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Rome and Han Dynasties
Rome
 Economic
Activity – farming was the basis of
wealth
 Early Romans were self-sufficient; owned
small plots of land
 Wealthy families were part of the “Counsel of
Elders”
 Roman
Republic was not a democracy
 Only men could vote and wealthy men’s vote
counted more then a poor mans
 Center
of power is the Roman Senate
 Made policy and governed
 Nominated their sons for public office,
and filled vacancies with former officials
 Served for life
 Tied together states wealth, influence,
political influence, and military experience
 Conflicts
between the elites (patricians) and
non elites (plebeians)
 Plebeians withdraw from the city and stop
fighting to make the patricians pass a law
 EX: system of checks and balances
 Creation of the tribunes
Roman Family
 Oldest
male had control over his entire
family
 Patron
client relationship
 Women
had very little freedom.
 Inequality
in Rome was accepted and
turned into a system of mutual benefits and
obligations
Numina
 Roman
belief in an invisible, shapeless
force…pulsating energy of fire
 Polytheistic
Expansion of Rome
 Peaked
in the 3rd and 2nd centuries
 Possible
reasons greed, aggressiveness,
counsels who had a lot to prove in their one
year or service, or people wanted to gain
military glory
 Military
 Army
service
more flexible then the hoplites
 Romans
granted political, legal, and
economic privileges of Roman citizenship
to all conquered people
 Expansion
caused wars in Rome
 Carthage and Hellenistic Kingdoms
Failure of Rome
 Farmers
were in the military which allowed
investors to take possession of their farms
 The
self-sufficient farms (the backbone of
the Roman army) were replaced by
latifundia
 Owners
of the large estates turned the
farmland into grazing for animals and
vineyards
 Grain
had to be imported and peasants who
lost their farm couldn’t find work due to the
slaves
 Consequence
of the farmers losing their
land was a decreased in required military
service
 Armies
became loyal to their leader not
their country (Caesar, Pompey, Antony,)
Fixing Rome
 When

Caesar died, the republic collapsed
His grandnephew Octavian became
Emperor
 fixed government by maintaining the
offices, honors, and social prerogatives of
the senatorial class but changed their
power
 Now called Roman Principate
Octavian’s Rule
 He
accepted the title of Augustus or
“exalted one”
 was Rome’s most able ruler.
 Manipulated all groups of Roman society
 Added Egypt and parts of the Middle East
to his Empire
 When he died no one remembered the old
republic
Augustus did…
 Stabilized
 Built
the frontier
splendid buildings
 Created
a system of government that lasted
for centuries
 Set
up a civil service
An Urban Empire
 Numerous
towns had several hundred
inhabitants
 Rome’s
population was approximately 1
million people
 Upper
 Poor
class lived in elegant townhouses
lived in crowded slums
 Damp, dark, made of wood…many fires
 No
matter how people lived, the
government was the same in all areas of the
Empire
 Each
place were set up the same
 Taxes
were collected from a town council
and 2 annually elected officials from
prosperous families
 As
slaves became expensive and rare,
landowners started to allow people to live
on their land in exchange for a portion of
the crops
 Romanization
developed
Rise of Christianity
 Jesus
 Born
as a Jew in the town of Bethlehem
but was raised in Nazareth
 He was a carpenter
 At the age of 30, he started his own public
ministry
 His teachings included the belief of the 10
commandments and monotheism.
The Death of Jesus
 Crowds
of people believed Jesus was the Messiah
(anointed one) that would rescue the Jews.
 Roman
and Jewish leaders were concerned by the
popularity of Jesus
 They
God.
 Jesus
said that his teaching were a contempt of
was arrested for defying the authority of
Rome. He was crucified as a punishment
 Jesus
was buried, however 3 days after his
death, his body was gone and said to be
appearing to his followers
 Convinced
that he had somehow survived,
people began to spread his ideas
 After
a while, his followers created a new
religion based on his teachings
Paul the Apostle
 Originally
a Jew, Paul had a vision of Jesus
and then dedicated his life to interpreting
Jesus' teachings
 The
Pax Romana allowed Paul to spread
the word of Jesus easily.
 He
declared that Christianity should
welcome all converts
Persecution of the
Christians
 Roman
rulers were not happy with the
Christians because they refused to worship
Roman Gods.
 Christians
were killed because of this
Technology Transformed
Rome
 The
Romans were expert military and civil
engineers.
 Accomplishments: bridge-building,
ballistic weapons, elevated and
underground aqueducts, the use of arches
and domes, and the invention of concrete.
 Augustus
went from a offensive mind set to a
defensive one
 The
state system constructed by Augustus
worked well until Rome’s “third-century crisis.”
 Causes of the crisis were frequent change of
rulers, raids by German tribesmen from across
the Rhine-Danube frontier, and the rise of
regional power when Rome seemed unable to
guarantee security.
 The
economy of Rome collapsed
 Buying loyalty of the army
 Military emergencies
 Towns prosperity decreased
 Coins become worthless
 Population
shift from cities to country side
 Decline of trade
 Diocletian
saved Rome from self
destruction
 Stopped inflation
 Froze people in their profession and made
them train their sons
 People
began a black market and
questioned their loyalty to the government
Constantine
 Took
over after Diocletian
 Reunited
the kingdom
 Constantine
ended the persecution of
Christians and patronized the Christian
church
 This contributed to the rise of Christianity
as the official religion of the empire.
 Constantine
also transferred the capital of
the empire from Rome to the eastern city
of Byzantium, which he renamed
Constantinople.
Nova Roma
Imperial China
 Resources
 Agriculture
produced the money that
supported imperial China
 Paid for luxurious lifestyle of the royal
court, daily tasks of govt, and military
units.
 Large populations in Chang’an and
Luoyang
 Most
people lived in the eastern part of the
countryside where the river could support a
large population
 When
the population was not farming they
were working on public works project
 The
state also required 2 years of a military
service
 Unlike
Rome, China was not making a new
Empire. The Chinese were trying to revive
their empire
Major Chinese Dynasties
Since 2200 B.C.E.
Xia Dynasty 2100–1600 B.C.E
Shang Dynasty 1600–1046 B.C. E.
Zhou Dynasty 1045–256 B.C.E.
Qin Dynasty 221B.C.E. –206 C.E.
Han Dynasty 206 B.C.E. –220 C.E.
 By
500 B.C.E. China was in ruins
 This is unacceptable to the Chinese
 Shihuangdi (Qin Empire) united China
 Developed
a bureaucracy, subordinated the
aristocracy, equipped an army with Iron
weapons, rising agriculture output, a
growing population, and edveloped
Legalism
 Under
Shihuangdi China extended north into
Vietnam, NE into Korea, and to the NW
where the nomadic people were pushed out
of their steppes
 Shihuangdi
 Imposed
centralized the government
a unified system of weights,
measures, money, length of axels for carts,
and a written form of Chinese language
 Shihuangdi
made superficial changes and
the Qin empire ended in 206 B.C.E. and the
Han dynasty began.
Comparing Rome and Han
Empires

They both define themselves as universal
empires
 Both
invoked supernatural sanctions to
support their rule
 Both
absorbed a foreign religious tradition
 Both
had different relationships with the
societies they governed
 Language
served each empire in different
ways
 Both
had centralized government but the
Chinese had and elaborate bureaucracy that
held it together while Rome relied on
regional aristocrats and the army
The Fall of Rome and
China
 They
both were too big, cost too much
money, and were over extended to be
sustained by the available resources
 No technology to help them
 Growth of large landowning estates enabled
them to avoid paying taxes, turned free
peasants into tenant farmers and that
diminished the power of the central
government
 Rivalry
 Threat
among the rich created instability
for nomads on the frontier regions
 The
collapse of these empires meant the
decline of urban life, a contracting
population, less area under cultivation,
diminishing trade, insecurity for common
people
 When
China fell, after 350 they were
reunited by the Sui, Tang , and Song
Empires…centralized gov’t and all
 The
 No
Romans was never recentralized.
part of Western Europe was
 Most
of Europe became decentralized
political systems involving kings with little
authority,