^116:1 It was about this time that the contests between Chosroes king of Persia, and the Turks on one side, and the Byzantine emperor on the other, occurred. The same events that have been described by Gibbon's luxuriant pen are found in a form more laconic and curtailed in the "History of the T'ang Dynasty." It might well be so, when Chinese travellers passed the eastern borders of Persia on their way to India, and when the imperial occupants of the throne of Constantinople sent embassies frequently to China. There are two records of these embassies preserved, the interest of which will be a sufficient excuse for a short digression. In A.D. 643, says the history, Pa-ta-lik, the king of the Fulim country, sent an embassy with presents of red glass. That this king was a Byzantine emperor is shown by the narrative of events in Persia just preceding it in the history. It says, "At the close of the Sui dynasty (ended A.D. 657), the "khan" (k'a-han) of the Western "Turks" (Tu-kiue) attacked "Persia" (Pa-si), and killed the king K'u-sa-ha (Chosroes I., or Nushirvan). His son Shi-li (Hormouz) succeeded him. After his death the daughter of K'u-sa-ha was made queen, but was killed by the Turks. Shi-li's son Jen-ki (Chosroes II.) fled to Fulim. (Gibbon says he took refuge with the Romans.) The people of the country brought him back and made him king. He was assassinated by I-t'a-chi, and succeeded by his brother's son I-dzi-zi (Yezdegerd)." This prince sent an embassy to China, A.D. 638. For misconduct he was driven away by his nobles, and fled to the T'u-ha-la, a tribe in Afghanistan. On his way he was put to death by the Arabs (Ta-shih). Pi-lu-si the son of I-dzi-zi appealed to the court at Ch'ang-an for aid against the irresistible Arabians, but in vain. These last details have been introduced by Gibbon into his narrative from De Guignes. It may be inferred, then, that the king Pa-ta-lik was the Byzantine emperor "Constans II." In the year 1081 there was also an embassy to China from the king of Fulim, who is called Mih-li-i-ling kai-sa. This Kaisar or "Caesar" should be either Nicephorus Bataniares, who died this year, or his successor, Alexius Comnenus. In Kin-shi-t'u-shu-pu, a Chinese work on coins and other antiquities, there is a rude representation of a gold coin of this prince.

The word Fulim is evidently the same as the Thibetan Philing and the Indian Feringi, which, as Hodgson observes, must be variations of the word "Frank," commonly applied to all Europeans in Western Asia. Modern Chinese authors suppose Judaea to be Fulim, but the old passages in the Syrian inscription and elsewhere, in which the country is described as to its natural features, whether under this name or that of Ta-ts'in, read much more intelligibly if the Roman empire be understood.