Ban Chao's envoy, the farthest-reaching messenger of Han: he came to the Western Sea and looked at Rome — and was talked out of the crossing.
He reached Tiaozhi on the shore of the Western Sea and was about to embark; the sailors told him how vast the water is, and he turned back, and brought home an account of the kingdoms of the west.the Hou Han shu's narrative of Gan Ying's mission of 97 CE, the memoir's words about him rather than his own; Hou Han shu, juan 88, Memoir on the Western Regions
Appears in
Relations
- Ban Chao commander — He was Chao's subordinate and went west on Chao's commission, into the settlement Chao had made possible.
Myth vs record
Gan Ying got to the Roman empire and stood in a provincial city of Syria; the two great empires were one day's march apart.
The record says only that he came to the shore of the Western Sea and did not cross. Most readings put that shore on the Persian Gulf, with Parthian sailors — who had the silk trade between the two empires and wanted it kept that way — telling him the crossing takes three months with a fair wind and two years without one, which is why men grow old on it. Some scholars still place him on the Mediterranean. The first attested contact from Da Qin's side is a group reaching the Han court in 166, not a Han embassy reaching Rome.