About the "crassus hepothesis" and the hellenic mythological subjects in China and Mongolia

Abstract

In modern domestic science, Mark Licinius Crassus former legionaries participation in the battle of Talas (36 BC) on Xiongnu side hypothesis are quite strong. Among other things, this assumption explains some ethno-cultural phenomena to the south of the Eurasian steppe belt. In this work, relying on artifacts from western China, we present the point of view according to which there was another much more voluminous and long-lived source of Greco-Roman influence on the Celestial Empire. Judging by a number of finds, in the first half of the 1st millennium AD Asia there were a number of centers for the artifacts in the Hellenistic style production primarily decorated with mythological (for example, stories from the Trojan War cycle) and religious stories (primarily associated with the fertility and winemaking cult). We are talking about a number of centers because the artifacts stylistics various groups with the undoubted Greek influence in all cases differs markedly. A Hellenistic trace can also be assumed when considering the "unusual warriors" who sided with the Xiongnu ruler Zhi Zhi against the Han troops. As an analogy, the author also draws on later finds Mediterranean by origin in China (up to the 8th century AD) thus proving that the Great Silk Road having developed to the end of the II century BC played not only an economic but a cultural and religious role influencing, among other things, Central Asia and the Yellow River basin.