The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s5.247

c10.s5.247

As we have travelled far in Chang-k’ien’s company, it is only fitting that the last word should be of him. The man who, by force of personality and not of arms, had opened up to China a new world in the west, gained the affection of the barbarians,² and enabled regular trade communication to be started between China and Iran along the subsequently famous Silk Route, was not forgotten in his own land; indeed he became something of a legend.³ It is not clear to me either from Ssu-ma Ch’ien or Pan-ku that he brought the vine and the alfalfa from Ta-yuan to China himself—it would seem that he showed the way and that they were first actually brought by others⁴—but in any case later writers attributed to him not only the introduction of these two plants but that of many others which ultimately reached China from Iran; a whole list of legendary ‘Chang-k’ien plants’ is known.⁵ And for years after his death Chinese envoys to the West always stated, as their passport to foreign peoples, that they were his countrymen, ‘the mention of his name’, says Ssu-ma Ch’ien, ‘being regarded as a guarantee of good faith’.⁶