The Roman Empire Compared To The Han Dynasty

[lady_fumiko]

Hello everybody,

 

I am not sure if this is the right board to be posting this topic, but I am struggling with an AP World History in which I must compare and contrast the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty. The essay must include comparisons or contrasts of government and imperial administration, economy, religion, artistic and cultural achievements, and finally, the effect on subsequent civilizations.

 

I am most grateful for any help that anybody may offer. Thank you in advance.

 

Fumiko

[Kosmo]

Some attempted to make such comparison, but the thread ended in Tartarus.

[Rameses the Great]

In my opinion you just can't make such a comparison. The Roman Empire and the Mediterranian is associated with the West. China, Mongolia, India, etc are associated with the East. You just can't make that kind of comparison becuause there is no correlation.

 

They had no contact to speak of. Most people who traveled to various places at the time did not have knowledge about both civilizations.

 

Most people here are interested in Roman history not Chinese. I don't want to be mean, but it just won't work here. Perhaps the mods can be leniant and move it to the arena where you may get a few things.

[Pertinax]

Given the history of "versus " threads , I will move this to the Hora Postillia for the sake of decorum.

[Spurius]

Hello everybody,

 

I am not sure if this is the right board to be posting this topic, but I am struggling with an AP World History in which I must compare and contrast the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty. The essay must include comparisons or contrasts of government and imperial administration, economy, religion, artistic and cultural achievements, and finally, the effect on subsequent civilizations.

 

I am most grateful for any help that anybody may offer. Thank you in advance.

 

Fumiko

 

If your essay has to include all of those topics, it would have to be fairly lengthy. This site has a good search function and you could just type in the topic headings. Posters here do have a tendency to add links to websites or books that bolster their arguments.

 

The Han and Rome comparison threads have a tendency to focus on military and how the "barbarians at the gate" were handled. They usually end up with assertion of superiority of one over the other with the reasoning being "Because I say so." But there is some material to be gleaned.

 

I think that a simple comparison is worthwhile, but the sentiment on this site currently is locked too much in the one side has to be superior to the other mentality. Perhaps we can break this cycle now.

[Favonius Cornelius]

Truth be told, they are both fairly comparable I think. Culturally both have great accomplishments in the arts and sciences, however some like to think that the Han had more progress in this area since they have more records to prove it. Unfortunately after the fall of the Roman Empire much of this was lost forever, but with what we do have you can tell the degree of advancement in this area.

 

Religiously both had somewhat open systems of spirituality with comparable Emperor worship. Philosophically the Empire tended towards individualistic and independent outlook from Greek influence, whereas the Han has more of a communal, family oriented look at the world as seen with Confucius.

 

Imperial administration may have been more efficient with the Han system than the Roman, and due to the communal outlook of Chinese philosophy, and more ready willingness to accept the status quo. Only somewhat however; the Chinese Empires had just as many civil wars.

 

Militarily speaking however, the Romans do indeed seem far superior. The Chinese army really was not much more than a mostly spear wielding organized mob. Do just don't see the professionalism nor the same strategy of the Romans during any time period. This is because the Romans far more had to defend and conquer, in conjunction with the nature of the Mediterranean topology, leads to a more practiced fighting form.

 

In the end the Roman influence is vastly greater. You can say that the Roman way has imprinted Europe, all the Americas, somewhat Africa, and even in the East (governmental forms, western cultural aspects). China really only has much to show in the east. I believe this is to do with the fundamental difference of philosophical underpinning. With the individualistic outlook (thank you Greeks), you have peoples always trying to push the limits and advance. China has always relied on tradition, on maintaining the status quo of an agrarian society that ebbs and flows with the harvests. This leads to a stagnation of new ideas and efforts. This is why Europe rose to rule most of the world, while China was always just an overgrown and out of date Empire towards the modern era.

 

This is changing though today, the Chinese are adopting western ways, and now with their preponderant population could possibly rise to greatness if they can deal with the issues of population and energy.

 

 

Addendum: Stress the geography of both empires. Therein I believe lay the fundamental reasons why each developed as it did. The Mediterranean provided a fast way to connect with vast stretches of land, leading to rapid diffusion of ideas, materials, peoples, and lead to easy conflict and the need to become better. China is one large self-contained land, which lends itself to maintenance of the status quo.

Edited August 23, 2006 by Favonius Cornelius

[Andrew Dalby]

Addendum: Stress the geography of both empires. Therein I believe lay the fundamental reasons why each developed as it did. The Mediterranean provided a fast way to connect with vast stretches of land, leading to rapid diffusion of ideas, materials, peoples, and lead to easy conflict and the need to become better. China is one large self-contained land, which lends itself to maintenance of the status quo.

 

I find your points extremely interesting, Favonius. I would just make this addendum to your addendum: actually China was expanding too, rather as Rome was, though entirely overland. China in pre-Qin times was politically fragmented, I believe. The Qin, immediately before the Han, conquered the other kingdoms, but that still only unified northeastern China. What we now think of as central to southern China, not to mention the vast western regions, were mostly not yet part of China at all.

 

However, the early Han were strongly interested in exploration beyond those limited frontiers. It was in the Han period, for example (around 125 BC), that the Chinese opened up the Silk Road as far as Bactria. Others, maybe, can say whether they also made new conquests -- I suspect they did.

 

Also, though what you say about the Mediterranean is true, the Romans were not bad at overland expansion -- partly because of their road-building!

Edited August 24, 2006 by Andrew Dalby

[Kosmo]

I think that it's easier to point the things in common that the differences. They both ruled large areas and achieved a high level of development. But they had different political structures, social and ethnic patterns, military needs and answers, religious and philosophical approaches, economic base and ecology.

The roman influence was more important not only for Europe, but also for SW Asia and North Africa as arabs borrowed many(most) things from romans.

China played a greater role as an influence to Europe in the Middle Ages and not by herself.

[Primus Pilus]

I think that it's easier to point the things in common that the differences.

 

Allow me this rather useless observation... They both built a wall.

 

However, while on the surface the "Great Wall" seems infinitely more impressive, its only because the modern visible structure was built mostly in the 2nd millenium AD (14th and 15th centuries if I'm not mistaken). The earlier base structures were likely not nearly as visibly impressive (though they clearly served the purpose). Hadrian's rather miniscule structure in comparison was of earth, wood and stone and is largely still clearly identifiable, where the comparable Chinese wall was mainly pushed earth. The original 'Great Wall' structure is, for the most part, no longer visible (the current wall built by the Ming Dynasty was built in a completely different location).

[Kosmo]

Romans had built lots of walls, most are hardly visible now.

I think a comparison in terms of tehnolgy would be the best as other things are tied to local conditions (romans had more olive oil and the chinese more silk).

And we should choose a year or a period to compare as Rome was a long lived empire and Han was a dinasty.

[Gaius Octavius]

Both empires were essentially agrarian based economies, yet trade was important to both. The power of the Chinese emperor was based on the loyalty of landed, hereditary warlords; the Roman emperor's power on the loyalty of the praetorian guard and the legions. China was a more absolute tyranny than Rome in that the warlords exercised power over life in their counties.

 

The walls built by both countries were more for population control and taxation than for defense.

Edited August 24, 2006 by Gaius Octavius

[Primus Pilus]

Just to clarify... my post about the walls was meant to be a bit facetious.

[Rameses the Great]

The Han dynasty lasted around 400 years while the Roman Empire lasted for 1,000 years. At the peak of the Han dynasty they conquered anything from North Korea to Vietname. The difference is their military and population allowed for them to easily conquer lands. In Germania alone there were more people living there than in Italy. In China and Rome, certainly they had different imports and exports which allowed for extreme cultural differences.

 

The Han dynasty did not need to conquer but Rome needed to so it can keep its citizens happy. Also, the flexibility of the Roman empire needs to be taken into accountability. Through internal affairs they maintained to still be powerful. The Han dynasty did not have this kind of flexibility so they had to be more strict.

 

Another thing I notice is that Rome was accepting to other cultures like those of the Greek, Egyptians, etc. The Chinese were said to be fairly conservative and rejected any other culture that would conflict with their own.

Edited August 24, 2006 by Rameses the Great

[Andrew Dalby]

The Han dynasty lasted around 400 years while the Roman Empire lasted for 1,000 years. At the peak of the Han dynasty they conquered anything from North Korea to Vietname. The difference is their military and population allowed for them to easily conquer lands. In Germania alone there were more people living there than in Italy. In China and Rome, certainly they had different imports and exports which allowed for extreme cultural differences.

 

The Han dynasty did not need to conquer but Rome needed to so it can keep its citizens happy. Also, the flexibility of the Roman empire needs to be taken into accountability. Through internal affairs they maintained to still be powerful. The Han dynasty did not have this kind of flexibility so they had to be more strict.

 

Another thing I notice is that Rome was accepting to other cultures like those of the Greek, Egyptians, etc. The Chinese were said to be fairly conservative and rejected any other culture that would conflict with their own.

 

These are very interesting points, but a lot of these measures depend on how you count. No single Roman dynasty lasted as long as the Han. Southern China and Vietnam, regarded as conquests by the Han, were (probably) much more heavily populated than Germania.

 

"The Han dynasty did not need to conquer but Rome needed to so it can keep its citizens happy." Explain how you work that one out!

 

"Rome was accepting to other cultures like those of the Greek, Egyptians, etc." Yes, but when the Qin (preceding the Han) conquered neighbouring kingdoms, such as the Chu in the mid-southwest, they also were accepting other cultures. When the Han conquered the South and Vietnam, they were accepting other cultures too. Since most of this is now one single colour on our map, we think of it as monolithic, but at that time it wasn't.

[Favonius Cornelius]

In Germania alone there were more people living there than in Italy.

 

This was not true until the dawn of the industrial age. Italy, northern Italy especially in the Middle Ages, has always been something of a nucleus of the western world with the largest populations.