> Lions were initially introduced to the Han court by emissaries from Persia
I wonder when "showing up with a weird animal" went out, as a form of diplomacy. It definitely seems to have been A Thing for a while.
I mean, I suppose there's pandas.
I wonder when "showing up with a weird animal" went out, as a form of diplomacy. It definitely seems to have been A Thing for a while.
I mean, I suppose there's pandas.
For those ancient animal gift exchanges I always wonder about the practicality. Travelling overland and over the Himalayas with lions does not seem like the best thing to do.
Also: Back in 801/802 Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne send an emissary - Isaac, the jew - to the Caliph in Baghdad, Harun Al-Rashid. Yes, that one. For the return journey the caliph gave a present, an elephant called Abul Abbas. And according to the historical chronicles Isaac really travelled with Abul Abbas from Badghad to todays Tunesia, crossed the Mediterranean on a ship and travelled to the emperor's court in Aachen, in western Germany. Charlemagne used the elephant in his campaign against the saxons. Abul Abbas seems to have survived until 810, when he died in todays northwestern Germany.
I do love the origin of the term white elephant:
> Because the animals were considered sacred and laws protected them from labor, receiving a gift of a white elephant from a monarch was simultaneously a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because the animal was sacred and a sign of the monarch's favour, and a curse because the recipient now had an animal that was expensive to maintain, could not be given away, and could not be put to much practical use.
Presumably that was part of the point; it's a good gift because it's difficult and expensive.
> Also: Back in 801/802 Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne send an emissary - Isaac, the jew - to the Caliph in Baghdad, Harun Al-Rashid. Yes, that one. For the return journey the caliph gave a present, an elephant called Abul Abbas.
That just seems rude. It's one thing to _bring_ an elephant as a gift; quite another to make the recipient responsible for getting the damn thing home.
From wikipedia:
> It seems that in 831, Harun al-Rashid's son al-Ma'mun also sent an embassy to Louis the Pious.
No word on whether Louis sent some sort of inconvenient animal back, as revenge.
But Lions. Lions are apex predators, and though they hadn't been seen, the trade routes would surely have brought their reputations ahead of them. Lions kill people, they eat camels, they devour. Kill one and you're mighty. Capture one, and you're very powerful, skillful and brave. Double up and you're formidable. Have a breeding pair and you're a warlord with no need for an army.
The Chinese Imperial story has a lot to do with being the presiding authority of knowledge and power. Check out the preoccupation with celestial events. The emperor made sure that he not only knew when and where an eclipse would take place in the realm, but he went there to make sure people knew that the mysteries of the sky were known by the Emperor.
If you want to cozy up to a ruler like that, you show him that you also know similar power, and you have enough to share ~ "tell your people you can make lions now, thanks to your friends in Persia"
Nowadays it just looks more like 5th gen fighter contracts.
Four main direction are dragon, tiger, special bird, Tortoise … wonder if you present a lion to old emperor what does it meant. Giraffe is a good example.
By 413, Demos had inherited his father's peacocks, descendants of an original breeding pair given to Pyrilampes s.v. on one of his embassies to the Persian court. They were such beautiful εὐόφθαλμος and expensive birds—a pair valued at a thousand drachmae (Ael. NA 5.21)--that visitors would arrive from Sparta and Thessaly to see them, and in hopes of obtaining some of their eggs. Apparently Demos continued the tradition his father had begun, more than thirty years previously, of admitting the public on the first day of each month to view the birds.