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The Seres (, (ラテン語:Seres)) were inhabitants of the land Serica, named by the ancient Greeks and Romans.〔Schoff, Wilfred H.: "The Eastern Iron Trade of the Roman Empire", ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'', Vol. 35 (1915), pp. 224-239 (237)〕 It meant "of silk," or people of the "land where silk comes from," and is thought to derive from the Chinese word for silk, ''si'' (Traditional Chinese: 絲; Simplified Chinese: 丝; pinyin: sī). It is itself at the origin of the Latin for "silk", ''sērĭcă''. The Seres and their country were named after the central product which sustained their industry, the "Ser" or Silkworm. Some classicists argued that it was extremely improbable that a nation would be named after an insect, and the 19th Century orientalist Christian Lassen identified them in the sacred books of the Hindus as the "Caka, Tukhara, and Kanka". Mention of the ''Seres'' people, as the manufacturers and distributors of silk, is earlier than the country Serica. This made some historians believe that the Greco-Romans named the Chinese ''Sinae'' when approached from the Pacific Ocean but ''Seres'' when reached from the Asiatic steppes. Others contend that the Seres were a loose confederacy of Tocharian people, who traded with the Indians, the Chinese and, through the Parthians and later the Sassanid Persians, the Romans. The Seres were universally depicted as prudent, just and compassionate people, whose genteel natures were addicted to comfort (not luxury), peace and harmony. In commerce they were shrewd, yet still more assiduous and diligent. For the Romans, a long and mutually remunerative commerce with the Seres was endangered when the middlemen, the Parthians, were usurped by the Sassanids. A summary of Classical sources on the Seres (essentially Pliny and Ptolemy) gives the following account: Serica was described by Ptolemy as bordering "Scythia beyond the Imaum mountains (Tian Shan)" on the West, "Terra Incognita" to the North-East, the "Sinae" or Chinese to the East and "India" to the South. This would correspond with modern Xinjiang province in North-Western China. ==Classical accounts== The first accounts of the Seres, of disputed authenticity, seem to be those by the Greek historian Ctesias in the 5th century BC, in which he refers to them as "people of portentous stature and longevity", in his book Indika. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「serica」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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