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 Between Rome and China 189 spell of cattle disease, would drive the hungry warlike tribesmen south. For a time there were simultaneously two fairly effective Empires in the world capable of holding back the barbarians and even forcing forward the frontiers of the imperial peace. The thrust of the Han empire from north China into Mongolia was strong and continuous. The Chinese population welled up ^ over the barrier of the Great Wall. Behind the imperial frontier guards came the Chinese farmer with horse and plough, ploughing up the grass lands and enclosing the winter pasture. The Hunnish peoples raided and murdered the settlers, but the Chinese punitive expeditions were too much for them. The nomads were faced with the choice of settling down to the plough and becoming Chinese tax- payers or shifting in search of fresh summer pastures. Some took the former course and were ab- sorbed. Some drifted north- eastward and eastward over the mountain passes down into western Turkestan. This westward drive of the Mongolian horsemen was going on from 200 B.C. onward. It was producing a westward pressure upon the Aryan tribes, and these again were pressing upon the Roman frontiers ready to break through directly there was any Parthians, who were apparently a Mongolian admixture, came down to century b.c. They fought against eastern raid. They defeated and killed Crassus. They replaced the Seleucid monarchy in Persia by a dynasty of Parthian kings, the Arsacid dynasty. VASE OF BRONZE FORM, UNGLAZED STONEWARE. Han dynasty (206 B.C-A.D. 220) {/« the Victoria and Albert Museuyn) weakness apparent. The Scythian people with some the Euphrates by the first Pompey the Great in his