IMPOSSIBLE FABLES
AD 97 · THE PAMIR PASSES
The two empires meet
In AD 97 the Han general Ban Chao sent the envoy Gan Ying to find Rome, and Parthian sailors turned him back at the Persian Gulf with tales of a two-year sea. The two greatest empires of the age never met. This is the fable where the atlas folds the map once, and a nineteen-day mountain pass joins Roman Syria to the Tarim Basin.
You are reading the timeline that almost was · notes marked THE RECORD are real history
AD 97, THE PERSIAN GULF
General Ban Chao ruled the Western Regions for Han. In AD 97 he sent Gan Ying west to reach Da Qin, meaning Rome. Gan Ying reached the head of the Persian Gulf. Parthian sailors, who profited from the silk trade, warned him the sea took two years and killed the homesick. He turned back. Rome and Han never touched.
No bridge of causes leads to the timeline recorded here. The atlas files it among the fables, where the question is not how but what then. It folds the map once. A dry pass of nineteen days opens where the mountains stood. Antioch in Roman Syria now looks east onto the road to the Tarim oases. Gan Ying does not board a Parthian ship. He walks.
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