the Western world, both through direct settlements in the area of the Tarim Basin and diplomatic relations with Dayuan, Parthians and Bactrians further west. Intense trade followed soon, confirmed by the Roman craze for Chinese silk (supplied by the Parthians) from the 1st century BC, to the point that the Senate issued, in vain, several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, on economic and moral grounds. This is attested by at least three significant authors: Strabo (64/ 63 BCE–c. 24 CE). Seneca the Younger (c. 3 BCE–65 CE). Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE). This is also the time when the Buddhist faith and the Greco-Buddhist culture started to travel along the Silk Road, entering China from around the 1st century BCE. See also History of Buddhism Greco-Buddhism Footnotes References Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian of China. Translated from the Shih Chi of Sima Qian by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, Volume II, "Zhang Qian's Mission to the West", translation by Friedrich Hirth published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, 37/2 (1917), pp. 93–116, adaptation by J. Moore, Department of History, Austin College. Han Shu, as translated by A. Wylie in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vols. III (1874), pp. 401–452, V (1876), pp. 41–80, and X (1881), pp. 20–73, and XI (1882), pp. 83–115, adaptation by J. Moore, Department of History, Austin College. The diffusion of Classical art in Antiquity, John Boardman, Princeton University Press, 1993 The Greeks in Bactria and India, W. W. Tarn, Cambridge University Press External links ShiJi 123: The Account of DaYuan Selection from the Han narrative stories See references to Dayuan/Ferghana in the annotated translations by John Hill from the 2nd century Hou Hanshu: and of the 3rd century Weilüe: http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/weilue/weilue.html Historical Chinese exonyms History of the foreign relations of China Hellenistic states Sites along the Silk Road Bactrian and Indian Hellenistic colonies