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From The “Book Of Classical Wisdom”
On the Decline of the Roman Empire:
SELECTION A
Historians use the expression “third-century crisis” to refer to the period from 235 to 284 CE., in
which political, military, and economic problems beset and nearly destroyed the Roman Empire.
The most visible symptom of the crisis was the frequent change of rulers. It has been estimated
that twenty or more men claimed the office of emperor during this period. Most reigned for only
a few months or years before being overthrown by a rival or killed by their own troops.
Germanic tribesmen on the Rhine/Danube frontier took advantage of the frequent civil wars and
periods of anarchy to raid deep into the empire. For the first time in centuries, Roman cities
began to erect walls for protection. Several regions, feeling that the central government in
Rome was not adequately protecting them, turned power over to a man on the spot who
promised to put their interests first.
These political and military emergencies had a devastating impact on the empire’s economy.
The cost of paying large rewards to the troops to win their support and of subsidizing the
defense of the increasingly permeable frontiers drained the imperial treasury. In turn, the
unending demands of the central government for more tax revenues from the provinces, as well
as the interruption of commerce by fighting, eroded the towns’ prosperity. Shortsighted
emperors, desperate for cash, secretly cut back the amount of precious metal in Roman coins
and pocketed the excess. But the public quickly caught on, and the devalued coinage became
less and less acceptable as a medium for exchange. Indeed, the empire reverted to a barter
economy, a far less efficient system that further curtailed large-scale and long-distance
commerce.
The municipal aristocracy, once the most vital and public-spirited class in the empire, was
slowly crushed out of existence. As town councilors, its members were personally liable to make
up any shortfall in the tax revenues owed to the state. But the decline in trade eroded their
wealth, which often was based on manufacture and commerce. Many began to evade their civic
duties and even go into hiding.
There was an overall shift of population out of the cities and into the countryside. Many people
sought employment and protection—from raiders and from government officials—on the estates
of wealthy and powerful country landowners. In the shrinking of cities and the movement of the
population to the country estates, we can see the roots of the social and economic structures of
the European Middle Ages—a roughly seven-hundred-year period in which wealthy rural lords
dominated a peasant population tied to the land.
…government regulation of prices and vocations … had unforeseen consequences. One was the
creation of a “black market” among buyers and sellers who chose to ignore the government’s
price controls and establish their own prices for goods and services. Another was a growing
tendency among the inhabitants of the empire to consider the government an oppressive entity
that no longer deserved their loyalty.
From The “Book Of Classical Wisdom”
SELECTION B
On the decline of the Roman Empire:
…the quality of political and economic life in the Roman Empire began to shift after about 180
c.e. Political confusion produced a series of weak emperors and many disputes over succession
to the throne. Intervention by the army in the selection of emperors complicated political life and
contributed to the deterioration of rule from the top
More important in initiating the process of decline was a series of plagues that swept over the
empire. As in China, the plagues’ source was growing international trade, which brought diseases
endemic in southern Asia to new areas like the Mediterranean, where no resistance had been
established even to contagions such as the measles. The resulting diseases decimated the
population. The population of Rome decreased from a million people to 250,000. Economic life
worsened in consequence. Recruitment of troops became more difficult, so the empire was
increasingly reduced to hiring Germanic soldiers to guard its frontiers. The need to pay troops
added to the demands on the state’s budget, just as declining production cut into tax revenues.
Rome’s upper classes became steadily more pleasure-seeking, turning away from the political
devotion and economic vigor that had characterized the republic and early empire. Cultural life
decayed. Aside from some truly creative Christian writers—the fathers of Western theology—
there was very little sparkle to the art or literature of the later empire. Many Roman scholars
contented themselves with writing textbooks that rather mechanically summarized earlier
achievements in science, mathematics, and literary style. Writing textbooks is not, of course,
proof of absolute intellectual incompetence—at least, not in all cases— but the point was that
new knowledge or artistic styles were not being generated, and even the levels of previous
accomplishment began to slip. The later Romans wrote textbooks about rhetoric instead of
displaying rhetorical talent in actual political life. And they wrote simple compendiums, for
example, about animals or geometry, that barely captured the essentials of what earlier
intellectuals had known, and often added superstitious beliefs that previous generations would
have scorned.
This cultural decline, finally, was not clearly due to disease or economic collapse, for it began in
some ways before these larger problems surfaced. Something was happening to the Roman elite,
perhaps because of the deadening effect of authoritarian political rule, perhaps because of a new
interest in luxuries and sensual indulgence. Revealingly, the upper classes no longer produced
many offspring, for bearing and raising children seemed incompatible with a life of pleasureseeking.
Rome’s fall, in other words, can be blamed on large, impersonal forces that would have been
hard for any society to control or a moral and political decay that reflected growing corruption
among society’s leaders. Probably elements of both were involved. Thus, the plagues would have
weakened even a vigorous society, but they would not necessarily have produced an irreversible
downward spiral had not the morale of the ruling classes already been sapped by an
unproductive lifestyle and superficial values.
From The “Book Of Classical Wisdom”
On the Decline of the Han Empire:
SELECTION A
For the Han government, as for the Romans, maintaining the security of the frontiers
particularly the North and North West frontiers—was a primary concern. Yet, in the
end, the pressure of non-Chinese peoples raiding from across the frontier or moving
into the prosperous lands of the empire led to the decline of Han authority In general,
the Han Empire was able to consolidate its hold over lands occupied by sedentary
farming peoples, but nearby were nomadic tribes whose livelihood depended on their
horses and herds. The very different ways of life of farmers and herders gave rise to
suspicions and insulting stereotypes on both sides. The settled Chinese tended to think
of nomads as “barbarians—rough, uncivilized peoples—much as the inhabitants of the
Roman Empire looked down on the Germanic tribes living beyond their frontier.
…The nomads sought the food commodities and crafted goods produced by the farmers
and townsfolk, and the settled peoples depended on the nomads for horses and other
herd animals and products. Sometimes, however, contact took the form of raids on the
settled lands by nomad bands, which seized what they needed or wanted. Tough and
warlike because of the demands of their way of life, mounted nomads could strike
swiftly and just as swiftly disappear.
In the end, the cost of continuous military vigilance along the frontier imposed a
crushing burden on Han finances and worsened the economic troubles of later Han
times. And, despite the earnest efforts of Qin and Early Han emperors to reduce the
power and wealth of the aristocracy and to turn land over to a free peasantry, by the
end of the first century B.C.E. nobles and successful merchants again were beginning to
acquire control of huge tracts of land, and many peasants were seeking their protection
against the exactions of the imperial government. This trend became widespread in the
next two centuries. Strongmen largely independent of imperial control emerged, and
the central government was deprived of tax revenues and manpower. The system of
military conscription broke down, forcing the government to hire more and more
foreign soldiers and officers. These men were willing to serve for pay, but their loyalty
to the Han state was weak.
Several factors combined to weaken and eventually bring down the Han dynasty in 220
CE.: factional intrigues within the ruling clan, official corruption and inefficiency,
uprisings of desperate and hungry peasants, the spread of banditry unsuccessful reform
movements, attacks by nomadic groups on the northwest frontier, and the ambitions of
rural warlords. After 220 C.E. China entered a period of political fragmentation and
economic and cultural regression …
From The “Book Of Classical Wisdom”
On the Decline of the Han Empire:
SELECTION B
By about 100 C.E., the Han dynasty in China entered a serious decline. Confucian
intellectual activity gradually became less creative. Politically, the central government’s
control diminished, bureaucrats became more corrupt, and local landlords took up
much of the slack, ruling their neighborhoods according to their own wishes.
The free peasants, long heavily taxed, were burdened with new taxes and demands of
service by these same landlords. Many lost their farms and became day laborers on the
large estates. Some had to sell their children into service.
Social unrest increased, producing a great revolutionary effort led by Daoists in 184
G.E. Daoism now gained new appeal, shifting toward a popular religion and adding
healing practices and magic to earlier philosophical beliefs. The Daoist leaders, called
the Yellow Turbans, promised a golden age that was to be brought about by divine
magic. The Yellow Turbans attacked the weakness of the emperor but also the selfindulgence of the current bureaucracy. As many as 30,000 students demonstrated
against the decline of government morality. However, their protests failed, and Chinese
population growth and prosperity spiraled further downward. The imperial court was
mired in intrigue and civil war.
This dramatic decline … explained China’s inability to push back invasions from
borderland nomads, who finally overthrew the Han dynasty outright…growing political
ineffectiveness formed part of the decline. Another important factor was the spread of
devastating new epidemics, which may have killed up to half of the population. These
combined blows not only toppled the Han but led to almost three centuries of chaos...