Chapter 5: Rome and Han China, 753 B.C.E- 600 C.E.

ROMES CREATION OF A MEDITERRANEAN EMPRE

Rome is a center location, located on the boot-shaped Italian peninsula
containing almost a natural barrier linking Europe and North Africa. It has the
Tiber River on one side, and a double ring of seven hills on the other
providing natural protection
The east and west plains are separated by the Apennine range. Italys
navigable rivers allow merchants and armies to travel overland. Mild climate
is great for growing varies crops. Had well forested lands for construction and
fuel. Etruria in the northwest was rich in iron and other metals
With 75% of land being hills, there were still a vast amount of land for
agriculture. Land was extremely fertile and sustained a larger population than
Greece.

A republic of Farmers

Legend of Romulus being send down the Tiber River, and raised by a shewolf, was proven invalid based on archaeological research. The draining of a
swamp on the site of the Roman center, was the main reason for the several
hilltop communities. Latin was spoken. Cultural patterns. In the seventeenth
century B.C.E. Rome offered refuge to exiles and outcasts of Etruscan
immigrants.
Agriculture was the economic activity. Social status, political privilege, and
fundamental values were related to land ownership. Most were farmers who
owned small land. Heads of wealthy families were members of the Senate- a
council of Elders, that played a dominate role in the politics.
The Republic was not a democracy. Voting rights were male citizens. The
wealthy counted for more votes than the poor. Every year members of the
elite would compete for offices. Members of the office all wanted to be one of
the two consuls who presided over meetings in the senate and assembly and
commanded the army.
Center of power was the senate. The Senate usually made policy and
governed. Senators nominated their sons for office and filled in for vacancies
of former officials.
Inequalities of Roman society led to conflict between the elite and majority of
population, known as the Conflict of the Order. Common Population called
plebeians. Some refused to work or fight and withdrew from the city to
pressure the elite to make political concessions. Results were the laws on
twelve stone tables for judicial officials, and the tribunes or non-elite classes
who could veto, or block, actions of the assembly
Basic unit was family. The oldest male, the paterfamilias, had power over
other family members.
Patron/client relationships united individuals of different classes. Clients
looked for help and protection from men of wealth and influence (patrons).
Patron gave legal advice, protections, and loan money. In return, client must
follow patron into battle, work on land, and support him in political arena.

Middle-class clients of aristocrats might be patrons of poorer men. Inequality

was accepted.
Roman women played no public role. A women was like a child in the eyes of
the law. When married, she was under the power of her husbands family.
Unable to own property or represent herself in legal proceedings she
depended on male guardian to protect her interests.
Roman women had more power than Greeks. With time came greater
personal protection and economic freedoms. Stories of strong woman with
influence on their husbands or sons who helped shape Roman history. First
century B.C.E, poets confessed love for educated women.
Believed in invisible forces known as numina. Vesta was the living, pulsating
energy of fire. Janus guarded the door. Penates watched over food. Gave
small offerings of cakes and liquids to win the favor of the spirits. Jupiter was
god of sky, and Mars was god of agriculture and war.
Wanted to maintain pax deorum (peace of the gods). Priests of aristocrats
performed sacrifices and other rituals. In return, gods were expected to favor
the Roman state.
When Romans and Greeks came into contact, they combined with Greek
gods- Jupiter with Greek Zeus, Mars with Greek Ares- and took over myths.
Expansion in Italy and the Mediterranean
Around 500 B.C.E, Rome was an unimportant city-state in central Italy. 3.5
centuries later, Rome was center of a huge empire compassing lands
surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Expansion started slow then sped up.
Some scholars believe this to be from the greed and aggressiveness of
people fond of war. They expanded territory to provide a protection against
attacks. With every new conquest they became vulnerable and continued
expanding.
Chief instruments of expansion was the army. All male citizens who owned a
specific amount of land had to serve. Army equipment was fairly similar to
those of the Greek hoplites. Famous for their training and discipline.
In the fifth century B.C.E. they protected the wealthy cities of Campania,
possessing the richest land in Italy. In three wars with the Samnite tribes of
central Italy, they extended their land over nearly the entire peninsula.
Shared political, legal, and economic privileges to conquer populations. Rome
demanded soldiers from its Italian subjects, and created a supply of
manpower that was a key element of their military success.
Rome fought two major bloody wars against the Carthaginians. Its first
oversea province in Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain. A series of wars put the
Roman state against the major Hellenistic kingdoms in the eastern
Mediterranean. At first scared to occupy such distant territory and withdrew
troops. When the land didnt take root, the frustrated Romans quickly took
over. Conquest of the Celtic people- under Gaius Julius Caesar- led to first
territorial gain in Europes center.
Indigenous elite groups willing to work with them were given power, including
responsibility for local administration and tax collection. Every year a senator

with the highest office was sent to be a governor of a province. He was

responsible for defending the province against outside attack and internal
disruption. He oversaw the collection of taxes.
Overtime, provincial administration failed. Officials were chosen based on
their connections. Yearly changes of governor gave little time for the next
leader to gain experience. Some took huge sums of money. Even with the
expanded empire, the Romans were still relying on the values that developed
when Rome was just a city-state.
The Failure of the Republic
Romes success destroyed the Republican system of government. The
expansion created changes in Italian landscape. Farmers were away on
military service for long times, and investors took over their land by
purchase, deception, or intimidation. Small efficient farms were replaced with
ranches or latifundia.
Owners of large estates grazes herds of cattle or grew crops, rather than
growing wheat, the sample food of ancient Italy. This caused the cities of Italy
to become dependent on imported grain. Slavery made citizens hard to find
work. When moved to Rome they lived in dire poverty.
Gaius Marius- a new man in politics- accepted the poor and promised them
land upon retirement from military service. The troops became devoted to
Marius and helped him get elected to illegal six consulships.
The city of Rome was taken by force on several occasions, and victorious
commanders executed opponents and controlled the state.
The Roman Principate
Julius Caesars grandnephew and heir, Octavian, eliminated all rivals by 31
B.C.E, and set about to refurnish the Roman government. He kept the form of
the Republic- offices, honors- but fundamentally altered the realities of power.
The period following the Republics called the Principate.
Augustus, one of the names the Senate gave Octavian, is the name he is best
known by. Augustuss patience of human nature enabled him to manipulate
all the groups in Roman society. After Augustus died few remembered the
Republic.
Augustus allied himself with the equites, the class of well-to-do Italian
merchants and landowners second in wealth and social status to the
senatorial class. They became the core of a new, paid civil service that
helped run the Roman Empire.
After Augustus died four members of his family succeeded to the position of
emperor. In theory the early emperors were affirmed by the Senate; in
reality they were chosen by the armies. A series of very capable emperors
instituted a new mechanism of succession: each adopted a mature man of
proven ability.
Augustus tried to appeal to Republican traditions and conceal the source and
extent of his power, but this became less necessary over time, and later
emperors exercised their authority more overtly. After Roman emperors died,
they were regarded as gods after death.

During the Republic, a body of laws had developed, included decrees of the
Senate, bills passed in the Assembly, and the practices of public officials who
heard cases.
During the Principate the emperor became a major source of new laws.
Roman law was studied and codified with a new intensity by the class of legal
experts, and their interpretations often had the force of law. The basic
division of Roman law- persons, things, and actions- reveal the importance of
poverty and the rights of individuals.
The Urban Empire
The Roman empire of the first three centuries were urban empire. 50-60
percent of the people in the empire engaged in agriculture and lived in
villages or isolated farms. Administered through a network of towns and
cities.
Rome itself had approximately one million residents. The largest cities
provided adequate food and water and removing sewage were always
problems.
The upper classes lived in elegant townhouses on one of the hills.
The poor lived in crowded slums in the low-lying parts of the city
Towns and cities were replicas of the city capitals in political organization and
physical layout. A town council and two annually elected officials drawn from
the local elite ran regional affairs.
In the countryside hard work were relieved by holidays, large festivals, and
everyday sex, family, and conversation. They had to deal with wild animals,
and bandits. Had little contact with the Roman government other than direct
collectors.
Slaves became no longer plentiful and inexpensive, and landowners needed a
new source of labor. Tenant farmers cultivated plots of land in return for a
portion of their crops. Wealth was concentrate in the cities but was based on
the productivity of rural laborers.
Some urban dwellers got rich from trade. Grain, meat, vegetables, and other
bulk foodstuff usually were exchanged locally because transportation was
expensive. City of Rome imported massive quantities of grain from Sicily and
Egypt to feed its huge population.
Fine manufactured products like glass were exported throughout the empire.
Center of production, originally was in Italy. Other merchants traded in luxury
items from far beyond the boundaries of the empire, especially silk from
China and spices from India and Arabia.
Roman armies on the frontiers were a large market that promoted the
prosperity of border provinces. The money from the central government
transferred wealth from the rich interior provinces, first to Rome to support
the emperor and the central government, then to the frontier provinces to
subsidize the armies.
Romanization is the spread of Latin language and the Roman way of life.
Roman life was strongest in the western provinces, and Greek was strongest
in the eastern Mediterranean. Roman government did not force Romanization.

Latin created deals with the Roman administration and helped merchants get
contracts to supply the military.
People living outside of Italy were granted Roman citizenship, with its
privileges of legal protection and exemptions from some types of taxation.
Men who did 26 years of service in the military were granted citizenship.
Emperors made grants of citizenship to individuals or entire communities as
rewards for good service. Emperor Caracalla granted citizenship to all free,
adult, male inhabitants of the empire.
The Rise of Christianity
The Jewish homeland of Judaea (present-day Israel) came under direct Roman
rule in 6 C.E. Roman governors were insensitive to the Jewish belief in one
god. Many waited for the Messiah, the Anointed One, a military leader who
would drive out the Romans and liberate the Jewish people.
Jesus was a young Jewish carpenter from the Galilee region in northern Israel.
Women, slaves, and the urban poor were the first to convert to Christianity.
They received respect not accorded them in the larger society and obtained
positions of responsibility when the members of the early Christian
communities democratically elected their leaders.
Early Christians were persecuted by Roman officials, who regarded their
refusal to worship the emperor as a sign of disloyalty. Because of persecution
and mob attacks, the Christian movement continued to grow. By the late third
century C.E. it was a sizeable minority within the Roman Empire.
In the Hellenistic and Roman periods, a number of cults gained popularity by
claiming to provide secret information about the nature of life and death and
promising a blessed afterlife. Starting in eastern Mediterranean, they spread
to the Greco-Roman lands in response to a growing spiritual and intellectual
hunger. They included the worship of mother-goddess Cybele in Anatolia, the
Egyptian goddess Isis, and the Iranian sun-god Mithra.
Technology and transformation
The safe and easy roads helped spread goods and Christianity. Some best
engineers served with the army, building bridges, siege works, and ballistic
weapons. The Romans pioneered the use of arches, and the invention of
concrete.
Augustus didnt want to further expand the empire because of the growing
cost of protection. The roman army shifted from offensive to a defensive
strategy. Most points the empire was protected by mountains, deserts, and
seas. They built long walls to keep out intruders.
Most neighbors did not pose a serious threat to the security of the empire.
One exception was the Parthian kingdom, heir to the Mesopotamian and
Persian Empires, which controlled the lands of the eastern frontier.
During the Third-Century Crisis their political, military, and economic
problems rose. The most visible time of the crisis was the frequent change of
rulers. Twenty or more men claimed emperor. Several regions, feeling that
the central government was not adequately protecting them, broke away and
turned power over to a leader who promised to put their interests first.

This had a huge impact on the empires economy. They had to buy the loyalty
of the armies. The public quickly caught on, and the devalued coinage
became less and less acceptable in the mark-place.
Population shifted out of the cities and into the countryside. Many sought
employment and protection from other raiders and government officials on
the estates of wealthy and powerful country landowners.
Diocletian pulled the empire back after the third century crisis. He came from
one of the eastern European provinces. He ruled for more than twenty years
then died in bed.
He implemented radical reforms that saved the Roman state. He took the
maximum prices for various commodities and service. A black market arose
among buyers and sellers who ignored the governments price control.
When Diocletian resigned the old divisiveness reemerged as various
claimants battled for the throne. Constantine was the winner and reunited the
entire empire under his sole rule.
He won a key battle at the Milvian Bridge near Rome. He claimed he saw a
cross on the son before the battle, believing the Christian god helped him
win. He ended the prosecution of Christianity, and guaranteed freedom of
worship of Christians. Large numbers began to convert to Christianity after
seeing that it was becoming in politics and government.
He transferred capital from Rome to Byzantium. The city was named
Constantinople. It was closer to Rome than any of the most-threatening
borders.
The conversion of Constantine and the transfer of the imperial capital was
often seen as the end of Roman history. The Western Empire, was overrun by
migrating Germanic peoples, came to an end when the last empire Romulus
Augustuses took the throne.
The eastern portion of the empire continued to flourish. Several emperors
ordered collections of laws and edicts to be made. The most famous and
complete collection was the Corpus Juris civils (Body of Civil Law) made
in Latin.

THE ORIGINS OF IMPERIAL CHINA

The Shang and Zhou dynasties ruled over a compact zone in northeastern
China. The Warring States Period was a time during the Zhou rule with
frequent hostilities among a small group of states.
During one of the Warring Sates, the Quin, conquered its rivals and created
Chinas first empire. It barely survived after the death of its founder, shi
Huangdi. Power soon was passed to a new dynasty, the Han.
The Qin Unification of China
From the mid-third century B.C.E., Qin began to methodically conquer and
incorporate the other Chinese states.
The Qin monarch, Zheng, came to the throne at the age of thirteen. He
launched a series of wars of conquest. After defeating the last of his rivals, he
gave himself the name of Shi Huangdi, or First Emperor.

The new government eliminated rival centers of authority. The Qin

government abolished primogeniture, the right of the eldest son to inherit all
the landed property, requiring estates to be broken up and passed on to
several heirs. The district officials became appointed by the king and watched
over his agents.
The Qin governments commitment to standardization helped create a unified
Chinese civilization. A code of law was emplaced throughout the government.
They created standardized weights and measures, a single coinage, a
common system of writing, and even a specified axle-length for carts so that
they would create a single set of ruts in the road.
The Legalists viewed Confucian expectations of benevolent and non-violent
conducts from rulers. A crackdown on the scholars ensued in which many
Confucian books were publicly burned and many scholar brutally executed.
Si Huangdi was determined to secure the northern border against nomadic
raids. Herders sought food and crafted goods produced by farmers and
townsfolk, and farmers depended on the herders for animals and animal
products. Sometimes, the nomads raided the settled lands and took what
they needed. Chinese kingdoms struggled with this for years. Shortly before
the Qin unification of China, several states had begun to train soldiers on
horseback to contend with the mobile nomads.