Transcript Rome and Han China PowerPoint

Classical Empires 3 and 4
Rome and Han China
753 B.C.E to 600 C.E.
Trading Partners
• Rome and the Han Chinese come to control such
large territories that they were able to connect
with each other to establish trading networks
that conencted the enrire Eastern Hemisphere
• Although, they wer only dimly aware of each
other
• They were both able to centralize control to a
greater degree than earlier empires
• Remarkably stable, and lasted for centuries
Rome
• Great location, both within the Italian Peninsula,
and within the Mediterranean
• Rome’s 7 hills and the Tiber River provided some
protection of the site of the city
• Mountains and mostly navigable rivers
• Mild climate, and a wide variety of conditions for
growing crops
• Forests and metals
• 75% of the peninsula is hilly, but still areas for
crops
A Republic of Farmers
• 507-31 B.C.E.
• 7 hilltop communities united and drained a
central swamp—which became the Roman Forum
• Status traced to land ownership and the running
of successful farms. A small number of families
came to control large tracts of land
• The heads of these families formed the Roman
Senate.
• According to legend 7 kings, then in 507 B.C.E.
Rome comes to be run by the Senate
Not a Democracy
• An assembly or male citizens where votes of the
wealthy counted more than poorer citizens. Out of the
assembly office holders were chosen every year.
• 2 Consuls who presided over the Senate and Assembly
and led military campaigns chosen annually
• But the real power lay in the Senate. An advisory
council, but they made policy
• Their sons became assembly office holders
• Men served for life in the Senate
• Vacancies filled from former officials (sons) or men
who were able to acquire power and the approval of
the wealthy, powerful and influential
Patricians v Plebeians
• Periodic conflict in Rome between the elite and
the majority of the population
• Plebeians strike and refuse to work or fight to
pressure for political concessions
• One check on Patrician power were “written in
stone” laws
• And the creation of Tribunes, drawn from the
Plebeians, who could veto the actions of the
Assembly
• Although elites found ways to bring Tribunes into
the Assembly—most Tribunes could be bought
The Family
• Many generations living in the together with
domestic slaves
• The oldest living male, the paterfamilias,
exercised absolute control over marriage, and
even the lives of infants
• Women had very limited freedom, the higher the
class the less likely to be allowed freedom even to
move around outside of the home, the legal
rights of a child, unable to own property
• Although some upper class women did wield
considerable power through influence
Patron/Client
• A wealthy and powerful patron provided legal
advice, physical protection, loans and
representation to a client in return for their
labor on his land, or their support in battle, or
their own political support
• The wealthy and powerful surrounded by
retinues of their supports throughout the day
• Inequality accepted, turned into a system of
mutual benefits and obligations
Deities
• Of fire, of springs, the surrounding
countryside
• Large gods
• Sacrifices performed to win or maintain the
gods favor
• Adopted the Greek gods, with Roman names,
and their myths
Expansion
• 500 B.C.E., relatively unimportant
• A way to gain power or maintain power at
home, Consuls often pursued policies of
military expansion
• Continuously sought to provide buffers to
protect the outposts of conquered territories
• All males who owned land were expected to
serve, to provide body armor, shields, spears
and swords
Roman Armies
• Famous for their discipline, and flexible and
maneuverable ranks
• Formed alliances with the other cities of the
Italian Peninsula to defeat some, then those
alliances became protection, then control
• Granted citizenship to those conquered, and
extended legal, political and economic privileges
• And insisted that the conquered provide soldiers
for the army—creating an inexhaustible supply
Punic Wars
• Long wars against the Carthaginians,
descendants of the seafaring trading people,
the Phoenicians—264-202 B.C.E.
• End with Roman victory, and the acquisition of
its first non-Italian provinces—Spain, Sicily and
Sardinia
• Control of the Western Mediterranean
Control of the Eastern Mediterranean
• Hellenistic Kingdoms
• Tried alliances, but Romans did not feel they
were given sufficient deference
• Then direct control
Troubles With Administration
• Officials replaced annually, usually a Senator
• Responsible for collecting taxes and providing
protection to the province
• Little time to gain information with local
populations
• Some honest, but many gained great wealth
from the local populations
• Using the same administration as when Rome
was a little city-state
The End of the Republic
• Great wealth generated by Rome’s conquests which
ended up in the hands of the already wealthy and
powerful
• Small farms replaced by latifundia, large estates owned
by the wealthy and powerful
• Raised crops for profit, Rome comes to depend on
expensive imported wheat
• Landless headed for the cities, where they became
poor and hungry or remained in the countryside where
they became laborers with restricted rights
• Will play a part in the political instability of the late
Republic
Gaius Marius
157-86 B.C.E.
• From a client family, “a new man,” but talented, rose
through the ranks to Tribune, then Consul and General
• Took landless poor into the legions, prior to this you had to
own land
• Promised farms at the end of their service
• Devoted, of course to Marius, and helped in his election to
Consul
• And this begins ambitious individuals who commanded
armies loyal more to them, than to Rome 88-31 B.C.E. Sulla,
Pompey, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and then Octavian aka
Caesar Augustus
• The city of Rome conquered over and over, opponents
executed by the victors
Caesar Augustus
63 B.C.E. to 14 C.E.
• Julius Caesar’s nephew and heir eliminated all rivals and
refashioned Rome’s governance
• The Principate
• He maintained the offices, honors and privileges of Rome’s elites
but took all of the power
• Claimed he was “first among equals”
• Manipulated all segments of Roman society, not terribly clear to his
contemporaries that he had consolidated power
• Ruled 45 years
• Conquered Egypt, parts of the Middle East, parts of Central Europe
• Allied himself with the merchants and landowners of wealth, but
not of the Senate social class
• Chose from them a new, paid, civil service to run the Empire
• They were more honest, more efficient
Emperor not really hereditary
• 4 members of his family followed as emperor, but
never really seen as a hereditary position
• After mid-first century other families had members
who were emperors
• In theory, confirmed by the Senate
• In fact, chosen by the armies
• New mechanism of the second century becomes the
emperor adopts a son chosen for his competence
• Also, they sometimes insist on being seen as gods and
objects of cults of devotion, to enlist the support of the
people
Roman Law
• Laws passed during the Republic
• A profession developed whose task was to analyze the
laws and determine the underlying principles
• To apply those principles to new and evolving
conditions
• Legal experts, sometimes consulted by officials or
those needing something from the law
• During the Principate new laws were codified and
studied and interpreted
• Judges came to have the right of Judicial Review, to
overturn, or ignore, an “unjust” law
An Urban Empire
• 80% still lived in the countryside and worked as
agricultural laborers
• But administration came through the towns and cities
• Numerous towns had thousands of inhabitants, a few
had hundreds of thousands of inhabitants
• The Roman elites lived in elegant townhouses in the
hills built around atria, and owned villas in the
countryside
• The poor lived in low-lying slums
• The reversal of concentration of wealth in the hands of
few instituted by Marius, was reversed during the
Principate
Pax Romana
• Almost 2 centuries of great peace and trade,
and the wealth trade brought for some 0-200
• Commerce greatly enhanced by the peace and
stability guaranteed by Roman armies
• Wealth generated by glass, metalwork,
pottery and other finely crafted materials
• Taxes collected, funneled through Rome, then
paid as wages to the armies of the frontier,
where border areas were made prosperous
Christianity
• During this period of peace and prosperity, Jesus
born and develops a following
• Perhaps in response to the deep unhappiness of
the Jewish people of Judea to the Roman
conquest in 6 C.E.
• And their perennial Jewish concerns about
conquest and the need for reforms
• Spread of his teachings after his death from some
segments of the Jewish community to the diverse
world of the Eastern Roman Empire
Paul of Tarsus
• A Jew from Tarsus, in present day Turkey, who converts and travels
throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, makes it his business to
spread Christianity to the non-Jewish population, between 45-58
C.E.
• Let’s go of many aspects of traditional Jewish practice
• Revolts in Judea 66-73, end in an absolute destruction of Jerusalem
and the scattering of the Jewish people
• And the end of this destruction, the once Jewish, Christian
community of Jerusalem, replaced by non-Jewish Christians
• Slow, but steady, growth of Christianity in the Roman Empire
• First converts tended to be woman, slaves the urban poor
• Very slowly, a hierarchy develops with bitter ideological divides
Technology and Transformation
• The Romans enforced safety on their roads
and on the sea lanes that criss cross the
Mediterranean
• And build toads to support trade
• They knew good transportation made trade
possible, which made the empire rich
• Also, they took the supply of water seriously
to their cities—knowing it was necessary for
the health of the cities
Third Century Crisis
• 235 to 284
• 20 emperors, only one died of natural causes
• With the political instability, Rome struggled to defend
itself, especially to the north
• Much of Rome’s Empire was protected by mountains,
deserts, seas…but the Danube river was an uneasy
border
• Germanic people begin to raid south of the border
• For the first time in centuries, Roman cities begin to
build walls around their cities
More Trouble
• Conflicts created trouble for trade, lessening
taxes
• Armies came to demand cash in return for loyalty
• Corruption led to hoarding and stealing taxes
rather than using to run the empire
• Barter increasingly became the means to run the
economy—fewer taxes collected
• Populations increasing shifted to the countryside
• Landless poor worked for food and protection
• This marks the beginning of the middle ages
Diocletian
• Becomes emperor in 284, a commoner who
rose through the ranks of the army
• Set price controls, insisted that people in
professions trained their sons to take their
place
• Which led to people believing the government
was the enemy
• Conflict again after his death
Constantine
• First Christian emperor rules 312-337
• Issues the Edict of Milan ending the persecution of
Christians and guaranteeing freedom of religion to
Christians, and others
• In 324 he moved the capital to Byzantium, named it
Constantinople
• Away from the increasing chaotic western portion of the
empire
• Rome will be overrun and sacked at least twice, once in
409, once in 476. The last Roman Emperor in the west
abdicates in 476
• But the Eastern half continues for almost a thousand years,
in various forms—1453 Ottomans
Shi Huangdi
• Period of Warring States at the end of the Zhou Dynasty
(1045-221 B.C.E.)
• The State of Qin began to consolidate, then take over the
neighbors
• Put into effect strict Legalist policies
• Eliminated rival centers of power
• Eliminated primogeniture to split up big estates and
diminish the power of some families
• Officials watched carefully to discourage corruption
• A code of law, a single system of coinage, axle lengths for
carts, standardized writing, weights and measures
• Book-burning
The Border
• Extended by Shi Huangdi
• The wall extended and made continuous, to solidify
those holdings
• This more aggressive approach led the nomadic people
of the borders to unite and create the Xiongnu
Confederacy
• Which made the border a problem for China most of
the time
• To make roads, the wall, to protect the border, Shi
Huangdi needed tons of labor—massive uprisings after
his death
• What about that tomb?
10,000 Generations?
• How about one. But still China was united,
with a strong centralized ruler. The very idea
of China begins with Qin
The Han
• The Zhou too soft, the Qin too hard, the Han just
right
• In 202 B.C.E. Liu Bang was able to end the civil
wars that broke out after Qin’s death
• From a modest background, he was proud of his
peasanty manners
• Made themselves popular with the people by
denouncing Qin
• But kept many of his ideas and institutions, with
modifications
Repair the Damage
• The early Han rulers were frugal, given the economic
hardships of the centuries that preceded them
• Worked to keep taxes low and support agriculture
• Stored grain for hard times
• Gave out large land grants to supporters, and
reabsorbed with death or rebellions
• But a steady supply of lands to grant as rewards for
loyalty
• Followed a policy of appeasement for the Xiongnu to
avoid expensive war
Han Expansion
• Later Han rulers expanded the empire, and did engage
in expensive wars with the Xiongnu
• Government monopolies on some goods to fund
expensive wars
• The adoption of Confucianism as a unifying principle of
social order
• Officials chosen by essay exams about Confucian texts
• Competent, ethical, educated
• And will be critical of poor rulers as the dynasty
continues
Traditional Family Values
• Dead ancestors retained an interest in the
living
• Eldest male had total authority over the
household and the extended family that lived
under one roof
• The hierarchy of the family mirrored the
hierarchy of the empire—obedience and an
understanding of what was proper in all
relationships the center of ethical conduct
Chang’an
• In western Xi’an province
• Thought to be quite a place, of palace
complexes, multistory homes, and various
entertainments
• A very urban world