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An Age of Empires:Rome and Han China,753 B.C.E.600 C.E.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Romes Mediterranean Empire, 753 B.C.E.600 C.E.

The Origins of Imperial China, 221 B.C.E.220 C.E.

Imperial Parallels

DIVERSITY AND DOMINANCE: The Treatment of Slaves in Rome and China

ENVIRONMENT AND TECHNOLOGY: Water Engineering in Rome and China

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According to Chinese sources, in the year 166 C.E. a

group of travelers identifying themselves as dele-gates from Andun, the king of distant Da Qin, arrived

at the court of the Chinese emperor Huan, one of the

Han rulers. Andun was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,

the emperor of Rome.

As far as we know, these travelers were the first

Romans to reach China, although they probably

were residents of one of the eastern provinces of the

Roman Empire, perhaps Egypt or Syria, and they may

have stretched the truth in claiming to be official rep-resentatives of the Roman emperor. More likely they

were merchants hoping to set up a profitable trading

arrangement at the source of the silk so highly prized

in the West. Chinese officials, however, were in no po-

sition to disprove their claim, since there was no direct

contact between the Roman and Chinese Empires.

We do not know what became of these travelers,

and their mission apparently did not lead to more di-

rect or regular contact between the empires. Even so,

the episode raises some interesting points. First, in the

early centuries C.E. Rome and China were linked by

far-flung international trading networks encompass-

ing the entire Eastern Hemisphere, and were dimly

aware of each others existence. Second, the last cen-

turies B.C.E. and the first centuries C.E. saw the emer-

gence of two manifestations of a new kind of empire.

The Roman Empire encompassed all the lands

surrounding the Mediterranean Sea as well as sub-

stantial portions of continental Europe and the Mid-

dle East. The Han Empire stretched from the Pacific

Ocean to the oases of Central Asia. The largest empires

the world had yet seen, they managed to centralize

control to a greater degree than earlier empires; their

cultural impact on the lands and peoples they domi-

nated was more pervasive; and they were remarkably

stable and lasted for many centuries.Thousands of miles separated Rome and Han

China; neither influenced the other. Why did two such

unprecedented political entities flourish at the same

time? Historians have put forth theories stressing sup-

posedly common factorssuch as climate change and

the pressure of nomadic peoples from Central Asia on

the Roman and Chinese frontiersbut no theory haswon the support of most scholars.

As you read this chapter, ask yourself the follow-

ing questions:

How did the Roman and Han Empires come intobeing?

What were the sources of their stability or instability?

What benefits and liabilities did these empires bringto the rulers and their subjects?

What were the most important similarities and dif-ferences between these two empires, and what dothe similarities and differences tell us about the cir-cumstances and the character of each?

ROMES MEDITERRANEAN EMPIRE,753 B.C.E.600 C.E.

Romes central location contributed to its success inunifying Italy and then all the lands ringing theMediterranean Sea (see Map 5.1). Italy was a crossroadsin the Mediterranean, and Rome was a crossroads withinItaly. Rome lay at the midpoint of the peninsula, about15 miles (24 kilometers) from the western coast, where anorth-south road intersected an east-west river route.The Tiber River on one side and a double ring of sevenhills on the other afforded natural protection to the site.

Italy is a land of hills and mountains. The Apenninerange runs along its length like a spine, separating theeastern and western coastal plains, while the arc of the

Alps shields it on the north. Many of Italys rivers are nav-igable, and passes through the Apennines and the Alps al-lowed merchants and armies to travel overland. The mildMediterranean climate affords a long growing seasonand conditions suitable for a wide variety of crops. Thehillsides were well forested in ancient times, providingtimber for construction and fuel. The region of Etruria inthe northwest was rich in iron and other metals.

Even though 75 percent of the total area of the Ital-ian peninsula is hilly, there is still ample arable land inthe coastal plains and river valleys. Much of this land hasfertile volcanic soil and sustained a much larger popula-tion than was possible in Greece. While expanding withinItaly, the Roman state created effective mechanisms fortapping the human resources of the countryside.

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According to popular legend,Romulus, who was cast adrifton the Tiber River as a babyand was nursed by a she-wolf,founded the city of Rome in

753 B.C.E. Archaeological research, however, shows thatthe Palatine Hillone of the seven hills on the site of

A Republicof Farmers,75331 B.C.E

Romewas occupied as early as 1000 B.C.E. The mergingof several hilltop communities to form an urban nu-cleus, made possible by the draining of a swamp on thesite of the future Roman Forum (civic center), took placeshortly before 600 B.C.E.

The Latin speech and cultural patterns of the origi-nal inhabitants of the site were typical of the indigenous

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Romes Mediterranean Empire, 753 b.c.e.600 c.e. 125

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C H R O N O L O G Y

Rome China

1000 B.C.E. First settlement on site of Rome

507 B.C.E. Establishment of the Republic

290 B.C.E. Defeat of tribes of Samnium givesRomans control of Italy

264202 B.C.E. Wars against Carthage guaranteeRoman control of western Mediterranean

200146 B.C.E. Wars against Hellenistic kingdomslead to control of eastern Mediterranean

8831 B.C.E. Civil wars and failure of the Republic

31 B.C.E.14 C.E. Augustus establishes thePrincipate

4558 C.E. Paul spreads Christianity in the easternMediterranean

235284 C.E. Third-century crisis

324 C.E. Constantine moves capital toConstantinople476 Deposing of the last Roman emperor

in the West527565 Justinian and Theodora rule Byzantine

Empire; imperial edicts collected in single law code

480221 B.C.E. Warring States Period

221 B.C.E. Qin emperor unites eastern China206 B.C.E. Han dynasty succeeds Qin

14087 B.C.E. Emperor Wu expands the Han Empire

23 C.E. Han capital transferred from Changan toLuoyang

220 C.E. Fall of Han Empire

1000 B.C.E.

500 B.C.E.

300 B.C.E.

200 B.C.E.

100 B.C.E.

100 C.E.

200 C.E.

300 C.E.

500 C.E.

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126 Chapter 5 An Age of Empires: Rome and Han China, 753 b.c.e.600 c.e.

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population of most of the peninsula. However, traditionremembered Etruscan immigrants arriving in the sev-

enth centuryB.C.E., and Rome came to pride itself on of-fering hospitality to exiles and outcasts.

Agriculture was the essential economic activity in theearly Roman state, and land was the basis of wealth. As aconsequence, social status, political privilege, and fun-damental values were related to landownership. The vastmajority of early Romans were self-sufficient indepen-dent farmers who owned small plots of land. A relativelysmall number of families managed to acquire large tractsof land. The heads of these wealthy families were mem-

bers of the Senatea Council of Elders that played adominant role in the politics of the Roman state. Thesefamilies constituted the senatorial class.

According to tradition, there were seven kings ofRome between 753 and 507 B.C.E. The first was Romulus;the last was the tyrannical Tarquinius Superbus. In 507B.C.E. members of the senatorial class, led by Brutus theLiberator, deposed Tarquinius Superbus and instituteda res publica, a public possession, or republic.

The Roman Republic, which lasted from 507 to 31B.C.E., was not a democracy. Sovereign power resided in

several assemblies, and while all male citizens were eligi-ble to attend, the votes of the wealthy classes counted formore than the votes of poor citizens. A slate of civic offi-cials was elected each year, and a hierarchy of state of-fices evolved. The culmination of a political career was tobe selected as one of the two consuls who presided overmeetings of the Senate and assemblies and commandedthe army on military campaigns.

The real center of power was the Roman Senate.Technically an advisory council, first to the kings andlater to the annually changing Republican officials, theSenate increasingly made policy and governed. Sena-tors nominated their sons for public offices and filledSenate vacancies from the ranks of former officials. Thisself-perpetuating body, whose members served for life,brought together the states wealth, influence, and polit-ical and military experience.

The inequalities in Roman society led to periodic un-rest and conflict between the elite (called patricians)and the majority of the population (called plebeians),a struggle known as the Conflict of the Orders. On a num-

ber of occasions the plebeians refused to work or fight,and even physically withdrew from the city, in order topressure the elite to make political concessions. One re-sult was publication of the laws on twelve stone tabletsca. 450 B.C.E., a check on arbitrary decisions by judicialofficials. Another important reform was the creation of

new officials, the tribunes, who were drawn from and

elected by the lower classes, and who had the power toveto, or block, any action of the Assembly or patrician of-ficials that they deemed to be against the interests of thelower orders. The elite, though forced to give in on keypoints, found ways to blunt the reforms, in large part bybringing the plebeian leadership into an expanded elite.

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The basic unit of Roman society was the family, madeup of several generations of family members plus do-

mestic slaves. The oldest living male, the paterfamilias,exercised absolute authority over other family members.

Complex ties of obligation, such as the patron/clientrelationship, bound together individuals and families.Clients sought the help and protection of patrons, menof wealth and influence. A senator might have dozens oreven hundreds of clients, to whom he provided legal ad-vice and representation, physical protection, and loansof money in tough times. In turn, the client was expectedto follow his patron into battle, support him in the polit-

ical arena, work on his land, and even contribute towardthe dowry of his daughter. Throngs of clients awaitedtheir patrons in the morning and accompanied them tothe Forum for the days business. Especially large retinuesbrought great prestige. Middle-class clients of aristocratsmight be patrons of poorer men. In Rome inequality wasaccepted, institutionalized, and turned into a system ofmutual benefits and obligations.

Nearly all our information about Roman womenpertains to those in the upper classes. In early Rome, a

woman never ceased to be a child in the eyes of the law.

She started out under the absolute authority of her pa-terfamilias. When she married, she came under the juris-diction of the paterfamilias of her husbands family.Unable to own property or represent herself in legal pro-ceedings, she had to depend on a male guardian to ad-vocate her interests.

Despite the limitations put on them, Roman womenseem to have been less constrained than their counter-parts in the Greek world (see Chapter 4). Over time theygained greater personal protection and economic free-dom: for instance, some took advantage of a form ofmarriage that left a woman under the jurisdiction of herfather and independent after his death. There are manystories of strong women who had great influence ontheir husbands or sons and thereby helped shape Ro-man history. Roman poets confess their love for women

who appear to have been educated and outspoken, andthe accounts of the careers of the early emperors arefilled with tales of self-assured and assertive queen-mothers and consorts.

Like other Italian peoples, early Romans believed in

invisible, shapeless forces known as numina.Vesta, theliving, pulsating energy of fire, dwelled in the hearth.Janus guarded the door. The Penates watched over foodstored in the cupboard. Other deities resided in nearbyhills, caves, grottoes, and springs. Romans made smallofferings of cakes and liquids to win the favor of thesespirits. Certain gods had larger spheres of operationforexample, Jupiter was the god of the sky, and Mars ini-tially was a god of agriculture as well as of war.

The Romans tried to maintain the pax deorum(peace of the gods), a covenant between the gods and

the Roman state. Boards of priests drawn from the aris-tocracy performed sacrifices and other rituals to win thegods favor. In return, the gods were expected to bringsuccess to the undertakings of the Roman state. Whenthe Romans came into contact with the Greeks of south-ern Italy (see Chapter 4), they equated their major deities

with gods from the Greek pantheon, such as Zeus(Jupiter) and Ares (Mars), and they took over the mythsattached to those gods.

The expansion of the RomanRepublic began slowly, thenpicked up momentum, reach-ing a peak in the third andsecond centuries B.C.E. Some

scholars attribute this expansion to the greed and ag-gressiveness of a people fond of war. Others observe thatthe structure of the Roman state encouraged war, be-cause the two consuls had only one year in office in

which to gain military glory. The Romans invariably

claimed that they were only defending themselves. It ispossible that, as fear drove the Romans to expand theterritory under their control in order to provide a bufferagainst attack, each new conquest became vulnerableand a sense of insecurity led to further expansion.

All male citizens who owned a specified amount ofland were subject to military service. The Roman soldiersequipmentbody armor, shield, spear, and swordwasnot far different from that of Greek hoplites, but theRoman battle line was more flexible than the phalanx,being subdivided into units that could maneuver inde-pendently. Roman armies were famous for their trainingand discipline. One observer noted that, whereas a Greekarmy would minimize its exertions by finding a hill orsome other naturally defended location to camp for thenight, a Roman army would go to the trouble of fortify-ing an identical camp in the plain on every occasion.

Romes conquest of Italy was sparked by ongoingfriction between the pastoral hill tribes of the Apennines,

whose livelihood depended on driving their herds toseasonal grazing grounds, and the farmers of the coastal

plains. In the fifth centuryB.C.E. Rome rose to a positionof leadership within a league of central Italian cities or-ganized for defense against the hill tribes.

Unlike the Greeks, who were reluctant to share theprivileges of citizenship with outsiders (see Chapter 4), theRomans granted the political, legal, and economic privi-leges of Roman citizenship to conquered populations.Rome also demanded soldiers from its Italian subjects,and a seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of manpower

Expansion inItaly and theMediterranean


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was a key element of its military success. In a number ofcrucial wars, Rome was able to endure higher casualties

than the enemy and to prevail by sheer numbers.Between 264 and 202 B.C.E. Rome fought two pro-

tracted and bloody wars against the Carthaginians, thoseenergetic descendants of Phoenicians from Lebanon

who had settled in present-day Tunisia and dominatedthe commerce of the western Mediterranean (see Chap-ter 3). The Roman state emerged as the unchallengedmaster of the western Mediterranean and acquired itsfirst overseas provinces in Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain (seeMap 5.1). Between 200 and 146 B.C.E. a series of wars pit-

ted the Roman state against the major Hellenistic king-doms in the eastern Mediterranean. The Romans were atfirst reluctant to occupy such distant territories and

withdrew their troops at the conclusion of several wars.But when the settlements that they imposed failed totake root, the frustrated Roman government took overdirect administration of the turbulent lands. The con-quest of the Celtic peoples of Gaul (modern France) byRomes most brilliant general, Gaius Julius Caesar, be-tween 59 and 51 B.C.E. led to its first territorial acquisi-tions in Europes heartland.

At first the Romans resisted extending their systemof governance and citizenship rights to the distantprovinces. Indigenous elite groups willing to collaborate

with the Roman authorities were given considerable au-tonomy, including responsibility for local administra-tion and tax collection. Every year a senator, usuallysomeone who recently had held a high public post, wasdispatched to each province to serve as governor. Thegovernor was primarily responsible for defending theprovince against outside attack and internal disruption,overseeing the collection of taxes and other revenuesdue Rome, and deciding legal cases.

Over time, this system of provincial administrationproved inadequate. Officials were chosen because oftheir political connections and often lacked competenceor experience. Yearly changes of governor meant thatincumbents had little time to gain experience or makelocal contacts. Also, although many governors were hon-est, some were unscrupulous and extorted huge sums ofmoney from the provincial populace.

Romes success in creating avast empire unleashed forcesthat eventually destroyed theRepublican system of govern-

ment. In the third and second centuries B.C.E., Italianpeasant farmers were away from home on military ser-vice for long periods of time. While they were away, it waseasy for investors to take possession of their farms by

The Failure ofthe Republic

purchase, deception, or intimidation. Most of the wealthgenerated by the conquest and control of new provincesended up in the hands of the upper classes, who used itto purchase Italian land. As a result, the small, self-sufficient farms of the Italian countryside, whose peas-ant owners had been the backbone of the Roman legions(units of 6,000 soldiers), were replaced bylatifundia, lit-erally broad estates.

The owners of these large estates found it more lu-crative to graze herds or to make wine, undertakings thatbrought in big profits, than to grow wheat, the staplefood of ancient Italy. Much of Italy, especially the bur-geoning cities, became dependent on imported grain.Meanwhile, the cheap slave labor provided by prisonersof war (see Diversity and Dominance: The Treatment ofSlaves in Rome and China) made it hard for peasants

who had lost their farms to find work in the countryside.

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Although slaves were found in most ancient societies,Rome was one of the few in which slave labor becamethe indispensable foundation of the economy. In the courseof the frequent wars of the second centuryB.C.E., large num-

bers of prisoners were carried into slavery. The prices of such

slaves were low, and landowners and manufacturers found

they could compel slaves to work longer and harder than

hired laborers. Periodically, the harsh working and living

conditions resulted in slave revolts.

The following excerpt, from one of several surviving man-

uals on agriculture, gives advice about controlling and effi-

ciently exploiting slaves:

When the head of a household arrives at his estate, after hehas prayed to the family god, he must go round his farm on atour of inspection on the very same day, if that is possible, ifnot, then on the next day. When he has found out how hisfarm has been cultivated and which jobs have been done andwhich have not been done, then on the next day after that hemust call in his manager and ask him which are the jobs thathave been done and which remain, and whether they weredone on time, and whether what still has to be done can be

done, and how much wine and grain and anything else hasbeen produced. When he has found this out, he must make acalculation of the labor and the time taken. If the work doesntseem to him to be sufficient, and the manager starts to sayhow hard he tried, but the slaves werent any good, and theweather was awful, and the slaves ran away, and he was re-quired to carry out some public works, then when he has fin-ished mentioning these and all sorts of other excuses, youmust draw his attention to your calculation of the labor em-ployed and time taken. If he claims that it rained all the time,

there are all sorts of jobs that can be done in rainy weatherwashing wine-jars, coating them with pitch, cleaning thehouse, storing grain, shifting muck, digging a manure pit,cleaning seed, mending ropes or making new ones; the slavesought to have been mending their patchwork cloaks and theirhoods. On festival days they would have been able to clean outold ditches, work on the public highway, prune back brambles,

dig up the garden, clear a meadow, tie up bundles of sticks, re-move thorns, grind barley and get on with cleaning. If he

claims that the slaves have been ill, they neednt have beengiven such large rations. When you have found out about allthese things to your satisfaction, make sure that all the workthat remains to be done will be carried out. . . The head of thehousehold [on his tour of inspection] should examine hisherds and arrange a sale; he should sell the oil if the pricemakes it worthwhile, and any wine and rain that is surplus toneeds; he should sell any old oxen, cattle or sheep that arenot up to standard, wool and hides, an old cart or old tools,an old slave, a sick slaveanything else that is surplus to re-

quirements. The head of a household ought to sell, and notto buy. (Cato the Elder, Concerning Agriculture, bk. 2, secondcentury B.C.E.)

Cato, the Roman author of that excerpt, was notorious forhis stern manner and hard-edged traditionalism, and heexpresses a point of view that Roman society found accept-

able. In reality, the treatment of slaves by Roman masters

varied widely.

Slavery was far less prominent in ancient China. During

the Warring States Period, dependent peasants as well asslaves worked the large holdings of the landowning aristoc-

racy. The Qin government sought to abolish slavery, but the

institution persisted into the Han period, although it involved

only a small fraction of the population and was not a central

component of the economy. The relatives of criminals could

be seized and enslaved, and poor families sometimes sold un-

wanted children into slavery. In China slaves, whether they

belonged to the state or to individuals, generally performed

domestic tasks, as can be seen in the following text:

Wang Ziyuan of Shu Commandery went to the Jian River onbusiness, and went up to the home of the widow Yang Hui,who had a male slave named Bianliao. Wang Ziyuan re-quested him to go and buy some wine. Picking up a big stick,Bianliao climbed to the top of the grave mound and said:When my master bought me, Bianliao, he only contracted

D I V E R S I T Y A N D D O M I N A N C E

THE TREATMENT OF SLAVES IN ROME AND CHINA

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for me to care for the grave and did not contract for me tobuy wine for some other gentleman.

Wang Ziyuan was furious and said to the widow: Wouldntyou prefer to sell this slave?

Yang Hui said: The slaves father offered him to people,but no one wanted him.

Wang Ziyuan immediately settled on the sale contract.The slave again said: Enter in the contract everything you

wish to order me to do. I, Bianliao, will not do anything notin the contract.

Wang Ziyuan said: Agreed.The text of the contract said:Third year of Shenjiao , the first month, the fifteenth day,

the gentleman Wang Ziyuan, of Zizhong, purchases from thelady Yang Hui of Anzhi village in Zhengdu, the bearded maleslave, Bianliao, of her husbands household. The fixed sale[price] is 15,000 [cash]. The slave shall obey orders about allkinds of work and may not argue.

He shall rise at dawn and do an early sweeping. After eat-ing he shall wash up. Ordinarily he should pound the grainmortar, tie up broom straws, carve bowls and bore wells,scoop out ditches, tie up fallen fences, hoe the garden, trimup paths and dike up plots of land, cut big flails, bend bam-

boos to make rakes, and scrape and fix the well pulley. In go-ing and coming he may not ride horseback or in the cart, [normay he] sit crosslegged or make a hubbub. When he gets outof bed he shall shake his head [to wake up], fish, cut forage,plait reeds and card hemp, draw water for gruel, and help inmaking zumo [drink]. He shall weave shoes and make [other]coarse things . . .

In the second month at the vernal equinox he shall bankthe dikes and repair the boundary walls [of the fields]; prunethe mulberry trees, skin the palm trees, plant melons to make

gourd [utensils], select eggplant [seeds for planting], andtransplant onion sets; burn plant remains to generate thefields, pile up refuse and break up lumps [in the soil]. At mid-day he shall dry out things in the sun. At cockcrow he shallrise and pound grain in the mortar, exercise and curry thehorses, the donkeys, and likewise the mules . . . [The list oftasks continues for two-and-a-half pages.]

He shall be industrious and quick-working, and he maynot idle and loaf. When the slave is old and his strengthspent, he shall plant marsh grass and weave mats. When his

work is over and he wishes to rest he should pound a picul[of grain]. Late at night when there is no work he shall washclothes really white. If he has private savings they shall bethe masters gift, or from guests. The slave may not have evilsecrets; affairs should be open and reported. If the slave doesnot heed instructions, he shall be whipped a hundred strokes.

The reading of the text of the contract came to an end.

The slave was speechless and his lips were tied. Wildly he beathis head on the ground, and beat himself with his hands;from his eyes the tears streamed down, and the drivel fromhis nose hung a foot long.

He said: If it is to be exactly as master Wang says, I wouldrather return soon along the yellow-soil road, with the graveworms boring through my head. Had I known before I wouldhave bought the wine for master Wang. I would not havedared to do that wrong. (Wang Bao, first century B.C.E.)

This story shows that Chinese slaves could be forced towork hard and engaged in many of the same menial tasksas their Roman counterparts. However, it is hard to imagine

a Roman slave daring to refuse a request and arguing pub-licly with a nobleman, for fear of severe punishment. It also

appears that slaves in China had legal protections provided

by contracts specifying and limiting what could be de-

manded of them.

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS

1. Why might slavery have been less important in Han

China than in the Roman Empire? Why would the treat-ment of slaves have been less harsh in China than in

Rome?

2. In what ways were slaves treated like other forms of

property, such as animals and tools? In what ways was

a slaves humanity taken into account?

3. What are some of the passive-resistance tactics that

slaves resorted to, and what did they achieve by these

actions?

Source:First selection from Thomas Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery, (Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins University Press (1981), 183184. Reprinted with the permission of

Thomas Publishing Services. Second selection reprinted with permission of Scribner, an

imprint of Simon and Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from Slavery in China During

the Former Han Dynasty, 206B.C.A.D. 25by Clarence Martin Wilbur (New York: Russell

& Russell, 1967).

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When they moved to Rome and other cities, they foundno work there either, and they lived in dire poverty. The

growing urban masses, idle and prone to riot, wouldplay a major role in the political struggles of the lateRepublic.

One consequence of the decline of peasant farmersin Italy was a shortage of men who owned the minimumamount of property required for military service. Duringa war in North Africa at the end of the second centuryB.C.E., Gaius Mariusa new man, as the Romans calledpolitically active individuals who did not belong to thetraditional ruling classachieved political prominenceby accepting into the Roman legions poor, propertylessmen to whom he promised farms upon retirement frommilitary service. These troops became devoted to Mariusand helped him get elected to an unprecedented (and il-legal) six consulships.

Between 88 and 31 B.C.E., a series of ambitiousindividualsSulla, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony,and Octaviancommanded armies that were more loyalto them than to the state. Their use of Roman troopsto increase their personal power and influence led tobloody civil wars between military factions. The city of

Rome itself was taken by force on several occasions, andvictorious commanders executed political opponentsand exercised dictatorial control of the state.

Julius Caesars grandnephewand heir, Octavian (63 B.C.E.14 C.E.), eliminated all rivals by31 B.C.E. and painstakingly setabout refashioning the Roman

system of government. He was careful to maintain the

forms of the Republicthe offices, honors, and socialprerogatives of the senatorial classbut he fundamen-tally altered the realities of power. A military dictator infact, he never called himself king or emperor, claimingmerely to be princeps, first among equals, in a restoredRepublic. For this reason, the period following the Ro-man Republic is called the Roman Principate.

Augustus, one of the many honorific titles that theRoman Senate gave Octavian, connotes prosperity andpiety, and it became the name by which he is best known

to posterity. Augustuss ruthlessness, patience, and intu-itive grasp of psychology enabled him to manipulate allthe groups that made up Roman society. When he diedin 14 C.E., after forty-five years of rule, almost no onecould remember the Republic. During his reign Egyptand parts of the Middle East and Central Europe wereadded to the empire, leaving only the southern half ofBritain and modern Romania to be added later.

The RomanPrincipate,31B.C.E.330 C.E.

Augustus had allied himself with the equites , theclass of well-to-do Italian merchants and landowners

second in wealth and social status only to the senatorialclass. This body of competent and self-assured individu-als became the core of a new civil service that helped runthe Roman Empire. At last Rome had an administrativebureaucracy up to the task of managing a large empire

with considerable honesty, consistency, and efficiency.So popular was Augustus when he died that four

members of his family succeeded to the position of em-peror (as we call it) despite their serious personal andpolitical shortcomings. However, due to Augustuss cal-culated ambiguity about his role, the position of em-peror was never automatically regarded as hereditary,and after the mid-first century C.E. other families ob-tained the post. In theory the early emperors were af-firmed by the Senate; in reality they were chosen by thearmies. By the second centuryC.E. a series of very capa-ble emperors instituted a new mechanism of succession:each adopted a mature man of proven ability as his son,designated him as his successor, and shared offices andprivileges with him.

While Augustus had felt it important to appeal to

Republican traditions and conceal the source and extentof his power, this became less necessary over time, andlater emperors exercised their authority more overtly.In imitation of Alexander the Great and the Hellenistickings, many Roman emperors were officially deified (re-garded as gods) after death. A cult of worship of the liv-ing emperor developed as a useful way to increase theloyalty of subjects.

The terse Law of the Twelve Tables, ca. 450 B.C.E., wassupplemented by decrees of the Senate, bills passed inthe Assembly, and the annual proclamations of the prae-

tors, elected public officials responsible for hearingcases and administering the law. In the later Republic asmall group of legal experts began to emerge who ana-lyzed laws and legal procedures to determine the under-lying principles, then applied these principles to thecreation of new laws required by a changing society.These experts were less lawyers in the modern sensethan teachers, though they were sometimes consultedby magistrates or the parties to legal actions.

During the Principate the emperor became a major

source of new laws. In this period the law was studiedand codified with a new intensity by the class of legal ex-perts, and their opinions and interpretations often weregiven the force of law.


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The Roman Empire of the firstthree centuries C.E. was an ur-ban empire. This does not

mean that most people were living in cities and towns.Perhaps 80 percent of the 50 to 60 million people living

within the borders of the empire engaged in agricultureand lived in villages or on isolated farms in the country-side. The empire, however, was administered through a

network of towns and cities, and the urban populacebenefited most.

Numerous towns had several thousand inhabitants.A handful of major citiesAlexandria in Egypt, Antiochin Syria, and Carthagehad populations of several hun-dred thousand. Rome itself had approximately a mil-lion residents. The largest cities strained the limitedtechnological capabilities of the ancients; providing ade-quate food and water and removing sewage were alwaysproblems.

In Rome the upper classes lived in elegant town-houses on one or another of the seven hills. Such a housewas centered around an atrium, a rectangular courtyardwith a skylight that let in light and rainwater for drinkingand washing. Surrounding the atrium were a diningroom for dinner and drinking parties, an interior garden,a kitchen, and possibly a private bath. Bedrooms wereon the upper level. The floors were decorated with peb-

An Urban Empireble mosaics, and the walls and ceilings were covered

with frescoes (paintings done directly on wet plaster) ofmythological scenes or outdoor vistas, giving a sense ofopenness in the absence of windows.

The poor lived in crowded slums in the low-lyingparts of the city. Damp, dark, and smelly, with few fur-nishings, their wooden tenements were susceptible tofrequent fires.

The cities, towns, and even the ramshackle settle-ments that sprang up on the edge of frontier forts wereminiature replicas of the capital city in political organi-zation, physical layout, and appearance. A town counciland two annually elected officials drawn from prosper-ous members of the community maintained law and or-der and collected both urban and rural taxes. In theirdesire to imitate the manners and values of Roman sen-ators, this municipal aristocracy endowed cities andtowns, which had very little revenue of their own, with

attractive elements of Roman urban lifea forum (anopen plaza that served as a civic center), governmentbuildings, temples, gardens, baths, theaters, amphithe-aters, and games and public entertainments of all sorts.

The concentration of ownership of the land in everfewer hands was temporarily reversed during the civil

wars that brought an end to the Roman Republic, but itresumed in the era of the emperors. However, after the

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era of conquest ended in the early second century C.E.,slaves were no longer plentiful or inexpensive, and land-

owners needed a new source of labor. Over time, theindependent farmers were replaced by tenant farm-ers who were allowed to live on and cultivate plots ofland in return for a portion of their crops. The land-owners still lived in the cities and hired foremen to man-age their estates. Thus wealth was concentrated in thecities but was based on the productivity of rural agricul-tural laborers.

Some urban dwellers got rich from manufacture andtrade. Commerce was greatly enhanced by the pax ro-mana(Roman peace), the safety and stability guaran-teed by Roman might. Grain, meat, vegetables, and otherbulk foodstuffs usually could be exchanged only locallybecause transportation was expensive and many prod-ucts spoiled quickly. However, the city of Rome dependedon the import of massive quantities of grain from Sicilyand Egypt.

Glass, metalwork, delicate pottery, and other finemanufactured products were exported throughout theempire. Roman armies stationed on the frontiers were alarge market, and their presence promoted the prosper-

ity of border provinces. Other merchants traded in lux-ury items from far beyond the boundaries of the empire,especially silk from China and spices from India and

Arabia.Romanizationthe spread of the Latin language

and Roman way of lifewas one of the most enduringconsequences of empire, primarily in the western prov-inces. Greek language and culture, a legacy of the Hel-lenistic kingdoms, continued to dominate the easternMediterranean (see Chapter 4). As towns sprang up andacquired the features of Roman urban life, they served as

magnets for ambitious members of the indigenous pop-ulations. The empire gradually and reluctantly grantedRoman citizenship, with its attendant privileges, legalprotections, and exemptions from some types of taxa-tion, to people living outside Italy. Men who completed atwenty-six-year term of service in the native militaryunits that backed up the Roman legions were grantedcitizenship and could pass this status on to their descen-dants. Emperors made grants of citizenship to individu-als or entire communities as rewards for good service. In

212C

.E

. the emperor Caracalla granted citizenship to allfree, adult, male inhabitants of the empire.The gradual extension of citizenship mirrored the

empires transformation from an Italian dominion overMediterranean lands into a commonwealth of peoples.

As early as the first centuryC.E. some of the leading liter-ary and intellectual figures came from the provinces. Bythe second century even the emperors hailed fromSpain, Gaul, and North Africa.

The Jewish homeland of Judaea(see Chapter 3), roughly equiv-

alent to present-day Israel, wasput under direct Roman rule in

6 C.E. Over the next half-century Roman governors in-sensitive to the Jewish belief in one god managed toincrease tensions, and opposition to Roman rule sprangup. Many waited for the arrival of the Messiah, theAnointed One, presumed to be a military leader who

would liberate the Jewish people and drive the Romansout of the land.

It is in this context that we must see the career ofJesus, a young carpenter from the Galilee region innorthern Israel. While scholars largely agree that the por-trait of Jesus found in the New Testament reflects theviewpoint of followers a half-century after his death, it isdifficult to determine the motives and teachings of thehistorical Jesus. Some experts believe that he was essen-tially a rabbi, or teacher, and that, offended by what heperceived as Jewish religious and political leaders exces-sive concern with money and power and by the perfunc-tory nature of mainstream Jewish religious practice inhis time, he prescribed a return to the personal faith and

spirituality of an earlier age. Others stress his connec-tions to the apocalyptic fervor found in certain circles ofJudaism, such as John the Baptist and the communitythat authored the Dead Sea Scrolls. They view Jesus as afiery prophet who urged people to prepare themselvesfor the imminent end of the world and Gods ushering inof a blessed new age. Still others see him as a politicalrevolutionary, upset by the downtrodden condition ofthe peasants in the countryside and the poor in thecities, who was determined to drive out the Roman oc-cupiers and their collaborators among the Jewish elite.

Whatever his real motivations, the charismatic Jesuseventually attracted the attention of the Jewish authori-ties in Jerusalem, who regarded popular reformers as po-tential troublemakers. They turned him over to theRoman governor, Pontius Pilate. Jesus was imprisoned,condemned, and executed by crucifixion, a punishmentusually reserved for common criminals. His followers,the Apostles, carried on after his death and sought tospread his teachings and their belief that he was theMessiah and had been resurrected (returned from death

to life) among their fellow Jews.Paul, a Jew from the city of Tarsus in southeastAnatolia, converted to the new creed. Between 45 and58 C.E. he threw his enormous energy into spreadingthe word. Traveling throughout Syria-Palestine, Anatolia,and Greece, he became increasingly frustrated with therefusal of most Jews to accept his claim that Jesus wasthe Messiah and had ushered in a new age. Many Jews,on the other hand, were appalled by the failure of the fol-

The Rise of

Christianity


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lowers of Jesus to maintain traditional Jewish practices.Discovering a spiritual hunger among many non-Jews

(sometimes called gentiles), Paul redirected his effortstoward them and set up a string of Christian (from theGreek name christos, meaning anointed one, given toJesus by his followers) communities in the easternMediterranean. Speaking both Greek and Aramaic, hemoved comfortably between the Greco-Roman and Jew-ish worlds.

In 66 C.E. long-building tensions in Roman Judaeaerupted into a full-scale revolt that lasted until 73. One ofthe casualties of the Roman reconquest of Judaea wasthe Jerusalem-based Christian community, which fo-cused on converting the Jews. This left the field clear forPauls non-Jewish converts, and Christianity began to di-verge more and more from its Jewish roots.

For more than two centuries, the sect grew slowlybut steadily. Many of the first converts were from dis-enfranchised groupswomen, slaves, the urban poor.However, as the religious movement grew and prospered,it developed a hierarchy of priests and bishops and be-came subject to bitter disputes over theological doctrine(see Chapter 9).

As monotheists forbidden to worship other gods,early Christians were persecuted by Roman officials whoregarded their refusal to worship the emperor as a signof disloyalty. Despite occasional government-sponsoredattempts at suppression and spontaneous mob attacks,or perhaps because of them, the young Christian move-ment continued to gain strength and attract converts. Bythe late third centuryC.E. its adherents were a sizable mi-nority within the Roman Empire and included many ed-ucated and prosperous people with posts in the localand imperial governments.

The expansion of Christianity should be seen as partof a broader religious tendency. By the Greek Classicalperiod a number of mystery cults had gained popular-ity by claiming to provide secret information about thenature of life and death and promising a blessed after-life to their adherents. In the Hellenistic and Roman pe-riods, a number of cults making similar promises arosein the eastern Mediterranean and spread throughout theGreco-Roman lands, presumably in response to a grow-ing spiritual and intellectual hunger not satisfied by tra-

ditional pagan practices. As we shall see, the ultimatevictory of Christianity over these rivals had as much to dowith historical circumstances as with its spiritual appeal.

The relative ease and safety oftravel brought about by Romanarms and engineering enabledmerchants to sell their wares

Technology andTransformation

and helped the early Christians spread their faith. Sur-viving remnants of roads, fortification walls, aqueducts,

and buildings testify to the engineering expertise of theancient Romans. Some of the best engineers served withthe army, building bridges, siege works, and ballistic

weapons that hurled stones and shafts. In peacetime sol-diers were often put to work on construction projects.

Aqueductslong elevated or underground conduitscarried water from a source to an urban center, usingonly the force of gravity (see Environment and Technol-ogy: Water Engineering in Rome and China). The Ro-mans were pioneers in the use of arches, which allow theeven distribution of great weights without thick support-ing walls. The invention of concretea mixture of limepowder, sand, and water that could be poured intomoldsallowed the Romans to create vast vaulted anddomed interior spaces.

Defending borders that stretched for thousands ofmiles was a great challenge. In a document releasedafter his death, Augustus advised against expandingthe empire because the costs of administering and de-fending subsequent acquisitions would be greater thanthe revenues. The Roman army was reorganized and

redeployed to reflect the shift from an offensive to adefensive strategy. At most points the empire was pro-tected by mountains, deserts, and seas. But the lengthyRhine and Danube river frontiers in Germany and Cen-tral Europe were vulnerable. They were guarded by astring of forts with relatively small garrisons, adequatefor dealing with raiders. On particularly desolate fron-tiers, such as in Britain and North Africa, the Romansbuilt long walls to keep out the peoples who livedbeyond.

The Roman state prospered for two-and-a-half cen-

turies after Augustus stabilized the internal political situ-ation and addressed the needs of the empire with anambitious program of reforms. In the third centuryC.E.cracks in the edifice became visible. Historians use theexpression third-century crisis to refer to the periodfrom 235 to 284 C.E., when political, military, and eco-nomic problems beset and nearly destroyed the RomanEmpire. The most visible symptom of the crisis was thefrequent change of rulers. Twenty or more men claimedthe office of emperor during this period. Most reigned

for only a few months or years before being overthrownby rivals or killed by their own troops. Germanic tribes-men on the Rhine/Danube frontier took advantage ofthe frequent civil wars and periods of anarchy to raiddeep into the empire. For the first time in centuries, Ro-man cities began to erect walls for protection.

The political and military emergencies had a devas-tating impact on the empires economy. Buying the loy-alty of the army and paying to defend the increasingly

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permeable frontiers drained the treasury. The unendingdemands of the central government for more tax rev-

enues from the provinces, as well as the interruption ofcommerce by fighting, eroded the towns prosperity.Shortsighted emperors, desperate for cash, reduced theamount of precious metal in Roman coins. As the de-valued coinage became less and less acceptable in themarketplace, parts of the empire reverted to a bartereconomy, a far less efficient system that further curtailedlarge-scale and long-distance commerce.

The municipal aristocracy, once the most vital andpublic-spirited class in the empire, was slowly crushedout of existence. As town councilors, its members werepersonally liable for shortfalls in taxes owed to the state.The decline in trade eroded their wealth, which often

was based on manufacture and commerce, and manybegan to evade their civic duties and even went into hid-

ing. Population shifted out of the cities and into thecountryside. Many people sought employment and pro-

tection from both raiders and government officials onthe estates of wealthy and powerful country landowners.

Just when things looked bleakest, one man pulledthe empire back from the brink of self-destruction. Acommoner by birth, Diocletian had risen through theranks of the army and gained power in 284. His success isindicated by the fact that he ruled for more than twenty

years and died in bed.Diocletian implemented radical reforms that saved

the Roman state by transforming it. To halt inflation (theprocess by which prices rise as money becomes worthless), Diocletian issued an edict that specified the maxi-mum prices that could be charged for various com-modities and services. To ensure an adequate supply of

workers in vital services, he froze many people into their

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Water Engineering in Rome and China

People needed water to drink; it was vital for agriculture;and it provided a rapid and economical means for trans-porting people and goods. Some of the most impressivetechnological achievements of ancient Rome and China in-volved hydraulic (water) engineering.

Roman cities, with their large populations, required abun-

dant and reliable sources of water. One way to obtain it wasto build aqueductsstone channels to bring water from dis-tant lakes and streams to the cities. The water flowing inthese conduits was moved only by the force of gravity. Sur-veyors measured the lands elevation and plotted a coursethat very gradually moved downhill.

Some conduits were elevated atop walls or bridges, whichmade it difficult for unauthorized parties to tap the waterline for their own use. Portions of some aqueducts were builtunderground. Still-standing aboveground segments indicate

that the Roman aqueducts were well-built structures madeof large cut stones closely fitted and held together by acement-like mortar. Construction of the aqueducts waslabor-intensive, and often both design and constructionwere carried out by military personnel. This was one of theways in which the Roman government could keep largenumbers of soldiers busy in peacetime.

Sections of aqueduct that crossed rivers presented thesame construction challenges as bridges. Roman engineerslowered prefabricated wooden cofferdamslarge, hollowcylindersinto the riverbed and pumped out the water soworkers could descend and construct cement piers to supportthe arched segments of the bridge and the water channel it-self. This technique is still used for construction in water.

When an aqueduct reached the outskirts of a city, the wa-ter flowed into a reservoir, where it was stored. Pipes con-nected the reservoir to different parts of the city. Evenwithin the city, gravity provided the motive force until thewater reached the public fountains used by the poor and theprivate storage tanks of individuals wealthy enough to haveplumbing in their houses.

In ancient China, rivers running generally in an east-westdirection were the main thoroughfares. The earliest develop-ment of complex societies centered on the Yellow River Val-ley, but by the beginning of the Qin Empire the Yangzi River

Valley and regions farther south were becoming increasinglyimportant to Chinas political and economic vitality. In thisera the Chinese began to build canals connecting the north-ern and southern zones, at first for military purposes but

eventually for transporting commercial goods as well. In laterperiods, with the acquisition of more advanced engineeringskills, an extensive network of canals was built, including the1,100-mile-long (1,771-kilometer-long) Grand Canal.

One of the earliest efforts was the construction of theMagic Canal. A Chinese historian tells us that the Qin em-

peror Shi Huangdi ordered his engineers to join two rivers bya 20-mile-long (32.2-kilometer-long) canal so that he couldmore easily supply his armies of conquest in the south. Con-struction of the canal posed a difficult engineering chal-lenge, because the rivers Hsiang and Li, though comingwithin 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) of one another, flowed in op-posite directions and with a strong current.

The engineers took advantage of a low point in the chainof hills between the rivers to maintain a relatively levelgrade. The final element of the solution was to build a snout-

shaped mound to divide the waters of the Hsiang, funnelingpart of that river into an artificial channel. Several spillwaysfurther reduced the volume of water flowing into the canal,which was 15 feet wide and 3 feet deep (about 4.5 meterswide and 1 meter deep). The joining of the two rivers com-pleted a network of waterways that permitted continuousinland water transport of goods between the latitudes ofBeijing and Guangzhou (Canton), a distance of 1,250 miles(2,012 kilometers). Modifications were made in later cen-turies, but the Magic Canal is still in use.

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professions and required them to train their sons to suc-ceed them. This unprecedented government regulation

of prices and vocations had unforeseen consequences.A black market arose among buyers and sellers whochose to ignore the governments price controls and es-tablish their own prices for goods and services. Many in-habitants of the empire began to see the government asan oppressive entity that no longer deserved their loyalty.

When Diocletian resigned in 305, the old divisivenessreemerged as various claimants battled for the throne.The eventual winner was Constantine (r. 306337), whoreunited the entire empire under his sole rule by 324.

In 312 Constantine won a key battle at the MilvianBridge over the Tiber River near Rome. He later claimedthat he had seen a cross (the sign of the Christian God)superimposed on the sun before this battle. Believingthat the Christian God had helped him achieve thevictory, in the following year Constantine issued the so-called Edict of Milan, ending the persecution of Chris-tianity and guaranteeing freedom of worship to Christiansand all others. Throughout his reign he supported theChristian church, although he tolerated other beliefs as

well. Historians disagree about whether Constantine

was spiritually motivated or was pragmatically seekingto unify the peoples of the empire under a single reli-gion. In either case his embrace of Christianity was oftremendous historical significance. Large numbers ofpeople began to convert when they saw that Christiansseeking political office or favors from the governmenthad clear advantages over non-Christians.

In 324 Constantine transferred the imperial capitalfrom Rome to Byzantium, an ancient Greek city on theBosporus strait leading from the Mediterranean intothe Black Sea. The city was renamed Constantinople,

City of Constantine. This move both reflected and ac-celerated changes already taking place. Constantinople

was closer than Rome to the most-threatened borders ineastern Europe (see Map 5.1). The urban centers andprosperous middle class in the eastern half of the empirehad better withstood the third-century crisis than hadthose in the western half. In addition, more educatedpeople and more Christians were living in the easternprovinces.

Though conversion to theChristian faith affected all partsof the empire, a deep gulf

Byzantines andGermans

opened between the eastern, Greek-speaking lands andthe lands in the west that came under the influence of

Germanic rulers. The term Byzantine Empire, derivedfrom Constantinoples original name, came into use forthe eastern realm. Constantine (and his pious motherHelena) studded the city with churches, controlled theappointment of the newly created Christian patriarch ofConstantinople, and involved himself in doctrinal dis-putes over which beliefs constituted heresy.

In 325 he called hundreds of bishops to a councilat the city of Nicaea (modern Iznik in northwesternTurkey) to resolve disputes over religious doctrine. Thebishops rejected the views of a priest from Alexandrianamed Arius, who maintained that Jesus was of lesserimportance than God the Father. However, the Ariandoctrine enjoyed great, though temporary, popularityamong the Germanic peoples then migrating along theDanube frontier and into the western Roman lands.

The next several centuries were crowded with dis-putes over theology and quarrels among the patriarchs,or paramount church officials, of Constantinople, Alex-andria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Rome. The patriarchsappointed bishops, and each bishop consecrated priests

within his area of jurisdiction, called a diocese. Churchrules set by the patriarch or by councils of bishopsguided priests in serving ordinary believers.

Christianity progressed most rapidly in urban cen-ters. Though the country folk (Latin pagani,whence the

word pagan used as a negative label for polytheists) longretained customs deriving from worship of the old gods,the emperor Julian (r. 361363) tried in vain to restorethe old polytheism as the state cult. In 392 the emperorTheodosius banned all pagan ceremonies.

The heavy involvement with religion of the emper-

ors in Constantinople did not prevent them from playingthe traditional roles of conqueror and lawmaker. Theemperor Justinian (r. 527565) sent armies to regain con-trol of Roman North Africa, which had been conqueredby Germans invading from Spain, and of parts of Italy.His historians celebrated these deeds, but his collectionof Roman laws proved more enduring. At his command ateam of seventeen legal scholars made a systematiccompilation, in Latin, of a thousand years of Roman le-gal tradition. The Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law),as it came to be called, began to be studied in westernEurope under the influence of a legal scholar namedIrnerius (ca. 1055ca. 1130), whose establishment of le-gal studies at the University of Bologna in Italy laid thefoundation for most modern European legal systems.


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Continuing imperial vitality in the eastern empirecontrasted with deepening decline in the western em-

pire, which formally became a separate entity after 395.Byzantine armies and diplomats warded off most as-saults on the comparatively short Danube River frontier,thereby persuading migrating German warrior bands tokeep moving westward. Crossing the Rhine, they over-

whelmed the Roman legions in the west. Gaul, Britain,Spain, and North Africa fell to various Germanic peoplesin the early fifth century. Visigoths sacked Rome itself in410, and the last Roman emperor was deposed in 476.

By 530, with the old Roman economy and urbancenters in shambles, the Western Roman Empire hadfragmented into a handful of kingdoms under Germanicrulers. The city of Rome had lost its political importancebut retained prominence as the seat of the most influen-tial Western churchman, the patriarch of Rome. Localnoble families competed for control of this position,

which over several centuries acquired the title Popealong with supreme power in the Latin-speaking church.

The educated few, increasingly only Christian priestsand monks, still spoke and wrote a somewhat simplifiedform of Latin. But the Latin of the uneducated masses

who had lived under Roman rule rapidly evolved into theRomance dialects that eventually became modern Por-tuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, and Romanian. In thenorth and east of the Rhine River, where Roman culturehad scarcely penetrated, people spoke Germanic and re-lated Scandinavian languages. East of the Elbe River,speakers of Slavic languages formed a third major group.

From a Roman point of view, the rise of the Ger-manic kingdoms represented the triumph of the barbar-ians. Yet the society that developed on the ruins of Romein the west was to prove more dynamic and creative than

the Byzantine realm that preserved intact much more ofthe Roman tradition.

THE ORIGINS OF IMPERIAL CHINA,221 B.C.E.220 C.E.

The early history of China (see Chapter 2) was charac-terized by the fragmentation that geography seemed

to dictate. The Shang (ca. 17501027 B.C.E.) and Zhou(1027221 B.C.E.) dynasties ruled over a relatively com-pact zone in northeastern China. The last few centuriesof nominal Zhou rulethe Warring States Periodsawrivalry and belligerence among a group of small states

with somewhat different languages and cultures. As inthe contemporary Greek city-states (see Chapter 4), com-

petition and conflict gave rise to many distinctive ele-ments of a national culture.

In the second half of the third centuryB.C.E. one ofthe warring statesthe Qin state of the Wei Valleyrapidly conquered its rivals and created Chinas firstempire (221206 B.C.E.). Built at a great cost in humanlives and labor, the Qin Empire barely survived the deathof its founder, Shi Huangdi. Power soon passed to anew dynasty, the Han, which ruled China from 206B.C.E.to 220 C.E. (see Map 5.2). Thus began the long his-tory of imperial Chinaa tradition of political and cul-tural unity and continuity that lasted into the earlytwentieth century.

Agriculture produced thewealth and taxes that sup-ported the institutions of im-perial China. The main tax, a

percentage of the annual harvest, funded governmentactivities ranging from the luxurious lifestyle of the royalcourt to the daily tasks of officials and military unitsthroughout the country and on the frontiers. Large pop-

ulations in Chinas capital cities, first Changan andlater Luoyang, had to be fed. As intensive agriculturespread in the Yangzi River Valley, the need to transportsouthern crops to the north spurred the construction ofcanals to connect the Yangzi with the Yellow River (seeEnvironment and Technology: Water Engineering inRome and China). During prosperous times, the govern-ment also collected and stored surplus grain that couldbe sold at reasonable prices in times of shortage.

The government periodically conducted a census ofinhabitants, and the results for 2 C.E. and 140 C.E. are

available today. The earlier survey counted approxi-mately 12 million households and 60 million people; thelater, not quite 10 million households and 49 millionpeople. The average household contained 5 persons.Then, as now, the vast majority of the people lived in theeastern portion of the country, the river-valley regions

where intensive agriculture could support a dense popu-lation. At first the largest concentration was in the YellowRiver Valley and North China Plain, but by early Hantimes the demographic center had begun to shift to the

Yangzi River Valley.In the intervals between seasonal agricultural tasks,

every able-bodied man donated one month of labor ayear to public works projectsbuilding palaces, temples,

Resources andPopulation

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fortifications, and roads; transporting goods; excavatingand maintaining canal channels; laboring on imperialestates; or working in the mines. The state also requiredtwo years of military service. On the frontiers, youngconscripts built walls and forts, kept an eye on barbar-ian neighbors, fought when necessary, and grew cropsto support themselves. Annually updated registers ofland and households enabled imperial officials to keeptrack of money and services due. Like the Romans, theChinese government depended on a large population offree peasants to contribute taxes and services to thestate.

The Han Chinese gradually but persistently expandedat the expense of other ethnic groups. Population growth

in the core regions and a shortage of good, arable landspurred pioneers to push into new areas. Sometimesthe government organized new settlements, at militarilystrategic sites and on the frontiers, for example. Neigh-boring kingdoms also invited Chinese settlers so as toexploit their skills and learn their technologies.

Han people preferred regions suitable for the kind ofagriculture they had practiced in the eastern river val-leys. They took over land on the northern frontier, push-ing back nomadic populations. They also expanded intothe tropical forests of southern China and settled in the

western oases. In places not suitable for their preferredkind of agriculture, particularly the steppe and the desert,Han Chinese did not displace other groups.


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As the Han Chinese expandedinto new regions, they tookalong their social organization,values, language, and othercultural practices. The basic

unit of Chinese society was the family, which includednot only the living generations but also all the previousgenerationsthe ancestors. The Chinese believed thattheir ancestors maintained an ongoing interest in thefortunes of living family members, so they consulted,appeased, and venerated them in order to maintain theirfavor. The family was viewed as a living, self-renewingorganism, and each generation was required to havesons to perpetuate the family and maintain the ancestorcult that provided a kind of immortality to the deceased.

The doctrine of Confucius (Kongzi), which had itsorigins in the sixth centuryB.C.E. (see Chapter 2), becamevery influential in the imperial period. Confucianism re-garded hierarchy as a natural aspect of human societyand laid down rules of appropriate conduct. People sawthemselves as part of an interdependent unit rather thanas individual agents. Each person had a place and re-sponsibilities within the family hierarchy, based on his

Hierarchy,Obedience,and Belief

or her gender, age, and relationship to other family mem-bers. Absolute authority rested with the father, who wasan intermediary between the living members and theancestors, presiding over the rituals of ancestor worship.

The same concepts operated in society as a whole.

Peasants, soldiers, administrators, and rulers all madedistinctive and necessary contributions to the welfare ofsociety. Confucianism optimistically maintained that peo-ple could be guided to the right path through education,imitation of proper role models, and self-improvement.The family inculcated the basic values of Chinese soci-ety: loyalty, obedience to authority, respect for eldersand ancestors, and concern for honor and appropriateconduct. Because the hierarchy in the state mirrored thehierarchy in the family, these same attitudes carried overinto the relationship between individuals and the state.

The experiences of women in ancient Chinese soci-ety are hard to pinpoint because, as elsewhere, contem-porary written sources tell us little. Confucian ethicsstressed the impropriety of women participating in pub-lic life. Traditional wisdom about conduct appropriatefor women is preserved in an account of the life of themother of the Confucian philosopher Mencius (Mengzi):

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A womans duties are to cook the five grains, heat thewine, look after her parents-in-law, make clothes, and

that is all! . . . [She] has no ambition to manage affairsoutside the house. . . . She must follow the three sub-missions. When she is young, she must submit to herparents. After her marriage, she must submit to herhusband. When she is widowed, she must submit toher son.1

That is an ideal perpetuated by males of the upperclasses, the social stratum that is the source of most ofthe written texts. Upper-class females probably wereunder considerable pressure to conform to those expec-

tations. Women of the lower classes, less affected byConfucian ways of thinking, may have been less con-strained than their more privileged counterparts.

After her parents arranged her marriage, a youngbride went to live with her husbands family, where she

was a stranger who had to prove herself. Ability and forceof personalityas well as the capacity to produce sonscould make a difference. Dissension between the wifeand her mother-in-law and sisters-in-law grew out ofcompetition for influence with husbands, sons, andbrothers and for a larger share of the familys economic

resources.Like the early Romans, the ancient Chinese believed

that divinity resided within nature rather than outsideand above it, and they worshiped and tried to appeasethe forces of nature. The state erected and maintainedshrines to the lords of rain and winds as well as to certaingreat rivers and high mountains. Gathering at moundsor altars where the local spirit of the soil was thought toreside, people sacrificed sheep and pigs and beat drumsloudly to promote the fertility of the earth. Strange ordisastrous natural phenomena, such as eclipses or heavyrains, called for symbolic restraint of the deity by tying ared cord around the sacred spot. Because it was believedthat supernatural forces flowed through the landscape,bringing good and evil fortune, experts in feng shui,meaning earth divination, were consulted to deter-mine the most favorable location and orientation forbuildings and graves. The faithful learned to adapt theirlives to the complex rhythms they perceived in nature.

For centuries eastern Chinawas divided among rival stateswhose frequent hostilities gaverise to the label Warring StatesPeriod (480221 B.C.E.). In the

second half of the third centuryB.C.E. the state of the Qinsuddenly burst forth and took over the other states oneby one. By 221 B.C.E., the first emperor had united thenorthern plain and the Yangzi River Valley under one

The FirstChinese Empire,221207 B.C.E.

rule, marking the creation of China and the inaugurationof the imperial age. Many scholars maintain that the

name China, by which this land has been known in theWestern world, is derived from Qin.

Several factors account for the meteoric rise of theQin. The Qin ruler, who took the title Shi Huangdi(FirstEmperor), and his adviser and prime minister Li Si wereable and ruthless men who exploited the exhaustionresulting from the long centuries of interstate rivalry. TheQin homeland in the valley of the Wei, a tributary of the

Yellow River, was less urbanized and commercializedthan the kingdoms farther east, with a large pool of sturdypeasants to serve in the army. Moreover, long experience

in mobilizing manpower for the construction of irrigationand flood-control works had strengthened the authorityof the Qin king at the expense of the nobles and endowedhis government with superior organizational skills.

Shi Huangdi and Li Si created a totalitarian structurethat subordinated the individual to the needs of thestate. By publicly burning large numbers of books, theysymbolically expressed a radical break with the past.They cracked down on Confucianism, regarding its de-mands for benevolent and nonviolent conduct from

rulers to be a check on the absolute power they sought.They instead drew from a stream of political thoughtknown as Legalism (see Chapter 2). Developing earlierLegalist thinking, Li Si insisted that the will of the ruler

was supreme, and that it was necessary to impose disci-pline and obedience on the subjects through the rigidapplication of rewards and punishments.

The new regime was determined to eliminate rivalcenters of authority. Its first target was the landowningaristocracy of the conquered rival states and the systemon which aristocratic wealth and power had been based.

Because primogeniturethe right of the eldest son to in-herit all the landed propertyallowed a small number ofindividuals to accumulate vast tracts of land, the Qingovernment abolished it, instead requiring estates to bebroken up and passed on to several heirs.

The large estates of the aristocracy had been workedby slaves (see Diversity and Dominance: The Treatmentof Slaves in Rome and China) and peasant serfs, whogave their landlords a substantial portion of their har-vest. The Qin abolished slavery and took steps to create afree peasantry who paid taxes and provided labor, as wellas military service, to the state.

The Qin governments commitment to standardiza-tion helped create a unified Chinese civilization. Duringthe Warring States Period, small states had found many

ways to emphasize their independence. For example,states had had their own forms of music, with different


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scales, systems of notation, and instruments. The Qinimposed standard weights, measures, and coinage; a

uniform law code; a common system of writing; andeven regulations governing the axle length of carts so asto leave just one set of ruts on the roads.

The Qin built thousands of miles of roadscompa-rable in scale to the roads of the Roman Empireto con-nect the parts of the empire and to move Qin armiesquickly. They also built canals connecting the river sys-tems of northern and southern China (see Environmentand Technology: Water Engineering in Rome and China).The frontier walls of the old states began to be linkedinto a continuous barricade, the precursor of the Great

Wall), to protect cultivated lands from raids by northernnomads. Large numbers of people were forced to donatetheir labor and often their lives to build the walls androads. So oppressive were the financial exploitation anddemands for forced labor that a series of rebellions brokeout when Shi Huangdi died in 210 B.C.E., bringing downthe Qin dynasty.

When the dust cleared, Liu

Bang, who may have been borna peasant, had outlasted his ri-vals and established a new dy-nasty, the Han (206 B.C.E.220

C.E.). The new emperor promised to reject the excessesand mistakes of the Qin and to restore the institutions ofa venerable past. To sustain and protect a large empire,however, the Han administration maintained much ofthe Qins structure and Legalist ideology, though withless fanatical zeal. The Han tempered Legalist govern-ment with a Confucianism revised to serve a large, cen-

tralized political entity. This Confucianism emphasizedthe governments benevolence and the appropriatenessof particular rituals and behaviors in a manifestly hierar-chical society. The Han system of administration be-came the standard for later ages, and the Chinese peopletoday refer to themselves ethnically as Han.

After eighty years of imperial consolidation, Em-peror Wu (r. 14087 B.C.E.) launched a period of militaryexpansion, south into Fujian, Guangdong, and present-day north Vietnam, and north into Manchuria and pres-ent-day North Korea. Han armies also went west to innerMongolia and Xinjiang to secure the lucrative Silk Road(see Chapter 7). Controlling the newly acquired territo-ries was expensive, however, so Wus successors cur-tailed further expansion.

The Han Empire endured, with a brief interruptionbetween 9 and 23 C.E., for more than four hundred years.

The Long Reignof the Han,206 B.C.E.220 C.E.

From 202 B.C.E. to 8 C.E.the period of the Early, or West-ern, Hanthe capital was at Changan, in the Wei Valley,

an ancient seat of power from which the Zhou and Qindynasties had emerged. From 23 to 220 C.E. the Later, orEastern, Han established its base farther east, in themore centrally located Luoyang.

Protected by a ring of hills but with ready access tothe fertile plain, Changanwas surrounded by a wall ofpounded earth and brick 15 miles (24 kilometers) in cir-cumference. Contemporaries described it as a bustlingplace, filled with courtiers, officials, soldiers, merchants,craftsmen, and foreign visitors. In 2 C.E. its population

was 246,000. Part of the city was carefully planned. Broad

thoroughfares running north and south intersected withothers running east and west. High walls protected thepalaces, administrative offices, barracks, and storehousesof the imperial compound, and access was restricted.Temples and marketplaces were scattered about thecivic center. Changan became a model of urban plan-ning, and its main features were imitated in the citiesand towns that sprang up throughout the Han Empire.

Moralizing writers who criticized the elite provideglimpses of their private lives. Living in multistory

houses, wearing fine silks, and traveling about Changanin ornate horse-drawn carriages, well-to-do officials andmerchants devoted their leisure time to art and litera-ture, occult religious practices, elegant banquets, andvarious entertainmentsmusic and dance, juggling andacrobatics, dog and horse races, cock and tiger fights. Instark contrast, the common people inhabited a sprawl-ing warren of alleys, living in dwellings packed asclosely as the teeth of a comb, as one poet put it.

As in the Zhou monarchy (see Chapter 2), the em-peror was the Son of Heaven, chosen to rule in accor-

dance with the Mandate of Heaven. He stood at thecenter of government and society. As the father held au-thority in the family and was a link between the livinggenerations and the ancestors, so was the emperorsupreme in the state. He brought the support of powerfulimperial ancestors and guaranteed the harmonious in-teraction of heaven and earth. To a much greater degreethan his Roman counterpart, he was regarded as a divin-ity and his word was law.

Living in seclusion within the walled palace com-pound, surrounded by his many wives, children, ser-vants, courtiers, and officials, the emperor presided overunceasing pomp and ritual emphasizing the worship ofHeaven and imperial ancestors as well as the practicalbusiness of government. The royal compound was also ahive of intrigue, no more so than when the emperor diedand his chief widow chose his heir from among the malemembers of the ruling clan.

The central government was run by a prime minister,

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a civil service director, and nine ministers with military,economic, legal, and religious responsibilities. Like the

imperial Romans, the Han depended on local officialsfor day-to-day administration of their far-flung territo-ries. Local people collected taxes and dispatched rev-enues to the central government, regulated conscriptionfor the army and for labor projects, provided protection,and settled disputes. The remote central governmentrarely impinged on the lives of most citizens.

As part of their strategy to weaken the rural aristo-crats and exclude them from political posts, the Qin andHan emperors allied themselves with the gentrytheclass next in wealth below the aristocrats. To serve as lo-

cal officials the central government chose members ofthis class of moderately prosperous landowners, usuallymen with education and valued expertise who resem-bled the Roman equites favored by Augustus and hissuccessors. These officials were a privileged and re-spected group within Chinese society, and they madethe government more efficient and responsive than ithad been in the past.

The guiding philosophy of the new gentry class wasa modified Confucianism that provided a system for

training officials to be intellectually capable and morallyworthy of their role and set forth a code of conduct formeasuring their performance. According to Chinese tra-

dition, an imperial university with as many as thirtythousand students was located outside Changan, and

provincial centers of learning were established. (Somescholars doubt that such a complex institution existedthis early.) Students from these centers were chosen toenter various levels of government service.

In theory, young men from any class could rise in thestate hierarchy. In practice, sons of the gentry had an ad-vantage because they were most likely to receive the nec-essary training in the Confucian classics. As civil servantsadvanced in the bureaucracy, they received distinctiveemblems and privileges of rank, including preferentialtreatment in the legal system and exemption from mili-

tary service. Over time, the gentry became a new aristoc-racy of sorts, banding together in cliques and familyalliances that had considerable clout and worked to ad-vance the careers of group members.

Daoism, which also had its origins in the WarringStates Period (see Chapter 2), took deeper root, becom-ing popular with the common people. Daoism empha-sized the search for the Dao, or path, of nature and thevalue of harmonizing with the cycles and patterns of thenatural world. Enlightenment was achieved not so much

by education as by solitary contemplation and physicaland mental discipline. Daoism was skeptical, question-ing age-old beliefs and values and rejecting the hierar-


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chy, rules, and rituals of the Confucianism of the eliteclasses. It urged passive acceptance of the disorder of the

world, denial of ambition, contentment with simplepleasures, and trusting ones own instincts.

Chinese tradition recognizedthe importance of technologyfor the success and spread ofChinese civilization, crediting

legendary rulers of the distant past with the introductionof major technologies.

The advent of bronze tools around 1500 B.C.E. helped

clear the forests and open land for agriculture on theNorth China Plain. Almost a thousand years later ironarrived. Chinese metallurgists employed more advancedtechniques than did their counterparts elsewhere inthe hemisphere. Whereas Roman blacksmiths produced

wrought-iron tools and weapons by hammering heatediron, the Chinese hammered ores with a higher carboncontent to produce steel, and they mastered the tech-nique of liquefying iron and pouring it into molds. Theresulting steel and cast-iron tools and weapons were

considerably stronger.In the succeeding centuries, the crossbow and theuse of cavalry helped the Chinese military repel nomadsfrom the steppe regions. The watermill, which harnessedthe power of running water to turn a grindstone, wasused in China long before it appeared in Europe. The de-velopment of a horse collar that did not constrict the an-imals breathing allowed Chinese horses to pull muchheavier loads than European horses could. The Chinesealso were the first to make paper, perhaps as early

apwh chapter 5

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