The ancient civilizations of Greece and China at one point dominated the Western and Eastern world, respectively. Their history was almost completely separate, and they only interacted thanks to merchants along the Silk Road. The story of how this route was initiated is linked with the expansion of the Greeks towards the east, and the Chinese towards the west. However, before the Silk Road flourished, these two civilizations fought a war against each other, and the conflict broke out because of a dispute over horses.
During the 4th century BCE, the king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia Alexander the Great conquered the entire Persian Empire, and reached the fertile valley of Fergana in Central Asia. During his military campaign, he founded various cities, including Alexandria Eschate (literally meaning “Alexandria the Furthest”) around the site of the city of Khujand in modern-day Tajikistan. After the death of Alexander the Great, his empire was divided, and the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire ruled over the Fergana valley until around 250 BCE, when the local Greek rulers declared their independence and founded the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. This kingdom fought against indigenous peoples of Central Asia and India and had their first contacts with Chinese merchants and explorers.
Map of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom at its maximum extent around 170 BCE (World Imaging, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0).
Meanwhile, the Han dynasty had taken control of all of China in 202 BCE, and quickly became one of the richest and most powerful empires in the world. While China flourished under the rule of the Han dynasty, they struggled to control their northern border, and often fought against the nomadic Xiongnu tribes. In 139 BCE, Emperor Wu of Han sent a diplomatic envoy to another nomadic tribe, the Yuezhi people of Western China, seeking an alliance with them to launch a war against the Xiongnu.
The expedition was led by an explorer named Zhang Qian, who was captured by the Xiongnu and was forced to live with them for ten years, until he managed to escape. After fleeing from the Xiongnu, he still completed his mission, reaching the Yuezhi. However, they refused to ally with the Han. Nevertheless, his expedition wasn’t completely useless, as he explored the region and reached the city of Alexandria Eschate, ruled by a people which he called Dayuan, literally meaning “Great Ionians”.
They were described by Zhang Qian as having European characteristics and customs, as they had dark beards and loved drinking wine, and they lived in flourishing walled cities. The Dayuan were indeed descendants of the Greek colonists in the Fergana Valley, and their state emerged from the decline of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, which by this time was struggling and ruled over Bactria, a region located more south, in modern-day Afghanistan.
The expedition of Zhang Qian was the first major known interaction between the Greek and Chinese civilizations and, after returning to China in 125 BCE, the explorer described his travels to Emperor Wu, and told him of the powerful “heavenly horses” of Dayuan. Thinking that these horses would make a great addition to the Chinese army, Emperor Wu sent another expedition to Dayuan in 104 BCE, looking to buy some horses, but the Greeks refused the offer and killed the envoy.
A 8th-century mural depicting Zhang Qian departing for his expedition to Central Asia.
Infuriated, Emperor Wu sent an army of 20,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry against Dayuan to take the horses by force. However, they had to cross the Tarim Basin and the Taklamakan Desert. The people who lived in the oases of this region refused to give supplies to the Chinese army, so they were forced to fight and lost many men even before reaching the Fergana Valley. The Greeks then quickly defeated the already exhausted Chinese army, which had to retreat back to China.
Two years later, Emperor Wu ordered another expedition to take the heavenly horses of Dayuan. This time, the army consisted of 60,000 soldiers and tens of thousands of supply animals. Because of the overwhelming strength of the Chinese army, the oases states this time surrended quickly, but the expedition still lost half of its men due to the harsh conditions of the desert. The Chinese army sieged Alexandria Eschate in 101 BCE, and ultimately managed to enter the city after forty days. The Greek nobles surrendered and killed their king, and offered the Chinese all the horses they wanted as a tribute. The Chinese army took 3,000 horses and installed a puppet king in Dayuan, and then they retreated, marking the end of the War of the Heavenly Horses.
The Flying Horse of Gansu, a 2nd-century bronze statue depicting one of the heavenly horses (G41rn8, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0).
Having heard of the defeat of the powerful Dayuan, many city-states of the Tarim Basin decided to submit to the Han dynasty as the Chinese army was returning to their capital. The Han put military garrisons in these cities, and established the Protectorate of the Western Regions, the first direct rule by a Chinese government in this region. Meanwhile, the nobles of Dayuan soon killed the king put on the throne by the Chinese, and the new ruler made peace with the Han. With the help of the heavenly horses, the Han defeated the Xiongnu. In China, these horses became a symbol of power and strength, and were depicted in statues and artworks for centuries. For around 1,000 years they were used by the Chinese military, until they were slowly replaced by local breeds.
While the first contact between Greeks and Chinese led to conflict, the War of the Heavenly Horses was actually a pivotal event, which marked the opening of the Silk Road. Over the next few centuries, the trade network expanded to connect China with the Roman Empire, and led to the exchange of goods and the spread of religion across Asia. The Silk Road later declined as both the Han dynasty and the Roman Empire struggled, while the Greeks of Central Asia were slowly assimilated into the local population. For centuries, the Greek influenced Buddhism, and this led to a syncretism between the two cultures. This was especially notable in art, as the Greeks were the first to make statues of standing Buddhas in Hellenistic style.