Download Chapter 8 Notes

Chapter 8 Notes
The rise of Teotihuacán as major imperial power by the fourth century C.E. affected Maya cities
like Tikal, whose elite was replaced by men like Siyaj K’ak from Teotihuacán. This was in part
borne out of economic needs for goods produced in the highlands that could not be otherwise
obtained in central Mexico. Because Teotihuacán culture was not literate, there is much that we
do not know about how their state was governed and how it came to an end in the eighth century
C.E. However, its size and later influence on all succeeding civilizations in central Mexico was
never forgotten. Although Teotihuacán was isolated, its story follows a similar trajectory to the
path of the great Eurasian empires of this time.
I. The Western Roman Empire and Its Invaders
By the end of Marcus Aurelius’ reign in 180, Rome had reached its apex. Pressures of an
overlong frontier, overly politicized soldiers, and tension between itself and its German and
Persian neighbors were growing dangers. Christianity, for many, posed a threat to Rome’s
traditional belief system. Marcus Aurelius anticipated some of the solutions that would be tried:
division of political/military authority between East and West and adoption of a pragmatic
Stoicism as a common philosophy for personal behavior and government. By the fourth century
C.E., invasions by Germanic peoples threatened the cohesion of the western empire. The
Germans were a very different cultural group attracted by the wealth of the empire, but with little
or no experience with its urban culture or complex government.
The Germans, who for centuries had farmed lands in Eastern Europe, were driven in their
thousands into the empire during this period because of climatic changes and invasions by
nomadic Central Asian peoples, such as the Huns, who had pushed them from their homelands.
The Visigothic migration of approximately 200,000 in 376 C.E. was one of the largest and most
tragic. Abused by the Roman locals, the Visigoths fought back at a battle at Adrianople (378
C.E.) that left an emperor dead and a mass of Visigoths on a destructive march through the heart
of the western empire that would see the sack of Rome itself (410 C.E.) and did not end until the
Visigoths settled in Spain in 418 C.E.
A. Changes within the Roman Empire
Power and the imperial capital shifted to the east with the Emperor Constantine’s move to
Constantinople in 323 C.E. Defense of the east was an easier matter because of geography and
wealth. The city of Rome stagnated and the Senate once again became a town council. The
aristocracy withdrew to their villas, bishops replaced bureaucrats, and Germanic commanders led
what remained of the western legions. By 476, the last Roman emperor was deposed without
ceremony. A pretense of imperial rule was kept, but real power was in the hands of independent
Germanic rulers.
B. The “Barbarian” West
The new Germanic rulers styled themselves as Roman governors and consuls; they even
maintained this flattering fiction in their correspondence with Constantinople. However, some of
these Germans practiced forms of Christianity different from those of the Roman church, they
held to their own traditions, and even maintained laws for themselves separate from Roman law.
Theodoric the Ostrogoth, who maintained Roman government, but acted as a Germanic king, is a
fine representative of this transitional world.
II. Steppelanders and Their Victims
Peoples of the steppe, such as the Huns, had a greater impact on China and India.
A. China
1. China’s more-defensible borders and greater ease in assimilating outsiders
made it more lasting than Rome. Its positive balance of trade with the West
helped, too. Its gravest weakness, as with Rome, was the problem of
succession in a monarchy. To counterbalance this, eunuchs were employed as
bureaucrats, but this merely created yet another faction.
2. Amidst the succession struggles of the third century C.E., the Han dynasty
collapsed and later vying dynasts called in barbarian armies for support. Soon
a variety of kingdoms and empires ruled by Turkic and Mongol overlords
appeared.
B. India
By the fifth century C.E. Hun invaders made their way south wiping out Bactria and Gandhara.
During the fourth century C.E. the ruler of Maghada had attempted to restore unity in the Indian
sub-continent, but the weak government established by Chandra Gupta really only made the
region ripe for conquest. Moreover, the corrupt regime and the low morale of a people living
under the harsh caste system only helped invaders. By 467 C.E. the empire was in rapid decline
and soon India was an array of independent states.
IIII. New Frontiers in Asia
New powers arose in place of the old empires.
A. Korea
While China disintegrated, neighboring Korguryo expanded in population, wealth, and
culture. In a similar fashion, the kingdoms of Silla and Paekche built royal tombs filled
with gold and luxury items, developed their iron trade, and became rich from abundant
agriculture. Silla followed the model of the Chinese state and Confucian teaching had a
great impact. By the mid-sixth century, Silla had unified the Korean peninsula.
B. Funan
In the Gulf of Thailand, Funan became rich from a burgeoning trade between India and China,
and it developed a culture that was much affected by India.
IV. The Rise of Ethiopia
A. Axum
Furthest to the west in the Indian Ocean network was Ethiopia with its capital in the highlands at
Axum. From here came rhino horn and hippo hides, ivory and obsidian, exotic animals and
slaves. Greek was used in inscriptions alongside the native language Ge’ez. Aside from trade, the
area was very fertile (2-3 crops per year) and is the likely origin point for coffee. By the 340s
Ethiopia had converted to Christianity, and by the early sixth century C.E. it conquered much of
the southern Arabian Peninsula.
V. The Crises of the Sixth and Seventh Centuries
Environmental crises brought on by the outbreak of massive pandemics and climatic changes
(that may have had volcanic eruptions in Sumatra behind them) weakened states across Eurasia
and perhaps in Mesoamerica. Plague also may have created an impetus for the invaders from the
steppe.
VI. Justinian and the Eastern Roman Empire
Now centered on the new capital of Constantinople, the eastern empire or Byzantines avoided
the Germanic invasions and even launched a reconquest of the west under the emperor Justinian
(527-565 C.E.). The policy ultimately failed and was extremely costly in human and financial
terms.
VII. The New Barbarians
In the aftermath of the bloody Byzantine campaigns in the west came the Lombards, who seized
much of northern Italy. New peoples arrived in Eastern Europe, such as the Bulgars and the
Slavs during the seventh to eighth centuries. In North Africa, Berber tribesmen terrorized the
Mediterranean coast and, by the eighth century, Scandinavians began to take to the sea as
Vikings.
VIII. The Arabs
The nomadic peoples of the Arabian Peninsula had developed a growing, artistically creative,
and militarily robust culture that would present the Byzantines and Sasanid Persians with their
greatest threat. Familiar with these empires through trade and raiding, the Arabs were also
familiar with the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism.
A. Islam
1. The prophet Muhammad (ca. 570-632 C.E.) preached a religion that had
elements in common with Judaism and Christianity (e.g., monotheism,
providence, compassion for the poor). It was also a powerful social and
political organization that promised paradise to those who died fighting in its
cause.
B. The Arabs against Persia and Rome
The Sasanians had inherited Persia from the Parthians in 226 C.E. and had lived in an uneasy
détente with their Roman neighbors until the early sixth century, when a series of violent wars
broke out that would last a century and exhaust the Byzantines, but nearly destroy the Sasanids.
With the rise of Islamic armies in 630, the Sasanid Empire quickly succumbed and the
Byzantine-ruled Levant and North Africa quickly fell.
IX. The Muslim World
1. A unified empire with an Arab elite and a Muslim faith was created for
awhile, but Muhammad’s vision had been for a smaller community and
Muslim clerics set out to define a new set of rules that Muslims would live by,
the Sharia. Christians, Jews, and even Zoroastrians were generally tolerated.
2. For Muslims, the secular and spiritual worlds were interconnected; after all,
Muhammad had been a political ruler as well as God’s prophet. Indeed, the
earliest split in Islam was over who was the rightful successor to Muhammad
(the caliph). Those who believed that the caliph had to come from Ali’s family
were Shi’a, others who did not share this were Sunni.
The Arab expansion was dramatic and, by the early eighth century, Arab armies spanned from
the Atlantic to the Indus and even into Central Asia.
X. Recovery and Its Limits in China
In China, the military commander Yang Jian succeeded in taking power in the north and then
successfully destroying his southern rivals to reunite China into the Sui dynasty in 581 C.E. His
rule was harsh and represented a return to strict Legalist doctrine in contempt of Confucian
principle; it was successful, though, in rebuilding a centralized state. His successor Yangdi
(r. 605-617) saw a return to Confucian values and the building of the Grand Canal, but his
dreams were too costly to be popular and he was overthrown in a revolt.
A. Rise of the Tang
1. Established after a period of civil strife, the Tang ushered in a period of peace,
stability, and expansion.
B. Empress Wu
1. From humble beginnings as a concubine, Wu Zhao rose to marry the heir to
the throne and managed to seize the throne for herself in 690 C.E. She was
supported by the Buddhist clergy in her rise to power.
C. Tang Decline
Expansion created frontiers that were difficult and costly to protect, especially against the
northern nomadic peoples. Military rebellions, such as that of An Lushan, broke out during the
middle of the eighth century and confirmed the cost of this policy. By the ninth century, imperial
power was only a reality in the Yangtze Valley.
XI. In the Shadow of Tang: Tibet and Japan
A. Tibet
1. During the fifth to sixth centuries C.E., improvements in agriculture led to a
rise in population and the beginnings of the Tibetan state. By the seventh
century, kings such as Songtsen Gampo appear to have wielded significant
power, and during the next 250 years Tibet expanded to incorporate
neighboring kingdoms in every direction. By the early ninth century, however,
the Tang decline also saw a situation in which Tibet was in decline as well.
B. Japan
Without the threat of steppe nomads, state-building in Japan was more secure. Chinese culture
and Buddhism began to spread from the fifth century C.E. through the dominant kingdom of
Yamato. By at least the seventh century, Japan saw itself in the same league as China. Women
during this period were acceptable as potential rulers, and often rulers abdicated in favor of their
successors, something that made transitions of power smoother.
XII. In Perspective: The Triumph of Barbarism?
The relative stability of empire in Mesoamerica stands in contrast to the history of Eurasia.
Peoples from the steppe overran much of Eurasia, but the cultures the empires had nurtured
outlasted the political structures from Rome to China. Moreover, new political states arose on the
peripheries of the old empires. New civilizations arose that were hybrids (e.g., Western = Rome,
Germanic heritage, and Christian; Islamic = biblical heritage via Muhammad, legacies of Greece,
Rome, and Persia, plus Arabic culture). This was a period of great transformations