Download Empires: Roman and Han - White Plains Public Schools

Marcus Aurelius
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Look back over the past,
with its changing
empires that rose and
fell, and you can foresee
the future, too.
THE ROMAN AND HAN EMPIRES
Flourished at roughly the same time (200 BCE200CE)
 Occupied a similar area (approximately 1.5
million square miles)
 Populations of a similar size (50 to 60 million)
 Giant empires shaping the lives of close to half of
the world’s populations
 However, only dimly aware of each other
 Had almost no direct contact

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ROME
Began as a small city-state in Italian peninsula
in the eighth century BCE
 Originally ruled by a king
 Roman aristocrats overthrew monarchy around
509 BCE
 Established a republic in which patricians,
wealthy landowners, dominated
 Two consuls exercised executive power
-Advised by patrician assembly – the Senate
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Conflict between patricians and plebeians led to
some political changes
-Twelve Tables, Roman written laws, offered
plebeians (common people) some protections
-Established office of tribune – represented
plebeians
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Launched empire-building enterprise
-Took more than 500 years
-Conquered Italian peninsula (began 490s BCE)
-Between 264 -146 BCE, Punic Wars with
Carthage and victory
-Expansion in the eastern Mediterranean
(Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia)
-Extended territories in Southern and Western
Europe (Spain, France, and Britain)
-By 2nd century CE, reached its maximum
extent
Wealth of the empire enriched a few
-large estates and slaves
 But many free farmers forced into the cities and
poverty
 A small group of military leaders (Marius, Sulla,
Pompey, Julius Caesar) depended on the poor
-brought civil war to Rome during the first
century BCE
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When the civil war ended, power now was vested
in an emperor
-Caesar Augustus (reigned 27 BCE – 14 CE)
 The republic had ended – Rome was an empire
 During the first two centuries CE, the empire
provided security and prosperity
-Pax Romana

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However, with new territories came new
vulnerabilities
 Which led to new conquests
 Rome’s central location in Mediterranean helped
but its army built the empire
 Brutal in war
-Carthage was completely destroyed
 But Romans could be generous
-Granted citizenship to some of the conquered
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THE HAN DYNASTY
Did not create something new but restored
something old
 The Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties had existed
before
 But by 500 BCE, unity vanished in the era of
warring states
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During the Qin Dynasty, Shihuangdi developed
an effective bureaucracy, equipped his army with
iron weapons, and increased unity
 Shihuangdi adopted Legalism
-A philosophy based on harsh punishments to
ensure obedience
-Dissident scholars executed – Books burned
 Ruled from 221 – 210 BCE
 Called himself “first emperor”
 Laid the foundations for a unified Chinese state
-A state that has endured with periodic
interruptions to the present
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Began construction on Great Wall of China
-To keep invaders out – keep “barbarians” out
 Erected a mausoleum as emperor’s final resting
place with some 7,500 life-size ceramic soldiers
 Imposed a uniform system of weights, measures,
and currency
 Standardized the written form of the Chinese
language
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The Han dynasty that followed (206 BCE – 220
CE)
-Retained centralized features of Shihuangdi’s
creation
-Moderated the harshness of Qin policies
-Consolidated China’s imperial state and
established the political patterns that lasted into
the twentieth century
-Established Confucianism as the dominant
philosophy
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SIMILARITIES – ROMAN AND HAN
Invested heavily in public works
-Roads, bridges, aqueducts, canals, walls
 Invoked supernatural sanctions to support rule
-Romans began viewing deceased emperors as
gods and established a religious cult to bolster
authority of living emperors
-Chinese emperors were viewed as the Son of
Heaven and governed by the Mandate of Heaven
so long as they ruled morally
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Both absorbed a foreign religious tradition
-Christianity in the Roman Empire and
Buddhism in China
-Though Christianity developed slowly and by
fourth century CE obtained state support to help
a declining empire with a common religion
-Buddhism from India was introduced by Central
Asian traders and received little support from
rulers (appealed to people who felt bewildered
after the collapse of the Han dynasty)

Not until the Sui dynasty emperor Wendi (581604 CE) reunified China did the new religion
gain state support and only temporarily
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THE COLLAPSE OF EMPIRES
The Western part of the Roman Empire collapsed
in 476 CE after a decline of several centuries
-The eastern part began the Byzantine Empire
(preserved Greek and Roman learning)
 In China, many free peasants turned into
impoverished tenant farmers
-Led to a major peasant revolt known as the
Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184 CE
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Rivalry among elite factions
 Empires too big, too overextended, too expensive
 A growing threat from nomadic or semiagricultural peoples occupying the frontier
regions of both empires
 But collapse and disunity in China was
eventually replaced by a unified imperial state
 Whereas Western Europe dissolved into a highly
decentralized political system
-Europe would be a civilization without an
encompassing imperial state
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Strayer Questions
 How did Rome grow from a single city to the
center of a huge empire?
 How and why did the making of the Chinese
Empire differ from that of the Roman Empire?
 In comparing the Roman and Chinese empires,
which do you find more striking - their
similarities or their differences?
 How did the collapse of empire play out
differently in the Roman world and in China?