Serica

The Seres (Greek: Σῆρες, Latin: Seres) were inhabitants of the land Serica, named by the ancient Greeks and Romans. 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 "Çaka, Tukhâra, 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.