Dubs says the Chinese kept the ex-legionaries as frontier guards, installing them in a specially created town called Liqian in what is now Gansu.

ECONOMIST: So it's said, anyway

According to Pliny the Elder, the Roman prisoners were used by the Parthians as guards on their eastern frontier in what is today Turkmenistan.

ECONOMIST: So it's said, anyway

Before that, he was commander of the Frontier Corps - the paramilitary force that guards Pakistan's tribal belt.

NPR: Trip to Religious School Offers Window on Pakistan

They claimed Iranian border guards shot at them as they crossed the frontier.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS