Chapter 5: An Age of Empires: Rome and Han China 753 B.C.E.-600 C.E. AP World History

I. Rome’s Mediterranean Empire, 753 B.C.E.-600 C.E. A. A Republic of Farmers 753 B.C.E.-600 C.E. 1. 7 kings were overthrown in 507 B.C.E. by a senatorial class of large landholders. 2. Two Consuls and the Senate. 3. Family lived under control of the oldest living male, the paterfamilias. 4. Roman women’s legal status was that of a child. 5. Romans worshipped supernatural spirits and major gods such as Jupiter and Mars.

B. Expansion in Italy and the Mediterranean 1. Reasons include greed, aggressiveness, consuls wanting to prove themselves, and fear of being attacked. 2. First stage of expansion, Rome conquered Italy and won support by granting the people Roman citizenship. 3. Defeated Carthage during 264-202 B.C.E. 4. Defeated Hellenistic kingdoms during 200-30 B.C.E. 5. Between 59-51 B.C.E. Gaius Julius Caesar conquered the Celts of Gaul. 6. Romans used local elite groups to administer and tax the various provinces of their empire. 7. Governor served a one year term and this system was inadequate and prone to corruption.

C. Failure of Republic 1. While the farmers were forced to devote their time to military service, large landowners bought up their land to create great estates called latifundia. 2. Decline in food production because these landowners preferred to grow cash crops like grapes instead of wheat. 3. Peasants went to cities and formed the unemployed underclass. 4. Generals then began to build their armies with these lower class men who gave their loyalty to the commander, not the state.

D. The Roman Principate 1. Augustus took power in 31 B.C.E. and ruled as a military dictator. 2. Egypt, parts of the Middle East and Central Europe were added to the empire. 3. After Augustus died his family members ruled, but usually armies chose emperors. 4. Emperor became the major source of laws and Roman law became the foundation of European law.

E. An Urban Empire 1. Empire was administered through a network of cities and towns. 2. Upper class lived in elegant, well built, well-appointed houses while the poor lived in dark, dank, fire prone wooden tenements. 3. The local elite dominated town councils and used their wealth to construct amenities such as aqueducts, baths, theatres, gardens, temples, and other public works and entertainment projects. 4. Farms were worked by tenant farmers. 5. Manufacture and trade flourished under pax romana. 6. Romanization spread throughout the empire with the Latin language, Roman clothing, and the Roman lifestyle were adopted by local people and Roman emperors gradually extended Roman citizenship to all free male inhabitants of the empire.

F. The Rise of Christianity 1. Jesus was thought to be the Messiah, but was executed by Jewish authorities. 2. After his death Jesus’ disciples continued to spread his teachings to their fellow Jews. 3. Paul of Tarsus began to spread Christianity to Gentiles because they were more receptive and the Romans destroyed the original Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem because of a revolt. 4. Christianity grew slowly for two centuries, developing a hierarchy of priests and bishops. 5. This came at the time when Romans were dissatisfied with their traditional religion.

G. Byzantines and Germans 1. Roman rule and traditions died in the West, but they were preserved in the West by the Byzantine Empire and in its capital Constantinople. 2. Popes of Rome were independent of secular power, but the Byzantine emperor was appointed the patriarch of Constantinople and intervened in doctrinal disputes. 3. Byzantines did face foreign threats from Goths, Huns, and Sasanids.

II. The Origins of Imperial China, 221 B.C.E.-220 C.E. A. Hierarchy, Obedience, and Belief 1. Family was basic unit of society. Ancestors were routinely consulted, venerated, and appeased. 2. Women life depended on upon economic circumstances and their social status. 3. Family dominated by elder male.

B. The First Chinese Empire, 221-207 B.C.E. 1. The state of Qin became the first Chinese empire by adoption of severe Legalist methods and the ambition of the ruthless young kind Shi Huangdi. 2. Established a strong centralized state by eliminating rival centers of authority and creating a strong bureaucracy. 3. Sent large military forces to drive out nomads in the north. 4. Instituted an oppressive program of compulsory military and labor services. 5. Shi Huangdi was buried in a monumental tomb by a terracotta clay army of seven thousand soldiers. 6. His son gained the throne, but could not withstand uprisings of different groups and Qin rule was over by 206 B.C.E.

C. The Long Reign of the Han 206 B.C.E.-220 C.E. 1. Gaozu (Liu Bang) was a peasant who defeated all other contestants for control of China establishing the Han dynasty. 2. The Han reduced taxes and government spending and stored surplus grain for times of shortage. 3. Gaozu restored the system of feudal grants. 4. Confronted the nomads, but the Han realized the inadequacy of their troops and developed a policy of appeasement. 5. Went through a period of territorial expansion under Wu and he built his empire from North Korea to North Vietnam. 6. Built the foundations of the Silk Road, adopted Confucianism, and government control of high profit commodities. 7. Wu built up military to fight the northern nomads.

F. Decline of the Han Empire 1. The imperial court was plagued by weak leadership and court intrigue. 2. Nobles and merchants built up large landholdings at the expense of small farmers, and peasants sought tax relief, reducing revenues for the empire. 3. System of military conscription broke down and the government had to rely on mercenaries. 4. These factors combined with factionalism at court, official corruption, peasant uprising, and nomadic attacks led to the fall of the dynasty.

III. Comparative Perspectives A. Similarities 1. Received revenue from a percentage of the annual harvests. 2. Broke power of old aristocratic families by reducing their land holdings. 3. Both saw their authority eroding at the end of their reigns by the reversal of this process. 4. Encompassed widespread territories of diverse cultures. 5. Created a well trained bureaucracy and to make use of local officials to administer their interests. 6. Built roads to facilitate military movement that later became routes to spread commerce and culture. 7. Their domestic economies were undermined by their military expenditures 8. Both empires were overrun by new peoples who had been so deeply influenced by the imperial cultures of Rome and of China that they maintained some of that culture during their own reigns

B. Differences 1. The imperial model was revived and the territory of the Han empire reunified. The former Roman Empire was never again constituted. 2. Differences between China and the Roman world can be located in the concept of the individual, the greater degree of economic mobility for the middle classes in Rome than in Han China, the make-up and hierarchy of their armies, and the different political ideologies and religions of the two empires.