicles written after the Sui and the T’ang dynasties during the period between the seventh and ninth century. ‘The country of Ta-ts’in’, the Hou-han-shu says, ‘has another name, Li-qian, … and is also called Hai-xi-guo’, or ‘the country of the western part of the sea’.2 The Tangshu records: ‘the country of Fu-lin is also called Ta-ts’in’.3 We can infer from these historical records that a great amount of information is available in ancient and medieval Chinese texts about the Byzantine empire, under various names such as Li-qian, Li-chien, Li-hsuan, Ta-ts’in, H’ai-hsi and Fu-lin. The information is reasonably useful to researchers in the field of Byzantine studies. It is for this reason that since the end of the nineteenth century such Chinese texts have attracted the attention of many sinologists and historical-geographers – among them Visdelou, de Guignes, Wylie, Henry Yule, Bretschneider, Pelliot, Pauthier, Neumann and Hirth4 – all of
1 Bie-guo-dong-ming-ji (Notes on Interesting Things in Foreign Countries) was written by Guo Xian, who was a high official of the later H’an dynasty in the second century. He records many things that are not recounted in the dynastic annals. He is perhaps the first author who wrote something about the country named Ta-ts’in and later Fu-lin in the ancient and medieval Chinese texts.
