ON THE EXISTENCE OF A NATION
BEARING THE NAME OF _SERES_ OR A
COUNTRY CALLED _SERICA_ OR
_TERRA SERICA_.
FROM
THE CLASSICAL MUSEUM OF 1846. VOL. 3.
The following train of thought presented itself to the writer upon the
perusal of Mr. James Yates's learned and interesting work entitled
Textrinum Antiquorum or an account of the art of weaving among the
ancients. With scarcely a single exception the facts and references
are supplied from that work so that to the author of the present paper
nothing belongs beyond the reasoning that he has applied to them.
This statement is made once for all for the sake of saving a
multiplicity of recurring references.
The negative assertions as well as the positive ones are also made upon
the full faith in the exhaustive learning of the writer in question.
Now the conviction that is come to is this, that no tribe, nation or
country ever existed which can be shewn to have borne, either in the
vernacular or in any neighbouring language, the name Seres, Serica, or
Terra Serica or any equivalent term, a conclusion that may save some
trouble to the inquirers into ancient geography.
The nation called Seres has never had a specific existence under that
name. Whence then originated the frequent indications of such a nation
recurring in the writings of the ancients? The doctrine, founded upon
the facts of Mr. Yates and laid down as a proposition; is as follows.--
That the name under which the article _silk_ was introduced to the
Greeks and Romans wore the appearance of a Gentile adjective and
that the imaginary root of the accredited adjective passed for the
substantive name of a nation. Thus, in the original form _seric_, the
_-ic_ had the appearance of being an adjectival termination, as in
_Medic-us Persic-us_ &c.; whilst _ser-_ was treated as the substantive
name of a nation or people from whence the article in question (i.
e. the _seric_ article) was derived. The _Seres_ therefore were the
hypothetical producers of the article that bore their name (_seric_).
Whether this view involves more improbabilities than the current one
will be seen from the forthcoming observations.--
1. In the first place the crude form _seric_ was neither Latin nor
Greek, so that the _-ic_ could not be adjectival.
2. Neither was it in the simpler form _ser-_ that the term was
introduced into the classical languages so that the adjectival _-ic_
might be appended afterwards.--
3. The name in question whatever might have been its remote origin
was introduced into Greece from the Semitic tongues (probably the
Phoenician) and was the word שריק in Isaiah XIX. 9. where the יק (the
_-ic_) is not an adjectival appendage but a radical part of the word.
And here it may be well to indicate that, except under the improbable
supposition that the Hebrew name was borrowed from the Greek or Latin,
it is a matter of indifference whether the word in question was
indigenous to the Semitic Languages or introduced from abroad, and also
that is a matter of indifference whether silk was known in the time of
the Old Testament or not. It is sufficient if a term afterwards applied
to that article was Hebrew at the time of Isaiah. Of any connection
between the substance called שריק and a nation called Seres there is in
the Semitic tongues no trace. The foundation of the present scepticism
originated in the observation that the supposed national existence of
the Seres coincided with the introduction of the term _seric_ into
languages where _ic-_ was an adjectival affix.--
As early as the Augustan age the substantive _Seres_ appears by the
side of the adjective _Sericus_. In Virgil, Horace and Ovid the words
may be found and from this time downwards the express notice of a
nation so called is found through a long series of writers.--
Notwithstanding this it is as late as the time of Mela before we
find any author mentioning with detail and precision a geographical
nationality for the Seres. "He (Mela) describes them as a very honest
people who brought what they had to sell, laid it down and went away
and then returned for the price of it" (Yates p. 184). Now this
notice is anything rather than definite. Its accuracy moreover may
be suspected, since it belongs to the ambiguous class of what may be
called convertible descriptions. The same story is told of an African
nation in Herodotus IV. 169.
To the statement of Mela we may add a notice from Ammianus Marcellinus
of the quiet and peaceable character of the Seres (XXIII. 6.) and
a statement from the novelist Heliodorus that at the nuptials of
Theagenes and Chariclea the ambassadors of the Seres came bringing the
thread and webs of their spiders (Aethiop. X. p. 494. Commelini).
Now notices more definite than the above of the national existence
of the Seres anterior to the time of Justinian we have none whilst
subsequently to the reign of that emperor there is an equal silence
on the part both of historians and geographers. Neither have modern
ethnographers found unequivocal traces of tribes bearing that name.
The probability of a confusion like the one indicated at the
commencement of the paper is increased by the facts stated in p. 222.
of the Textrinum. Here we see that besides Pausanias, Hesychius,
Photius and other writers give two senses to the root _ser-_ which
they say is (1.) a worm (2.) the name of a nation. Probably Clemens
Alexandrinus does the same νῆμα χρυσοῦ καὶ σῆρας Ἰνδικοὺς καὶ τοὺς
περιέργους βόμβυκας χαίρειν ἐῶντας. A passage from Ulpian (Textrinum p.
192) leads to the belief that σῆρας here means silk-worm. Vestimentorum
sunt omnia lanea lineaque, vel _serica_ vel bombycina.
Finally the probability of the assumed confusion is verified by the
statement of Procopius αὕτη δέ ἐστιν ἡ μέταξα ἐξ ἧς εἰώθασι τὴν ἐσθῆτα
ἐργάζεσθαι, ἣν πάλαι μὲν Ἥλληνες Μηδικὴν ἐκάλουν, τανῦν δὲ σηρικὴν
ὀνομάζουσιν. (De Bell. Persic. I. 20.).
Militating against these views I find little unsusceptible of
explanation.--
1. The expression σηρικα δερματα of the author of the Periplus Maris
Erythraei means skins from the silk country.
2. The intricacy introduced into the question by a passage of Procopius
is greater. In the account of the first introduction of the silk worm
into Europe in the reign of Justinian the monks who introduced it
having arrived from India stated that they had long resided in the
country called Serinda inhabited by Indian nations where they had
learned how raw silk might be produced in the country of the Romans
(Textrinum p. 231). This is so much in favor of the root Ser-being
gentile, but at the same time so much against the Seres being Chinese.
Sanskrit scholars may perhaps adjust this matter. The Serinda is
probably the fabulous Serendib.
In the countries around the original localities of the silk-worm the
name for silk is as follows--
In Corean _Sir_.
Chinese _se_.
Mongolian _sirkek_.
Mandchoo _sirghe_.
It is the conviction of the present writer that a nation called Seres
had no geographical existence.
ON THE EVIDENCE OF A CONNECTION
BETWEEN THE CIMBRI AND THE
CHERSONESUS CIMBRICA.
READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY.