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0080 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1 / Page 80 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000042
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1xiV   PRELIMINARY ESSAY.

that the Musul man s had in the seven preceding years wrested

Syria from the Roman Empire and Persia from the Sassanian kings ; that Yezdegerd, the last of these latter, had sent (as we

shall see hereafter) envoys to China to seek support, and that the suzerainty of Taitsung was acknowledged in Farghana, Bactria, and a part at least of Afghanistan and Khorassan, it seems not improbable that the object of the Byzantine mission also was to stir up a Chinese diversion against the terrible new enemy.

39. Another embassy from Fulin, mentioned without particulars under the year 711, must have been despatched under Justinian II, who was slain in that year. In 719 arrived another embassy from the ruler of Fulin, who is termed on this occasion, not king, but YENTHUHOLO, of the rank of Premier Functionary of the Empire, bringing presents of lions and great sheep with spiral horns. The emperor at this time was Leo the Isaurian. Possibly the mission, whatever its object, may have been despatched before he was established on the throne (717).'

In 742 came, bringing presents, another mission from Fulin, but this time composed of priests of great virtue.2 Leo (717-741) was still reigning when this party must have been despatched from Byzantium, if from Byzantium they carne. But we shall find that the Christian inscription of Singanfu records the arrival in 744 of a priest of Tathsing, Kiho by name, who, " observing the stars and the sun, came to the court to present his respects to the

august emperor." Kiho is immediately afterwards styled "Of great

virtue." Probably therefore the same event is alluded to, and it

been killed in 638. Pauthier adopts the name, but applies it to Pope Theodores, who might have sent this embassy to China after his accession to the Pontifical throne in November 642 ; a desperately improbable hypothesis. May not Wang Pheitoli represent the Prcetorian Prefect during the infancy of Constans ? St. Martin thinks the name represents

Valentine Caesar, whose revolt put Constans on the throne. (On Lebean's Hist. du Bas Empire, xi, 306.)

Pauthier translates the appellation in the Chinese record, "Patrice, ou chef superieur des fonctionnaires de l'empire" (p. 50). Leo is termed, at the time of his election to the empire, Leo the Patrician (Niceph.

Constant., p. 34). I suppose the name A€ovTOS TOO Liao' pov might become in Chinese organs something like Yenthuholo.

2 Map., p. 70; Pauthier, pp. 32, 50. The extract in the last reference appears to mix up the missions of 710 and 742.