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An Age of Empires: Rome and Han China , 753 B.C.E. – 330 C.E. Rome’s Creation of a Mediterranean Empire, 753 B.C.E. – 330 C.E. A. A Republic of Farmers 1. Italy was a crossroads for the Mediterranean, and the city of Rome was a crossroads for Italy.
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An Age of Empires: Rome and Han China,753 B.C.E. – 330 C.E. • Rome’s Creation of a Mediterranean Empire, 753 B.C.E. – 330 C.E. A. A Republic of Farmers 1. Italy was a crossroads for the Mediterranean, and the city of Rome was a crossroads for Italy. 2. The Apennine mountain range runs along the length of Italy. 3. The mild climate affords a long growing season which are suitable for a wide variety of crops.
4. Rome was founded in 753 B.C.E. by Romulus, according to popular myth. 5. Archaeological evidence suggests that the earliest occupation may go back as early as 1000 B.C.E. 6. What we refer to as Ancient Rome consists of the Tiber River and seven hills. The oldest settled hill is called the Palatine Hill.
7. Agriculture was the essential economic activity in the early Roman state and land was the basis of wealth. 8. The vast majority of early Romans held a small plot of land while a few wealthy families acquired large tracts of land. 9. These wealthy families were members of the Senate, or “Council of Elders”, that played a dominant role in politics.
10. Between 753 B.C.E. to 507 B.C.E., there were seven kings of Rome starting with Romulus and ending with Tarquinius Superbus. 11. In 507 B.C.E. members of the senatorial class led by Brutus “the liberator” deposed of Tarquinius and instituted a res publica, a “public possession,” or republic. 12. The Roman republic, which lasted from 506 to 31 B.C.E., had many assemblies that male citizens were allowed to attend.
13. The real center of power resided in the Roman Senate. 14. The basic unit of Roman life was the family, which the oldest male was the unquestionable leader. 15. This was called the paterfamilias, or the oldest living male.
16. Roman society was very hierarchical with complex ties of obligation called the patron/client relationship. 17. The patron was a man of wealth and influence, while a client was a man who sought a patron’s help and protection. 18. Roman women were less constrained than their Greek counterparts. 19. The Romans were polytheistic and adopted the Greek’s view of spirituality.
B. Expansion in Italy and the Mediterranean 1. When Rome became a republic in 507 B.C.E., it was a relatively insignificant city-state. 2. Within several centuries, Rome was the center of a huge empire encompassing virtually all the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. 3. Rome’s conquest of Italy began due to the ongoing friction between pastoralists in the mountains and agriculturalist of the coastal plains.
4. Rome formed a league of central cities organized for defense against the hill tribes. 5. By 290 B.C.E., Rome had won three wars with the tribes of Samnium extending their “protection” over nearly the entire peninsula. 6. One key element of Roman success was their willingness to open Roman citizenship to all their conquered peoples.
7. Between 264 and 202 B.C.E., Rome fought two bloody wars against Carthage. This allowed Rome to emerge as the unchallenged master of the western Mediterranean. 8. Between 200 and 146 B.C.E., a series of wars pitted Rome against the Hellenistic kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean. Now Rome’s territorial acquisitions included the entire Mediterranean. 9. The conquests of the Celtic peoples of Gaul by general Gaius Julius Caesar between 59 and 51 B.C.E. extended the empire into the European heartland.
C. The Failure of the Republic 1. Two factors eventually bring down the Roman Republic: (1) Italian peasants were gone for extended periods of time due to constant warfare, and (2) most of the wealth that was generated from the conquests ended up in the hands of the elites. 2. These elites took the wealth and funneled it into purchasing more Italian land usually by taking it from the lands of the peasant who were away fighting wars. 3. Small farms were now replaced by latifundia or “broad estates”.
4. Originally, in order to be part of the Roman legion (units of 6,000 soldiers) you had to own property. 5. With the elites buying up all the property, this posed a problem. 6. Some generals solved this problem by allowing anyone into the army. This generally included poor and property less men. This poses a problem! 7. A series of ambitious individuals – Sulla, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian – commanded armies who primary loyalty was to their generals and not to the state.
8. Julius Caesar’s grandnephew Octavian eliminated all his rivals by 31 B.C.E. and refashions the Roman system of government. 9. Octavian was later renamed Augustus by the Senate and we sometimes refer to him as the first Roman Emperor. 10. Augustus rules for 45 years and adds the territories of Egypt, parts of the Middle East, and Central Europe into his empire.
11. Augustus was so popular that four members of his family succeeded him as emperor. 12. They are sometimes referred to as the bad-emperors: Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. 13. They were followed by the so-called good-emperors because they were mature men of proven ability.
D. An Urban Empire 1. The Roman Empire of the first three centuries C.E. was an “urban” empire. 2. The Roman upper class lived in elegant townhouses on one of the seven hills. 3. The Roman lower classes lived in crowded slums in the lower parts of the city.
4. Some attractive elements of Roman urban life included a forum (an open plaza that served as a civic center), government buildings, temples, gardens, baths, theaters, amphitheaters, and centers for public entertainments. 5. One source of prosperity for some urban dwellers was manufacture and trade. 6. Commerce was enhanced by the pax romana or “Roman peace”.
7. One of the most enduring consequences of the Roman empire was Romanization, the spread of the Latin language and Roman way of life. 8. The phenomenon was confined primarily to the western half of the empire. 9. The evolution of modern Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, and Romanian proves that not only did the elites take in the language of Rome but so did the common man.
The Origins of Imperial China, 221 B.C.E. – 220 C.E. A. Resources and Population 1. Due to the geographical position of China, the Chinese had a more difficult time controlling the area within its region. 2. The Chinese did not have the Mediterranean Sea to help facilitate travel over large distances.
3. Agricultural production was the primary source of wealth and taxes. 4. The next fundamental asset of the Chinese was its human labor force. 5. Between seasonal intervals, China required every able-bodied man to donate one month of labor a year to public works projects. 6. The vast majority of its population live in the eastern part of the empire with a population of about 60 million people by about 140 C.E.
B. Hierarchy, Obedience, and Belief 1. Like the Romans, the basic unit of Chinese society was the family. 2. The Chinese family unit not only included the living generations but also their ancestors. 3. The fundamental sources of values during the Han dynasty was the doctrine of Confucius.
4. Women in ancient China are hard to speculate on because not much was written about them. 5. What we do know is that women had their marriages arranged by their parents. 6. Chinese women could have a considerable amount of influence if they had the ability, the personality, and provided sons to her husband. 7. Many accounts write of the tensions between wives, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law competing for the influence of husbands, sons, and brothers.
C. The First Chinese Empire 1. Towards the end of the Zhou period, China deteriorated to a region of “Warring States” that competed for power. 2. By 221 B.C.E. Shi Huangdi – meaning “first emperor” – took the Qin state to Empire status by taking over those warring states one by one. 3. The Qin homeland was located in the Wei valley.
4. Shi Huangdi created a totalitarian state based on the needs of the state. 5. They rid the state of Confucianism because they regarded it as too nonviolent in regards to the actions of the ruler. 6. Instead, they adopted the Legalism approach which justified Huangdi’s absolute hold on power.
D. The Long Reign of the Han 1. The Qin dynasty was so oppressive that a series of rebellions broke out all over China. 2. When it was all over, a man named Liu Bang establishes a new dynasty he names the Han. 3. The Han rejects the excesses of the Qin dynasty and replaces the Legalist code with a revised version of Confucianism emphasizing the benevolence of the state.
4. The Han empire endured for more than 400 years from 202 B.C.E. to 220 C.E. 5. This time is generally split into two time periods: (1) Western Han with its capital at Chang’an, and (2) Eastern Han with its capital in Luoyang 6. The Han also held in the idea of the Mandate of Heaven allowing the people to see the emperor as a divine figure unlike the Romans.
7. A significant aspect of Chinese society during this time was the rise of the gentry class. 8. The gentry class in China was the class of individuals right below the aristocracy and they served as the chief bureaucrats within the state. 9. It was the intention of the Qin and Han dynasties to weaken the aristocratic class. 10. The rise of Daoism among the commoners was also quite characteristic of this time period.
