all too recent to be anything but sensitive

这些东西年代实在太近，不敏感也难

but this is china, and even archaeological remains can be politically controversial. the provincial government had refused your correspondent permission to visit yongchang, saying the roman connection was a “sensitive” issue involving ethnic minorities. after two unauthorised days there, your correspondent was accused of conducting “illegal interviews” and ordered to leave.

但这是在中国，一个哪怕是考古学遗物也能引起政治争议的地方。甘肃省政府拒绝本报记者访问永昌的请求，说与罗马之间的关系是个“敏感”话题，牵涉到少数民族问题。但本报记者还是私下在那里呆了两天，随后便有人指责其从事“非法采访”而勒令离开。

it may well irritate some of the proud custodians of china's cultural heritage that it was foreigners who first promoted the theory of the roman settlement. homer dubs, a professor of chinese at oxford university, raised it in a lecture delivered to the china society in london in 1955. according to dubs, the journey to gansu began in 53bc when crassus, who together with julius caesar and pompey formed rome's first triumvirate, decided to make up for his lack of military glory by going to war with the dreaded parthians.

对于某些骄傲的中国传统文化遗产管理者来说，首先创立罗马定居理论的是外国人，这可能很让他们恼火。1955年，牛津大学中文教授霍墨尔•杜布斯（homer dubs）在伦敦中国协会（china society in london）的一次演讲中首先提出了这一理论。据杜布斯考证，向甘肃的旅程开始于公元前53年，当时曾与裘力斯•凯撒和庞培（pompey）组成罗马帝国三人执政团的克拉苏（crassus）决意东征，向人们惧怕的帕提亚人（parthians）开战，以弥补他战功的不足。

crassus's legions were no match for the parthian archers, nimble horsemen who could loose their arrows off even as they turned. of the 42,000 romans who set out, 20,000 were killed and 10,000 were captured in the battle of carrhae, in modern turkey; it was one of the most spectacular losses of roman military history. according to pliny the elder, the roman prisoners were used by the parthians as guards on their eastern frontier in what is today turkmenistan. from there, dubs conjectured, some escaped and joined the huns as mercenaries. in 36bc, chinese troops on a punitive venture defeated the hun ruler zhizhi in today's uzbekistan. among their captives they found 145 romans. dubs says the chinese kept the ex-legionaries as frontier guards, installing them in a specially created town called liqian in what is now gansu.

克拉苏的军团不是帕提亚弓弩手的对手，因为后者弓马娴熟，特别善于在骑马撤退时转身放出致命的回马箭。罗马军团出发时为4万2千人，结果在现今土耳其境内的卡尔莱（carrhae）会战中2万人阵亡，1万人被俘；这是罗马军事史上最引人注目的失败之一。根据普林尼长者（pliny the elder）的记录，帕提亚人利用罗马俘虏来守卫他们的东部边境，驻扎在今天的土库曼斯坦（turkmenistan）。杜布斯猜想，有些俘虏从那里逃亡，以雇佣军身份加入了匈奴军队。公元前36年，中国军队在向今天的乌兹别克斯坦（uzbekistan）进行的一次惩罚性远征中击败了匈奴统治者郅支单于，并在抓获的俘虏中发现了145名罗马人。杜布斯认为，中国人留下了原来的罗马军团残部，让他们戍守边陲，还特地为他们在现今甘肃境内修建了一座城镇骊靬（liqian）。

if only there were proof. dubs's theory rests mainly on tantalising hints found in ancient chinese historiography, none of which refers specifically to romans. there is a reference to the use of a “fish-scale formation” by soldiers in zhizhi's army, which dubs said described the testudo formation of overlapping shields “made only by roman soldiers”. and zhizhi's town had a double wooden palisade outside its wall—a type of fortification he said was often used by romans and not by the huns. then there is the name of the town, liqian, which may have been used at the time to refer to the roman empire. in 9ad the name of liqian was changed for a few years to jielu, which may mean “prisoners captured in storming a city”. in the sixth century liqian ceased to be used as a placename.

如果有证据就好了。但杜布斯理论主要建筑在他从中国古代史书中找到的诱人线索上，其中没有哪一条特别说明是罗马人。其中有一份参考文献提到了郅支单于的军队使用的“夹门鱼鳞阵”，杜布斯认为这里说的是“只有罗马士兵才用的”使用重叠盾牌的龟甲大盾阵法。而且郅支单于的城池外有双重木桩栅栏，杜布斯认为这种防御工事是罗马人常用的，而不是匈奴人用的。然后就是城镇的名字骊靬，这可能是当时用来指罗马帝国的。从公元9年开始，骊靬这个名字曾有几年被“揭虏”代替，后者的意思是“袭击一座城市抓获的俘虏”。 骊靬在6世纪不再被用作地名。

dubs was not the only one to believe in the roman connection. guan yiquan, a chinese scholar in lanzhou, the capital of gansu, also became convinced that liqian had links to rome. from 1978 until his death 20 years later, he laboured on a huge 450,000-character tome on liqian. according to his son, guan heng, it was not until 1988 that he saw a copy of dubs's lecture, which happened to dovetail with his own views. unfortunately, as the younger mr guan admits, it too contains no clincher.

相信罗马联系说的不只杜布斯一个人。甘肃省省会兰州的一位中国学者关意权后来也确信骊靬跟罗马有关系。从1978年起直到20年后去世，他一直在努力书写一部有关骊靬的45万字的巨著。据他的儿子关亨说，直到1988年关意权才看到了一份杜布斯的演讲，其中观点刚好与他的想法吻合。但正如关亨承认的那样，关意权也没有有力证据。

chinese officials would probably not have cottoned on to the tourist-pulling potential of the roman story had it not been for an australian writer and adventurer, david harris. mr harris, virtually penniless and upset by the break-up of his marriage, decided to set out for china in search of the town mentioned by dubs. with the help of the elder mr guan, he narrowed his search to the village of zhelaizhai. his experiences are described in his travel book, “black horse odyssey”.

如果没有澳大利亚作家与探险家大卫•哈里斯（david harris），中国官员可能不会理解这个罗马故事在拉动旅游业上的潜力。由于婚姻失败而实际上没什么财产、心烦意乱的哈里斯决定前往中国，去寻找那座杜布斯叙述过的城镇。在关意权的帮助下，他把搜索范围缩小到了者来寨。他在他的游记《黑马奥德赛》（“black horse odyssey”）中描述了自己的经历。