Alternative histories fascinate me, particularly if there's the possiblity that they're true and it's the history we accept today that's false. Byzantium is interesting as a sort of pseudo alternative history.

One might say: The Roman Empire fell in 476, but what would the world have been like if the Empire had survived for another thousand years?

Of course, the Eastern Roman Empire was, in reality, nothing less than the continuation of Rome, though often we don't think of it that way. In a weird twist, the pagan Romans, persecutors of Christians, became the staunchest defenders of the new religion. Well, that's the charm of alternative histories. They can surprise us.

Naturally, my attention was caught by the notion that there was an ancient Roman settlement in China, founded by legionnaires who had been captured in one of the Empire's border wars and transported east.

There seems to be some evidence for it. Maybe not enough to satisfy a historian, but, at least to my way thinking (see the short article in our newsletter) enough for a writer of historical fiction.