Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
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. Used by permission for Bridging World History, The Annenberg Foundation copyright © 2004 1 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. Used by permission for Bridging World History, The Annenberg Foundation copyright © 2004 2 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. Used by permission for Bridging World History, The Annenberg Foundation copyright © 2004 3 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 Used by permission for Bridging World History, The Annenberg Foundation copyright © 2004 4 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. Used by permission for Bridging World History, The Annenberg Foundation copyright © 2004 5 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, Used by permission for Bridging World History, The Annenberg Foundation copyright © 2004 6 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 Used by permission for Bridging World History, The Annenberg Foundation copyright © 2004 7 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. Used by permission for Bridging World History, The Annenberg Foundation copyright © 2004 8 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 Used by permission for Bridging World History, The Annenberg Foundation copyright © 2004 9 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 Used by permission for Bridging World History, The Annenberg Foundation copyright © 2004 10 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. Used by permission for Bridging World History, The Annenberg Foundation copyright © 2004 11