Transcript Chapter 5: An Age of Empires: Rome and Han China 753 B.C.E.

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.