The Han Dynasty and the Roman Empire vary in their political development and achievements. The Roman’s developed two different codes of law, one that applied to citizens and another that applied to non-citizens. Rome’s trade routes were built using stone, which made it very easy for merchants to travel from one city to another over a vast amount of land. China, however, used a single code of law for all their citizens and conquered peoples, and used a long and treacherous trail in their trade; that lead to the Middle East. Even though these two civilizations held many differences, they also shared rulers who personally oversaw their governments to prevent numerous dilemmas and used expansive trade routes to build up their economies and …show more content…
In Rome Christianity was widely adopted, first by the people and then by the state. They believed that a Savior would come who was the Son of God, and he would save them from their sins. Alternatively, the Han Dynasty adopted Confucianism. This was not so much a religion as it was more a set of rules and guidelines for a person’s behavior, thoughts, and actions. They also fed their multiplying populations differently. Rome imported grain from Africa. Whereas, China built huge store houses, and filled them during years when there was plenty of food. Then when years of droughts and poor crops came, there was enough food to feed everyone. The economy was also kept stable during these years because they didn’t need to raise the price of grain, since they had stored away so much during the good years. These two countries differed in how they fed their populations because of their cities arrangements and as a result of their planning. Rome had very large cities with little room because there were so many people, which also meant there was no room to build store houses. Conversely, China built store houses early on and did not live in such close quarters with everyone else. As you can see the Han Dynasty and the Roman Empire possessed many differences both politically and through their accomplishments. That being said, they also shared an extensive variety of similarities. They varied in government, but
There were two major similarities between the Roman Empire and Han Dynasty. Both the Roman Empire and Han Dynasty were great empires that had large land areas under their control. Han China and the Roman Empire put a lot of effort into building and expanding their territories. The Han Dynasty expanded their territory further Qin boundary and Romans wanted more territory for military uses. They manufactured streets that helped with trade and built new buildings, pipes, and
Han China and Rome are actually very similar in their geographical conquests. First of all, both civilizations were the largest and most expansive in their areas. Rome stretched from Spain, England, and France to Mesopotamia and North Africa. The Han dynasty expanded to Korea, china, and central Asia. These huge areas allowed a feeling of power and more economic stability, but also had a few downfall's. Even though the Roman Empire had close to 60 million people in the lands, the population began to dwindle by the end of its empire, they could no longer supply enough people to protect its borders, so they had to turn to outside sources for its military. These outside sources had distrusting loyalties, so, Rome’s borders were not so well protected and eventually fell to complete invasion. Han Dynasty fell to its fate. Both the Han Dynasty and the Roman Empire's weakened so much that they both crippled under the weight of outside invasions. A huge difference between the two civilizations, however, was their level of isolation. Being in China, the Han Dynasty was on the east side and was much more isolated than Rome, which was a peninsula and quite open to everywhere. Though
When comparing Han China and Classical Rome, many political, geographical, and religious similarities can be found, though many differences are also prevalent. Though Roman and Han political structures both emphasized bureaucracies, they came to them quite differently. Through copious amounts of expansion, both societies spread culture and earned money, though expansion was eventually their downfalls. Their religions differed immensely, with Rome emphasizing polytheism and Han China focusing on Confucianism. The differences and similarities between these two civilizations are to be discussed in this essay.
Most societies that developed in ancient civilizations were centered around some form of imperial administration and Imperial Rome (31 B.C.E.-476 C.E.) and Han China (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.) were no different in this sense. Both civilizations had a network of cities and roads, with similar technologies that catalyzed cultural amalgamation and upgraded the standard of living, along with comparable organizational structures. Additionally, both civilizations had problems managing their borders and used similar tactics for defense. However, the Chinese Emperor was interpreted as a God while the Roman Emperor was a lugal, or big man, who had to fight not only to gain power, but to push through his initiatives. The similarities and differences
The third social similarity that both civilizations cherished was that the emperor was given a religious meaning. In the Roman Empire the emperor was has worshipped like a god, and in China the emperor was said to have been chosen from heaven in a concept known as the Mandate of Heaven. In the world of economics both classical giants shared similarities. For instance, both empires heavily relied on the mastering of agriculture to supply the empire with income and food. Secondly, both empires avoided isolationism and did practice trading with other factions. For both Rome and China the epicenter for their trade routes was in the Middle East. Both empires created complex trade routes in the Middle East and beyond and even trading with one another through the Middle East during the prime of the Silk Road trading. As similarities did exist, there were also major differences in politics, social life, and economic foundation for both empires. The first political difference amongst the two empires was that the Chinese established provincial bureaucracies to apply provincial-political action, but the Romans did not have bureaucracies, but they had a Senate which collected and appointed and dealt with
The Han Dynasty and the Roman Empire were two grand empires that rose out of preexisting territories and provided relative peace over wide areas. The collapse of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE), which was the first great land-based empire in East Asia, came after a period of war, confusion, and tyrannical rule. Due to the political disorder that stemmed from the early dynastic activity, the emergence of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE- 228 CE) sprung to focus on restoring order. On the other hand, the rise of the Roman Empire (44 BCE- 476 CE) originated from consolidating authority over aristocratic landlords and overriding the democratic elements of the earlier Republic. Instead, the Roman Empire redefined the concept of “citizen” as subjects to
Throughout the course of time, religion has had an enormous influence on societies. This also is true for the Han on Roman empires. In both societies, the genesis of their key religions were quite similar. Both were mainly based off of forces of nature and kept shrines in places that were pure and natural. Polytheism was a common practice and a different god was devoted to each different aspect of nature, such as wind, fire, and agriculture. Both empires also stemmed off from these nature based religions and absorbed religious theories and practices of other cultures that were introduced to them. however, the religions and practices that were introduced to them were quite different. In Rome, Christianity was introduced and become widely accepted. This was, of course, after many years of persecution and discrimination. Christianity promoted monotheism, or the belief in a single god, but this caused problems. Due to this practice, many early Christians were punished because they would not worship the emperor as a god. After many years of turmoil and bloodshed, Christianity was adopted into society. In Han China, a different religion had effect, or technically two religions. These were Daosim and Buddhism. Doasim entailed a magical and mythological belief and was mainly practiced by the common people. In Daoism it was common to practice alchemy and search for potions of
The Han Dynasty and the Roman Empire both had a great influence not only on its people but the world as a whole. The two had similar and different methods of political control. Both ruled their people under a bureaucracy, they had civil servants to maintain their large empires, and their foundations were made of great and strong rulers. Aside from the similarities they also had several differences. Take China for example, they focused more on Confucianism and they had a Mandate of Heaven. Rome on the other hand used entertainment to distract and control the masses of its population.
Although Han China and Rome shared similarities in their techniques of imperial administration though military conquest and engineering’s aid toward the economy, they differed in their approach to land distribution.
Rome and Han were similar in terms of military techniques and methods. The similarity was the way the two kingdoms had imperial administrations. Both Rome and Han established their territories through defending and fighting for their land. This can be proved from the way the Romans used various legions that had heavy infantry in the warfare. The Han dynasty had the same legions which they used in their warfare. Each legion had thousands of soldiers and they were sent to the battlefield in order to fight.
Numerous land-based empires and regional states had existed before 3rd century BC. However, none of these empires could be compared to the Han Dynasty in China and the Imperial Rome. The cultural identity built during the Han Dynasty such as the family-organized ancestor worship and culture centered on the Classic Confucian teachings had been influential for the development of China for several centuries . On the other hand, the Roman Empire had shown their authority over the Mediterranean Region and introduced the concept of “citizen” which influenced the development of states even after its fall . In general, both of these empires became powerful and influential forces during their times.
The Roman Empire is still known today as one of history’s most powerful period. Rome government had stick rules and policies. The Roman government at this point was known as the Roman Republic. The Roman Republic was controlled by the roar Rome. Bureaucracy was ran throughout the region, but Rome did not want this nor could they afford it. However, they did allow small cities to run a lower level of government. The exercise of indirect rule thus became a basic principle of imperial government. The business of local administration and jurisdiction was delegated to the existing communities of city or tribe. This type of structure was deemed to be a weakness to some historians because of the consequences. Consequences that allow a third level government to enforce the emperor’s rules. Because of the expansion of the territory, this was the only reasonable way for it to function normally. The empire was a "commonwealth of cities" which acted as economic and cultural of the Roman world and were integrated into the administrative system as local foci of government. This imperial ruling was first implemented by Rome. It came about because of social trends and not the Roman strategic policies that was often changed by Romanized upper class citizens. These upper classman brought about firmness throughout the land with their strategic and educated planning.
Romans were also known to be the greatest builders and architects. They built the longest and the largest roads during the ancient period. The Roman roads that stretched for about 56, 000 miles had 29 highways. The Romans built the roads to transport their soldiers across their large territory and also used it for trade. It is one of the reasons the Roman Empire became more economically prosperous than any other territories in the ancient world. On the other hand, Han Dynasty also had better roads. They are known to have established the Silk Road which was used to conduct trade and to link the dynasty to different markets. Majority of the products that Han people sold were artwork. One reason that the Han Dynasty stood out during the
The Roman and Han empires were different with respect to how each came to gaining their power. However, each held several similarities within their governments, religion, technological contributions, and downfalls. These differences and similarities can be seen by taking a closer look at each empire.
Although the Qin and the Han are different in how they governed after gaining new territory, there are still similarities such as, how both dynasty’s expanded their borders and then used isolation to keep the people in line.