<P> Even the rest of the nations of the world which were not subject to the imperial sway were sensible of its grandeur, and looked with reverence to the Roman people, the great conqueror of nations . Thus even Scythians and Sarmatians sent envoys to seek the friendship of Rome . Nay, the Seres came likewise, and the Indians who dwelt beneath the vertical sun, bringing presents of precious stones and pearls and elephants, but thinking all of less moment than the vastness of the journey which they had undertaken, and which they said had occupied four years . In truth it needed but to look at their complexion to see that they were people of another world than ours . </P> <P> The Han army regularly policed the trade route against nomadic bandit forces generally identified as Xiongnu . Han general Ban Chao led an army of 70,000 mounted infantry and light cavalry troops in the 1st century CE to secure the trade routes, reaching far west to the Tarim basin . Ban Chao expanded his conquests across the Pamirs to the shores of the Caspian Sea and the borders of Parthia . It was from here that the Han general dispatched envoy Gan Ying to Daqin (Rome). The Silk Road essentially came into being from the 1st century BCE, following these efforts by China to consolidate a road to the Western world and India, both through direct settlements in the area of the Tarim Basin and diplomatic relations with the countries of the Dayuan, Parthians and Bactrians further west . The Silk Roads were a "complex network of trade routes" that gave people the chance to exchange goods and culture . </P> <P> A maritime Silk Route opened up between Chinese - controlled Giao Chỉ (centred in modern Vietnam, near Hanoi), probably by the 1st century . It extended, via ports on the coasts of India and Sri Lanka, all the way to Roman - controlled ports in Roman Egypt and the Nabataean territories on the northeastern coast of the Red Sea . The earliest Roman glassware bowl found in China was unearthed from a Western Han tomb in Guangzhou, dated to the early 1st century BCE, indicating that Roman commercial items were being imported through the South China Sea . According to Chinese dynastic histories, it is from this region that the Roman embassies arrived in China, beginning in 166 CE during the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Emperor Huan of Han . Other Roman glasswares have been found in Eastern - Han - era tombs (25--220 CE) more further inland in Nanjing and Luoyang . P.O. Harper asserts that a 2nd or 3rd - century Roman gilt silver plate found in Jingyuan, Gansu, China with a central image of the Greco - Roman god Dionysus resting on a feline creature, most likely came via Greater Iran (i.e. Sogdiana). Valerie Hansen (2012) believed that earliest Roman coins found in China date to the 4th century, during Late Antiquity and the Dominate period, and come from the Byzantine Empire . However, Warwick Ball (2016) highlights the recent discovery of sixteen Principate - era Roman coins found in Xi'an (formerly Chang'an, one of the two Han capitals) that were minted during the reigns of Roman emperors spanning from Tiberius to Aurelian (i.e. 1st to 3rd centuries CE). It is true that these coins were found in China, but they were deposited there in the twentieth century, not in ancient times, and therefore they do not shed light on historic contacts between China and Rome . Roman golden medallions made during the reign of Antoninus Pius and quite possibly his successor Marcus Aurelius have been found at Óc Eo in southern Vietnam, which was then part of the Kingdom of Funan bordering the Chinese province of Jiaozhi in northern Vietnam . Given the archaeological finds of Mediterranean artefacts made by Louis Malleret in the 1940s, Óc Eo may have been the same site as the port city of Kattigara described by Ptolemy in his Geography (c. 150 CE), although Ferdinand von Richthofen had previously believed it was closer to Hanoi . </P> <P> Soon after the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BCE, regular communications and trade between China, Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe blossomed on an unprecedented scale . The Roman Empire inherited eastern trade routes that were part of the Silk Road from the earlier Hellenistic powers and the Arabs . With control of these trade routes, citizens of the Roman Empire received new luxuries and greater prosperity for the Empire as a whole . The Roman - style glassware discovered in the archeological sites of Gyeongju, capital of the Silla kingdom (Korea) showed that Roman artifacts were traded as far as the Korean peninsula . The Greco - Roman trade with India started by Eudoxus of Cyzicus in 130 BCE continued to increase, and according to Strabo (II. 5.12), by the time of Augustus, up to 120 ships were setting sail every year from Myos Hormos in Roman Egypt to India . The Roman Empire connected with the Central Asian Silk Road through their ports in Barygaza (known today as Bharuch) and Barbaricum (known today as the cities of Karachi, Sindh, and Pakistan) and continued along the western coast of India . An ancient "travel guide" to this Indian Ocean trade route was the Greek Periplus of the Erythraean Sea written in 60 CE . </P>

What did china trade in the silk road