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Han China vs. Ancient Rome: The Unification of Their Empires
By JBR
The empires of Han China and Ancient Rome, despite ruling opposite sides of the
known world from about 300 BCE to 550 CE, implemented similar strategies to unify
and retain control over their empires. In addition though, the sharp contrasts of eastern
and western philosophies creating striking differences between these two civilizations.
The abolishment of the aristocracy proved vital to the rise of both empires, but the more
disciplinarian eastern philosophies of legalism, Confucianism, and the Mandate of
Heaven allowed unification to return to China long after the collapse of both empires.
Han China and Rome both came into power by creating a strong central
government while simultaneously abolishing the aristocracy. Both empires accomplished
this by seizing land from large landownings and redistributing them to military veterans
and other citizens. This action not only boosted power in the Roman government, but also
added further incentive to military service, which invaluably served the economy through
the supply of incredibly cheap slave labor. As, for the Han, redistributing the land
prevented the forming of highly influential aristocrats that had hindered the unification of
China during the warring states period. Perhaps the most important result of eliminating
aristocracy for these two empires was the creation of a free peasant class, which could
serve in the military and have limited participation in government without owning land.
Along with military service, this class provided crucial support and funding to the
government through taxes and public works. So crucial to the unification of these empires
was the downfall of aristocracy, in fact, that their own fall from power coincided with the
return of large landowners.
Even though they originally unified their empires in similar ways, the methods
employed by Han China and Rome in retaining that unification were quite different.
From the very start, Han China built off of the harsh legalism imposed by their
predecessor: the Qin Dynasty. The strict laws and cruel punishments of legalism had
engrained a high degree of obedience into the Chinese psyche since the Zhou dynasty
several hundred years prior, which was the perfect platform for the institution of a
doctrine of Confucianism. Despite having the same underlying goal as legalism, absolute
respect and obedience for superiors, Confucianism set upon this in a drastically different
way; by stressing the value of human life and the responsibilities and duties of wise
leadership. In addition to this was the idea of the Mandate of Heaven, which had endured
since the Shang Dynasty and stated that the ruler was chosen by the deity “Heaven” to
rule as long as he remained wise and just. In conjunction, these ideas embedded a
doctrine of civil service, extreme obedience, and orderliness within Chinese culture. On
the other hand, Rome never had a doctrine or dogma that unified its empire. Rome had
tried to implement its own version of the Mandate of Heaven where the emperor was
worshiped as a deity, but this eventually undermined by the conversion of the empire to
Christianity, which is monotheistic and forbids the worship of any other gods. Another
idea important to Rome was humanism, meaning that every human life had worth, but
eventually this Greek philosophy could take no major foothold of influence due to the
constantly increasing dominance of the upper class and incredibly high number of slaves.
Lacking a unifying ideal, the people of Rome became more and more fragmented until
the Germanic west finally split from the Christian/Byzantine east, marking the downfall
of an empire. Many aspects of Rome, especially the written law and Christianity, are still
influential today, but because they were unincorporated into the culture and mindset of
the empire, such as in Han China where the ideals of legalism, Confucianism, and the
Mandate of Heaven, allowed unification to return to the region even after the empire’s
demise, they were not able to lastingly connect the people and after the collapse of Rome,
unification never again returned to the region on any similar scale.
Han China and Rome both seized control of their empires by destroying the preexisting aristocracy and creating the free peasant class to support the centralized
government, but it was the differences in societal ideology that eventually determined the
overall outcome of the regions. As where the Mediterranean is still to this day a
collection of diverse and sometimes fragmented cultures, eastern Asia built off of the
legalistic platforms of its past to create totalitarian superpowers such as Communist
China and North Korea.