theloneclaw

[Roma Immortalis] Chimaera in Serica

Added 2025-06-16 13:43:22 +0000 UTC

In 813 AUC (60 CE), Julia Pantherula Maximillia, the mater familias of a powerful merchant family in the Roman province of Gedrosia, sent her second youngest daughter, Julia Pantherula Aviena, on an expedition to discover the land of Serica (China) in the hopes of establishing a direct trade route between the two great empires.

Having set sail with three ships loaded with trade goods such as wine, dyes, glassware, as well as spider silk fabric and garments, Aviena crossed the oceans of India and Sina (South China Sea), losing one of her ships to pirates before she finally reached the shores of Serica.

The Seresians were completely awestruck upon seeing Aviena, as they had never before seen a Chimaera, and so they quickly brought her before Emperor Ming of Han, to whom she presented a selection of her finest goods as a gift.

Because of the significant language barrier, Emperor Ming and his court assumed Aviena and her men to be an ambassadorial mission rather than traders, referring to her as “Xīhǎi Nǚshǐ” (Lady Envoy from the Western Sea) or “Luómǎ Fūrén” (Lady of Rome), or simply as “Bàojī” (Leopard Princess). As Aviena and her men similarly struggled to understand the Seresians, they failed to catch or correct the misunderstanding.

What Aviena did understand, however, was that the Emperor wished for her to remain as part of his court and offered her very generous accommodations. And so remain she did, becoming a very influential advisor, and through her Serica learned a great deal about Rome—a vast and powerful empire to the west that they had previously been completely unaware of.