Note 822 — Chapter II · THE ROMAN EMPIRE UNDER ANASTASIUS: THE INHERITANCE OF JUSTINIAN

Several “embassies” from Rome are mentioned in the Chinese annals, but nothing seems to have been known of them in the West. Stray merchants sometimes penetrated very far; Strabo, XV, i, 4. At first Rome is disguised as Ta-thsin, but later (643) the Byzantine power figures as Fou-lin; see Pauthier, Relat. polit. de la Chine avec les puiss. occid., 1859; cf. Hirth, op. cit., who was without books to pursue the inquiry; Florus, iv, 12, etc.