从地中海到黄河——希腊化文化信息在中国的回响(至公元7世纪)

From the Mediterranean to Yellow River:Reechoes of Hellenistic Culture in China(till the 7th Century A.D.)

亚历山大东征与张骞通西域是中希两大文明接触、交流史上的重大事件。虽然二者相隔达两个世纪之久,但都为丝绸之路的全线贯通做出了划时代的贡献。丝绸之路开通之时,希腊化世界东西两端的希腊化王国都还存在。公元前后,尽管希腊化王国已经消失,但希腊化世界的遗产及其信息却借助丝绸之路经中亚、印度进入中国,从而在中国古代的典籍、佛教艺术、地方钱币和其他遗迹遗物中留下了它们的印记。这些信息虽然辗转而来,难免失真变异、模糊不清,语焉不详,但它们还是可觅可见,显示了汉唐之际中华文明与希腊化文明及其他丝路文明的深度互动与融合。

Both the conquest of Alexander the Great and the mission of Zhang Qian to the Western Regions have been regarded as the magnificent historical events in the meeting and exchange between ancient Chinese and Greek Civilizations. Although the time gap of their appearance is nearly two centuries, they played the same important role in the opening of the Silk Road between the Yellow River and the Mediterranean. At the beginning of it, the Hellenistic kingdoms in the eastern Mediterranean areas and the northwest of India still existed. By around the A.D., all of them unfortunately had disappeared or been conquered, however the legacies of the Hellenistic World as well as the information related to them had been spread into China through the Silk Road from Central Asia and India. Because of this connection, their imprints or clues could be discovered and discerned in the Chinese historical literature, Buddhist art and regional coinage,and other relics, despite most of them seemed to be untrue, transformed, vague, and unrecognized.However, they mirrored the in-depth interaction and wide fusion between the Chinese Civilization and Hellenistic Civilizations and others on the Silk Road during the Han and Tang Dynasty.