"In reviewing the vast literature on the subject, one gains the impression that the whole story of Rome−China trade has been vastly exaggerated by the myth of the Silk Route," Warwick Ball.
Far more important, it seems was the Rome-India sea trade & the India-China sea route.

"Of the few bits of both archaeological and literary evidence that we have, by far the bulk supports a sea route to north-western India, thence through the Kushan Empire. Other overland routes were almost negligible in terms of Roman trade links with Central Asia."
Warwick Ball

"The existence of the ‘Silk Road’ is not based on a shred of historical or material evidence. There was never any such ‘road’ or even a route in the organisational sense, there was no free movement of goods between China and the West until the Mongol Empire in the Middle Ages 1/2

"...silk was by no means the main commodity in trade with the East, and there is not a single ancient historical record, neither Chinese nor Classical, that even hints at the existence of such a road." Warwick Ball, Rome in the East
2/2

"Both ancient Rome and China had only the haziest notions of each other’s existence and even less interest, and the little relationship that did exist between East and West in the broadest sense was usually one-sided, with the stimulus coming mainly from the Chinese." 1/2

"The greatest value of the Silk Road to history is as a lesson – and an important one at that – at how quickly and how thoroughly a myth can become enshrined as unquestioned academic fact." Warwick Ball, Rome in the East