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READING 3
Candice Goucher, Charles LeGuin, and Linda Walton, “Ideas and Power:
Goddesses, God-Kings, and Sages,” in In the Balance: Themes in World History
(Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998), 162–74.
Abstract: This essay explores the rise of the imperial model from the fourth
century BCE to the fourth century CE, and its importance for ordering human
societies and belief systems in this period. Imperial societies from the
Mauryan to the Han to the Roman relied for their legitimacy on ideologies of
god-kings rather than on ideologies of humanism or rationalism. At the same
time, each empire also grew out of earlier traditions and integrated aspects of
earlier thought into their legitimizing ideologies.
The Hellenistic Empire: From the Mediterranean to the
Himalayas
Both a weakened Athens and its competitor city-state, Sparta, were among
the many Greek city-states that were overcome in the fourth century B.C.E. by
the rising power of Macedon, a region in the northernmost part of Greece.
Under Philip (r. 359–336 B.C.E.) and his son Alexander the Great (356–323
B.C.E.) Macedon was unified and gained control of the Greek world along
with much of West Asia and North Africa.
Alexander the Great
The Persian Achaemenid Empire was conquered by Alexander the Great,
whose Hellenistic (Greek-like) empire built directly on the experience of its
Persian predecessor. After his first victory over the Persians, he advanced
along the eastern Mediterranean seacoast and southward into North Africa,
where he was welcomed as pharaoh by the Egyptians, who were resentful of
Persian rule.
Alexandria
In 331 B.C.E., Alexander founded the city of Alexandria at a strategic location
with a good harbor that served both military and commercial purposes. City
temples were dedicated both to Greek gods and to the Egyptian goddess Isis,
reflecting Alexander’s policy of accommodating local religious beliefs along
with Greek ones. The population of the city likewise was mixed, consisting of
Greeks, Macedonians, and local people; in later times, as Alexandria grew to
be an important Mediterranean port, it attracted people from all over the
Mediterranean. Alexandria served as a model for other cities founded by
Alexander during the course of his conquests.
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The Oracle of Amon
During his stay in Egypt, Alexander also visited the oracle of the Egyptian
god Amon at Siwah, along the Libyan border. This oracle was known and
respected in the Greek world as a place of pilgrimage and homage to a god
regarded by the Greeks as a manifestation of the Greek Zeus. Alexander
consulted the oracle about his ancestry: Was he the son of a god, Zeus Amon?
The oracle supposedly confirmed Alexander’s belief that he was indeed the
son of Zeus Amon. Though the Greeks believed that the offspring of mortals
and divinities were human heroes, not gods, the Egyptians believed in the
divinity of their rulers, a notion to which Alexander easily adapted.
After completing his conquest of Persia and acquiring the riches of cities such
as Babylon and Persepolis, Alexander turned his armies toward India. In 326
B.C.E., he crossed the Indus River and pressed on until his army refused to go
farther. Following his return, in order to reconcile the Macedonians and
Persians under his rule, Alexander held a mass wedding for himself and
other high-ranking Macedonians. He had previously wed the daughter of the
defeated ruler of Bactria; now, according to the Macedonian tradition of royal
polygamy, he married both the daughter of the Persian king Darius and the
daughter of Darius’s predecessor.
The Post-Alexandrine Hellenistic World
After Alexander’s premature death, such centralized authority as he had been
able to maintain was replaced by a loose confederation of Greco-Asian states
administered by his generals and their successor dynasties. The postAlexandrine Hellenistic world was an empire only in the sense that it was
united by a common culture with varied political centers. By 301 B.C.E., a
relatively stable system had emerged: the Macedonian general Seleucus and his
successors gained control of Persia and its Central, South, and West Asian
(Iraqi and Syrian) possessions. After the Seleucids were overthrown around
250 B.C.E. by the Parthians, who in turn were replaced by the Sasanids (224 C.E.–
651 C.E.), the Iranian plateau and much of Mesopotamia were ruled for almost
900 years by these heirs of the Persian Achaemenid Empire.
Ptolemy, another Macedonian general, and his successors took Egypt,
Palestine, and Phoenicia. Others controlled Anatolia, Thrace, and the “home”
territories of Macedonia and Greece. These successor states dominated West
Asia for more than two centuries. They constituted a variant of Alexander’s
empire and illustrate a recurrent theme: the continuity of imperial ideals and
achievements following the disintegration of imperial power. While a
centralized imperial polity did not survive Alexander, many of his political
and cultural traditions did, giving rise to what has come to be called
Hellenistic civilization.
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Following his death, the remnants of Alexander’s empire shared a common
law, language, trade, and cosmology; and Alexander’s successors shared a
distinctive approach to the world. In all cases, rulers such as the Ptolemies in
Egypt or the Seleucids in Persia presented themselves as gods, just as
Alexander had in Egypt and elsewhere. As religion continued to be used to
support political authority and could be manipulated to sanction new rulers,
there was a rich blending of religious traditions; some cults, such as that of
Isis, spread throughout the Hellenistic world.
South Asia: The Mauryan and Gupta Empires
Influenced by, and almost precisely contemporary with, the Hellenistic
Empire created by Alexander, the Mauryan Empire was founded in South
Asia by Chandragupta Maurya (r. 324–301 B.C.E.). Reflecting the conditions of
the times, a statecraft manual called the Arthashastra, commonly attributed to
Kautilya, an adviser of the Mauryan founder, described a system of small
states and prescribed how the rulers of these states should act. The author of
the Arthashastra also provided a philosophical basis for the practice of politics.
Like his Chinese contemporary, Shang Yang, Kautilya emphasized both the
science of politics or statecraft, especially strategies designed to expand and
strengthen the king’s power, and the exploitation of material resources
necessary to support the consolidation of his rule.
Ashoka’s Empire and Buddhism
The Mauryan Empire reached its height during the reign of Ashoka (ca. 272–
232 B.C.E.), when Buddhism was adopted as the official religion. Although the
empire fragmented shortly after the death of Ashoka, an essential element
that contributed to the sustenance of imperial unity under the Mauryans was
the use of Buddhism as a universal religion joining disparate ethnic and
linguistic groups. Inscriptions of edicts issued by Ashoka during his reign are
the oldest extant written records of Indian history, and they illustrate the use
of Buddhism as a sanction for rule. They also show the influence of the
Hellenistic states and the contact between northern India and the
Mediterranean that was established by the successors of Alexander.
Ashoka as a Chakravartin Ruler
In these inscriptions, Ashoka is called “Beloved of the Gods”; he is described
as regretting the death and destruction that accompanied his conquests and
looking on to the next life rather than taking pleasure in the power and
luxury of his role as king. Unlike his grandfather, Chandragupta Maurya,
who had renounced his throne to become a Jain monk, Ashoka established
legitimacy for his rule over many different peoples on the Indian
subcontinent by claiming to be the first true chakravartin (“he for whom the
wheel of the law turns”), or universal monarch.
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The Guptas and Hinduism
Waves of Greek and other Indo-European invaders into northwestern India
brought about the fragmentation of the Mauryan Empire, but the model of the
Hellenistic Empire continued to exercise an influence on the Indian
subcontinent for later rulers, such as the Kushana, a nomadic people
commanding a large steppe empire in southwestern Asia and northwestern
India during the first centuries C.E. After the disintegration of the Kushan
Empire, the Guptas (ca. 320–500 C.E.) succeeded in uniting northern India. The
Ganges city of Pataliputra (see Chapter 3) was the Gupta capital, serving as a
center of the monumental architecture and literary culture that flourished
under the Guptas. The Mauryan and Gupta Empires were brief intervals of
unity on the Indian subcontinent, which tended to fragment into smaller
states that were then periodically fused together in a fragile, temporary union.
Religious Sanctions for Rule
In India, Buddhism was sometimes used to support the rule of kings such as
Ashoka, but Hinduism provided a much more powerful and common sanction
for both the rule of kings and the order of society through its justification of the
caste system. Under the Guptas, although they were Hindus and therefore
supporters of the Brahman establishment, religious tolerance was practiced and
Buddhists were allowed their own religious beliefs.
Within the Hindu tradition, it was only toward the end of the Gupta period
that the ideal of shakti, the female power that pervades the universe, began to
be expressed in the form of goddesses who served as powerful consorts to
gods and eventually of an independent goddess with supreme cosmic power.
This change had a profound influence on the nature of Hinduism and on its
expression in art, though not on the position of women in Hindu society,
where they remained subordinate to men.
East Asia: The Chinese Empire
Contemporary with the Mauryan Empire in South Asia and the Hellenistic
Empire of Alexander the Great in West Asia, the Chinese Empire was created
in East Asia. In the mid-third century B.C.E., the northwest state of Qin
(pronounced “chin”) established its dominance over other states and molded
these previously independent political units into a centralized administrative
structure under the rule of an emperor (huangdi).
The Qin State and the Unification of China
Qin Shihuangdi (r. 221–210 B.C.E.), the “first emperor of Qin,” took the title of
emperor for the first time and ruled through a central government that
included civil, military, and censorial branches. The function of the censorial
branch, a distinctive characteristic of the Chinese bureaucracy, was ensuring
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the compliance of government officials in carrying out imperial commands by
acting as an intelligence network that reported to the emperor. The censorate,
along with the other two branches of the tripartite structure of imperial
administration, was adopted by succeeding dynasties. Similarly, the
administrative system that divided the empire into military commands, each
of which in turn was subdivided into counties, was used as the basic
structure of imperial rule well into the twentieth century.
The Qin state acquired power over other states by gaining control of
agricultural resources in the Wei River Valley, west of the sharp bend in the
Yellow River as it flows eastward out of the loess (loam or clay) highlands in
the northwest on its way to the sea. This economic base, along with the creation
of a powerful military and a tightly organized state structure, led Qin to
conquer other states contending for power in the Warring States era (ca. 480–
250 B.C.E.).
Legalism and the Qin State
The Qin state’s triumph over its adversaries was directly related to the
political philosophy known as Legalism. Legalism was adopted by the Qin
state as the ideological apparatus of rule, and other ideas, most significantly
Confucian ones, were banned as their proponents were executed or banished
and their works were condemned and destroyed. In the states brought under
Qin control, imperial officials imposed centralized controls such as
standardization of weights, measures, and currencies. The adoption of a
formal legal code and the unification of various written scripts into one made
possible the relatively uniform implementation of government legislation
over a wide geographical area that included vastly different cultural and
linguistic regions.
The Qin unification also marks the birth of a distinct Chinese cultural zone
that began to exert an influence over East Asia. The Western term “China” is
derived from “Qin,” and the geographical definition of China was
symbolized by the incorporation of various defensive barriers built by earlier
states into the Great Wall during the Qin. The Great Wall divided the area of
Chinese culture—ideological, material, and political—from that of the largely
nomadic or pastoral peoples to the north, who were regarded as “barbarians”
beyond the bounds of civilization.
The Han Dynasty
The Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.) followed the fall of the short-lived Qin.
In contrast to “Qin,” which is identified with the geographical territory of
China, “Han” is used to refer to the Chinese people and their culture. The
Han Empire was built on the foundations laid by the Qin, but the Han
founders rode to power on a tide of rebellion against the tyranny of the Qin.
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The formal rejection by the Han founder of the Legalist ideas associated with
Qin rule and the adoption of Confucian ones as the legitimizing ideology of
the Han state during the reign of Emperor Wu (r. 141–87 B.C.E.) obscured the
reality of the Legalism-inspired institutions that formed the basis of imperial
rule.
In the manner of the Qin, the Han emperors ruled through a tripartite
structure of authority at the center and sometimes selected and appointed
officials on the basis of merit or ability, rather than aristocratic privilege. The
Mandate of Heaven, in Han Confucian thinking, related the authority of the
ruler to his ability to carry out the fundamental responsibility to maintain
harmony and order in human society.
Han Confucianism
Han Confucianism blended elements of Daoism and other cosmological ideas
together with the classical Confucian concepts of hierarchy and harmony in
the human social order. Human society and the natural world were
understood to be part of an organic whole, intimately interrelated in such a
way that changes in and patterns of human society resonated in nature and
vice versa. Correspondences and correlations between the human and natural
worlds were systematically detailed in intellectual patterns we can call
“correlative thinking,” such as correlating colors with dynasties or the four
cardinal directions with animals. Imperial misrule, it was believed, would be
manifested in nature by negative signs, such as solar eclipses or earthquakes.
In contrast, benevolent and correct government could resonate in nature as a
supernova or a comet.
Popular Beliefs in Han China
Apart from the imperial religion of Han Confucianism, many deity cults
flourished. Prominent among such deities was the Queen Mother of the West,
a Daoist deity who was part of the emerging Daoist pantheon. Distant from
the philosophical precepts of early Daoist texts such as the Daodejing,
practitioners of popular or religious Daoism performed rituals to seek good
fortune from deities, practiced alchemy (attempts to turn one element into
another), and sought ways of achieving immortality through potions or
physical practices.
Rebellion against Han Rule
Ironically, the ideology of the Mandate of Heaven that legitimized and helped
to sustain Han imperial rule also provided sanction to rebel leaders calling for
the overthrow of the dynasty. Even in the early Han, the Confucian
philosopher Dong Zhongshu (ca. 179–104 B.C.E.) pointed out to Emperor Wu
the hardships of the peasantry in the face of wealth and extravagance among
the aristocracy. According to Dong, because the rich had such large estates,
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the poor were “left without enough land to stick an awl into” and “reduced to
eating the food of dogs and swine.”
By the latter Han, such conditions led many peasants to join a messianic
(promising deliverance or salvation) religion called the “Way of Great Peace,”
a combination of popular beliefs and religious Daoism. Donning yellow
scarves and calling themselves “Yellow Turbans,” the members of this group
adopted the color yellow as a symbol of their overthrowing the color white,
associated with the Han. Such ideas were part of the correlative thinking of
Han Confucianism, in which five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water)
replaced one another in a cyclical pattern. Each element was correlated with a
color, such as earth with yellow.
The Han dynasty fell in the mid-third century C.E., prey to foreign invasions
from beyond the Great Wall but also undermined from within by social,
political, and economic discord. The pressure of domestic unrest coupled
with the challenge of foreign invasion became a theme in the undulations of
the dynastic cycle that was used to explain the transfer of the Mandate of
Heaven, which would be restored three centuries later.
The Mediterranean and Europe: The Roman Empire
A century before the Qin state created the first Chinese empire (221 B.C.E.), the
vast Hellenistic Empire of Alexander the Great broke apart into a number of
successor states ruled by some of his generals and supporters, such as the
Parthian Empire in Iran (ca. 250 B.C.E.–250 C.E.). By the second century B.C.E.,
these successor states found themselves faced with a challenge from the West.
That challenge was Rome.
The Founding and Expansion of Rome
The legendary founding data for the city-state of Rome is 753 B.C.E. Early on,
the Latin peoples who settled on the banks of the Tiber River in central Italy
began an expansion which would create, by the first century C.E., a vast
empire encompassing large parts of Europe, West Asia, and North Africa.
Already by the sixth century B.C.E., their expansion brought them into contact
with neighboring peoples on the Italian peninsula such as the Etruscans and
the Greeks. The Romans were quick to acculturate, to accept new influences
and ideas from peoples with whom they came into contact. For example,
Roman religion was greatly modified by Greek influences.
Roman Religion
Early Roman religion was an animistic cult of personified spirits or numina,
ranged in a hierarchy of good and evil. Religious rites were connected with
the family, with attempts to secure protection from numina for domestic life
and livelihood, and each family had its protective spirit, or genius, who
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inhabited the home. In each home there were sacred spots: for example, in the
hearth dwelt Vesta, the spirit of fire; in the storeroom dwelt a guardian spirit.
Rites to keep good spirits in the home and evil ones away were plentiful. The
practice of throwing spilled salt over the left shoulder, for example, which
many people still do today to ward off bad luck, originated in such early
Roman rites.
Roman Gods and Greek Influence
By the third century B.C.E., even before they expanded eastward into Greece
and West Asia, the Romans incorporated into their practical agricultural
animism many anthropomorphic deities they appropriated from the Greeks.
The process was to continue as Rome became an empire. The newer gods
were generally communal rather than familial, worshiped publicly rather
than privately in the home, and their organization and ritual practices were
controlled by the state.
By the time Rome expanded beyond Italy, cults centering around Apollo and
Hercules and the great mother goddess, Cybele, had taken root in Rome.
Great temples were built to public deities such as Jupiter and Juno, the
Roman name for the Greek Zeus and Hera, his wife; to Mars (the Greek
Aries), god of war; and to Neptune (the Greek Poseidon), god of the sea.
Along with the newer deities, the early Roman numina remained important
but took anthropomorphic form: Vesta, the spirit of fire, became identified
with Rome itself, and priestesses known as vestal virgins were responsible for
maintaining and protecting her sacred flame.
The Hellenistic influences on Rome were accelerated as the Romans
expanded eastward to impose their control over the post-Alexandrine eastern
Mediterranean and North African coastline; at the same time, Rome extended
its sway into northern and western Europe. Roman expansion beyond the
Italian peninsula began with three Punic Wars (between 264 and 146 B.C.E.)
with the North African state of Carthage, Rome’s major competitor for power
in the western Mediterranean. Carthage was defeated, and its territories
became the Roman province of Africa.
At the beginning of the second century B.C.E., the Romans turned to Greece and
then to the successor states of Alexander’s empire in West Asia and Egypt. By
the middle of the first century B.C.E., Roman armies had also conquered much
of western Europe south of the Rhine and Danube Rivers, along with England.
Military campaigns under the leaderships of generals such as Julius Caesar
(100–44 B.C.E.) and his nephew Augustus (63 B.C.E.–14 C.E.) created a Roman
empire that stretched from Spain to Syria and from Britain to North Africa.
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The Transformation of Rome: From Republic to Empire
The expansion of Roman territory created political and social tensions.
Having expelled its last king in 509 B.C.E., Rome became a republic in which
decisions were nominally made by assemblies of citizens. But the Roman
republic was, like Athens, neither egalitarian nor democratic. Property
ownership and gender were both criteria for participation in government.
During the Punic Wars, the freedom of even upper-class Roman women, who
had previously been allowed to attend public ceremonies and to move about
openly in the city, was curtailed. The divisions between the poor and the
well-to-do became increasingly aggravated rather than ameliorated by
Roman expansion, and by the first century B.C.E. conflict between rich and
poor was a major problem in Rome, as it had been in Han China.
Rule by Oligarchy
The dominant authority of the Roman republic was the Senate, the male
members of which came from wealthy and powerful families. As long as the
power of the Senate was unchallenged, Roman rule may be described as an
oligarchy, a group of leaders, much as Athens and other Greek city-states
were at one time. From the late second century B.C.E., oligarchical control in
Rome was challenged by popular discontent. Power eventually fell into the
hands of a succession of military leaders, culminating in the dictatorship of
Julius Caesar (r. 49–44 B.C.E.) and the transformation of the Roman republic
into the Roman Empire by his nephew Octavian, who ruled as Emperor
Augustus Caesar (r. 31 B.C.E.–14 C.E.).
Augustus Caesar
Augustus based the bureaucratic structures of his empire on the models of
the Roman Republic and the Hellenistic states that succeeded the empire of
Alexander the Great. For the European portions of the Roman Empire,
Augustus shaped to his purposes institutions such as the Senate. Similarly, he
modified and used the administrative personnel and practices of the
Hellenistic successor states, such as Ptolemaic Egypt, in the eastern portions
of the empire, at least until he found it necessary to annex and rule these
areas directly. By employing a common language (Latin), common law, and
common ideology, Augustus created a loyal and efficient bureaucracy
throughout the vast reaches of the Roman Empire and thereby “Romanized”
the empire.
The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor
Asia Minor (modern Turkey), previously under the domination of Persia,
Athens, and the Hellenistic Empire of Alexander and his successors, provides
an example of how Augustus used ideology to support imperial control.
Under Roman rule, this network of Greek-speaking city-states and Hellenistic
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kingdoms was divided into several provinces, each administered by a
governor who was appointed by Rome. But Roman rule was necessarily
superficial, and the peoples of Asia Minor continued to identify primarily
with their cities.
Emperor-venerating rituals formed the basis of an imperial cult, which took
shape during the reign of Augustus. The imperial cult became an important
means of establishing Roman authority in a region long familiar with such
ritual practices. Residents of cities in Asia Minor had little difficulty
accommodating the Roman imperial cult to local traditions venerating other
deities. The imperial cult coexisted with other earlier, indigenous religious
cults, such as that of the great mother goddess Cybele, who was possessed of
the same sort of life-giving, creative powers associated with the Neolithic
fertility goddesses.
Roman Law
The imperial cult was but one of the things that held the government of the
early empire together. The Roman Empire rested equally on the military
power that had enabled the Romans to conquer vast territories; on an
imperial bureaucracy concerned with the collection of taxes and application
of laws; and on a common system of courts and laws. Roman law reached a
high stage of development during the first through third centuries C.E.
Augustus extended its jurisdiction beyond Rome and beyond Italy by means
of judicial opinions that took on legal authority. These opinions were of three
sorts, which together made up the body of imperial law: (1) jus civile, the law
of Rome and its citizens; (2) jus gentium, the law of peoples other than
Romans, regardless of nationality; and (3) jus naturale, natural law, the sense
of justice and right embodied in the order of nature. This system, a composite
of Roman legal ideas and practices, those of other peoples in the empire, and
abstract legal principles, transformed the legal tradition of the republican
city-state of Rome to serve the needs of the Roman Empire.
Diocletian and the Dominate
Beginning about 180 C.E. and lasting a century, Rome was gripped by a period
of internal dissent and external pressures resulting from economic instability,
continuing social tension between the wealthy and the poor, and problems
with imperial succession resulting in a series of emperors who were
incompetent to cope with pressing problems. When Diocletian (r. 285–305 C.E.)
came to the throne, he attempted to restore and reinvigorate the empire by
creating what is known as the Dominate.
Diocletian ended the Senate, whose role had become nominal only, and ruled
with the support of the army that had placed him in power. By such means
he succeeded in establishing hierarchical control over both military and civil
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administrations. He split the administration of the empire into eastern and
western halves with the dividing line at the Adriatic Sea. Each half of the
empire was further subdivided into prefectures, dioceses, and provinces. At
the bottom of the structure were the municipia, or local units. The governing
officials were civilian and were mainly responsible for judicial and
administrative functions. This political structure was part of the lasting
heritage of the Roman Empire.
Roman Emperor-Gods
An intensified association of the rituals of the imperial cult with imperial
power was characteristic of Diocletian’s rule. Augustus had allowed temples
to be built to “Rome and the emperor” and sacrifices to be made to the
genius, or spirit, of the emperor; some emperors, such as the possibly insane
Caligula (r. 41–37 B.C.E.), had insisted on being worshiped in their own right.
But it was customary for emperors to be deified only after their deaths until
Diocletian assumed the role of emperor-god during his lifetime and thus
brought Roman practices into conformity with those of the West Asian
theocracies conquered by Rome.
Neither Diocletian’s innovations nor the vigorous efforts of his successor,
Constantine (see Chapter 5), were able to defer the fate of the Roman Empire.
In the year 476, the Visigoths, a Germanic people, invaded Italy and sacked
Rome, an event that is generally taken to signal the end of the Roman Empire
in western Europe.
Summary
After the demise of Alexander and his empire in West Asia, the imperial
tradition was extended by his successors in various forms throughout West,
Central, and South Asia, as well as North Africa. While they drew on the
legacy of Alexander to sanction their rule, they also made use of local beliefs
to reinforce their power, just as Roman emperors did in the imperial cult. In
South Asia, Hellenistic influence provided a powerful model for the Mauryan
and Gupta Empires, whose rulers were also god-kings, manifestations of
cosmic order associated with either Buddhism or Hinduism. No less than
Egyptian pharaohs, whose role was to maintain cosmic order, or maat, and
Chinese emperors, who claimed the Mandate of Heaven to order the world,
the Mauryan ruler Ashoka relied on a Buddhist sanction to rule, taking the
title of chakravartin, “he for whom the wheel of the [Buddhist] law turns,” to
reflect his central role in promoting dharma, the law of the universe.
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