CHINA and ROME

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CHINA and ROME

• Empires of
• the East and the West

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Han China and Imperial Rome
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Pre- Empire States

• CHINA
• Shang Dynasty, c.1750 bce-1100 bce
• introduction of writing
• Zhou Dynasty, c.1100 bce- 221 bce
• establishment of Confucianism and Taoism
• Qin (Chin) Dynasty, 221 bce-206 bce
• origin of name of China

• ROME
• Etruscan Civilization, c.700 bce-509 bce
• Legendary Roman kings, 753 bce-509 bce
• patricians aristocrats and professionals
• plebians farmers, craftsmen, laborers
• patronage system
• pater -- paternalism
• pietas -- duty
• Roman Republic, 509 bce -27 bce

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Qin (Chin) Dynasty 221-206 bce

• First unified the country by subjugating the
  Warring States
• Established central bureaucracy
• Legalism supplanted Confucianism persecuted
  scholars and burned books
• Standardized writing, currency, weights and
  measures
• Major building projects
• Used forced labor of convicts
• Roads and canals
• Palaces
• Connected fortification walls to build 5000
  kilometer Great Wall

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Mausoleum of 1st Qin Emperor ShinHuangdi

• ShiHuangdis Mausoleum was discovered in 1974 by
  farmers digging a well. The 13 year-old emperor
  had ordered 800,000 workers to build his tomb.
• Terra Cotta Army
• Rebellions broke out after Emperors death in 210
  bce dynasty overthrown after only 15 years of
  rule

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Etruscan Civilization, 8th-5th c. bce

• May have migrated to Italy from Anatolia (Turkey)
• Thriving cities with paved streets, defensive
  walls and large temples
• Skillful bronze, iron and gold work
• Challenged by Greeks from sea and Celts from Gaul
  (France)
• Monarchy last king -- Tarquin the Proud deposed
  by Romans

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Etruscan Necropolis

• Underground family tombs with stone vaults
  covered by earth
• Murals with scenes from everyday life hunting,
  fishing, feasting, dancing, religious ceremonies
• Joyful scenes in early tombs give way to gloomy
  violent scenes as Etruscans lost power to the
  Romans (4th-2nd Century bc)
• Etruscan Art

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Liberated Etruscan Women

• Etruscan women take particular care of their
  bodies and exercise often, sometimes along with
  the men, and sometimes by themselves. It is not a
  disgrace for them to be seen naked. They do not
  share their couches with their husbands but with
  the other men who happen to be present, and they
  propose toasts to anyone they choose. They are
  expert drinkers and very attractive. The
  Etruscans raise all the children that are born,
  without knowing who their fathers are.
• Theopompus of Chios, 4th cent. BCE

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Roman Kingdom Regnum Romanum753-510 bce

• In Roman legend, the Trojan hero Aeneas sailed
  across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy and founded
  Lavinium.
• His son Iulus went on to found the city of Alba
  Longa.
• From Alba Longa's royal family came the twins
  Romulus and Remus, who went on to found the city
  of Rome in 753 BCE.
• The kingdom ended with the expulsion of Lucius
  Tarquinius Superbus in 510 BCE and the
  establishment of the Roman Republic.

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Legendary Kings
The Gauls destroyed all of Rome's historical
records when they sacked the city 390 BC , so no
contemporary records of the kingdom exist, and
all accounts of the kings must be highly
questioned. Archaeological evidence does,
however, support that a settlement was founded in
Rome around the middle of the 8th century BC.
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Accomplishments of the Roman Kings

• Settlement and continual expansion of the city of
  Rome (aided by rape of the Sabine women)
• Establishment of Senate to serve as kings
  council
• Establishment of Roman legions
• Establishment of the Vestal Virgins
• Reform of the calendar to 360 days, adding the
  months of January and February
• Introduction of coinage
• Establishment of a census dividing the population
  into classes according to wealth

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The Rape of Lucretia

• The son of the last king of Rome, Lucius
  Tarquinius Superbus (535 BC to 510 BC), raped a
  Roman noblewoman named Lucretia.
• Lucretia compelled her family to take action by
  gathering the men, telling them what happened,
  and killing herself.
• Lucius Junius Brutus incited the people of Rome
  against the royal family by displaying her body
  and led an uprising that drove the Tarquins out
  of Rome
• The monarchy was replaced with the new Roman
  Republic.

Botticelli, The Death of Lucretia, c. 1500
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The Roman Republic509 bce - 27 bce

• Senatus populisque Romanorum (The Senate and
  People of Rome)
• Senate -- patricians
• Consilium plebis -- tribunes elected by plebians
• Military Campaigns
• Italian peninsula
• Punic Wars 264-146 bc
• Invasion of Macedonia and Greece 145 bc
• Gaul 58 - 50 bc
• Egypt 31 bc
• Emergence of equites class soldiers and
  merchants

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Civil Wars50 bce-27 bce

• First Triumvirate Pompey, Crassus and Julius
  Caesar
• 49 bc Caesar crosses the Rubicon
• 45 bc assassination of Caesar by Senate
• Second Triumvirate Octavian, Lepidus and Marc
  Antony
• 31 bc Battle of Actium death of Antony and
  Cleopatra
• 27 bc Octavian declared Caesar Augustus

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CHINA The Han Empire, 206 bce-220 ce
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The Han Dynasty206 bce-220 ce

• Liu Bang restored order and established Han
  Dynasty
• Centralized Imperial rule
• Emperor Han Wudi, the Martial Emperor 141-87
  bce
• Military Prowess
• Extended cultural influence over Korea, Vietnam,
  Central Asia, Mongolia

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Confucianism Restored

• State philosophy
• Honored and employed scholars in government
• Instituted civil service exam system
• Imperial University established 124 bce to
  educate bureaucrats
• Chinas most famous historian Sima Qian (145-87
  bce)

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Han Science and Technology

• Inventions
• Paper
• Porcelain
• Compass
• Seismograph
• Manufacture of Steel

The first compass
Museum of Earthquakes with Biography of
Zhangheng, inventor of Seismograph
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Sima Qian (145-87 bce)

• Chinas most famous historian
• Shiji (??, "history record"), an overview of the
  history of China covering more than two thousand
  years from from the earliest times to his own day
  during the reign of Emperor Han Wudi
• Historians regard Sima Qians work as their
  model, which stands as the "official format" of
  the history of China.
• In writing Shiji, Sima Qian initiated a new
  writing style by presenting history in a series
  of biographies

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Emperor Han Wudi the Martial Emperor 141-87
bce

• Military Prowess
• Extended cultural influence over Korea, Vietnam,
  Central Asia, Mongolia
• Built enormous bureaucracy relying upon Legalist
  principles of government
• Established Imperial University 124 bce to
  educate bureaucrats with Confucianism as the
  curricular basis
• Established long-distance trade along the Silk
  Road as a result of information brought back by
  the envoy Zhang Qian

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The Silk Road

• China to India, across Central Asia to Antioch,
  Baghdad, Alexandria and Rome
• Trade
• East to West silk and spices
• West to East manufactured goods (glassware,
  jewelry, perfumes) and commodities such as olive
  oil
• Religious movements
• Buddhism to Central Asia, Southeast Asia and
  China
• Hinduism to Southeast Asia
• Christianity to Persia, India and China
• Epidemics
• 2nd and 3rd c. ce Han and Roman Empires suffered
  large-scale epidemics small pox, measles,
  bubonic plague
• Population decline lead to economic and social
  change

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ROME The Empire
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Pax Romana27 bce - 180 ce

• Caesar Augustus reign (27 bc-14 ad) considered
  the Golden Age of Rome
• Establishment of law and civil order throughout
  Empire
• Rome became an international city
• Public works aqueducts, public baths, theatres,
  marketplaces, roads, libraries
• Economy rested on slavery slaves ranged from
  field laborers to secretaries, teachers, and
  artists -- often earned enough to buy freedom

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Roman Culture Literature
Aeneas carrying Father, Laertes, and leading
Son, Ascanius, from Troy

• Virgils Aeneid
• Epic poem provided foundation myth for Roman
  Empire
• Embodied Roman ideals
• Pater familias
• Pius Aeneas
• Divine intervention in founding of Rome
• Favorite of Caesar Augustus
• Ovids Metamorphoses
• Collection of classical myths from the
  Mediterranean rendered in poetic form
• Emphasized the continual nature of change
• Exiled by Caesar Augustus

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Roman Culture Philosophy

• Stoicism
• Held that emotions like fear or envy either were,
  or arose from, false judgements
• The sage--a person who had attained moral and
  intellectual perfection--would not undergo
  emotions the sage is utterly immune to
  misfortune and virtue is sufficient for
  happiness.
• Epicureanism
• Based upon the teachings of Epicurus (c. 340c.
  270 BC),
• A general attack on superstition and divine
  intervention
• The greatest good was to seek modest pleasures to
  attain a state of tranquility and freedom from
  fear as well as absence of bodily pain through
  knowledge of the workings of the world and the
  limits of desires.
• Neo-Platonism
• School of philosophy that took shape in the 3rd
  century ce, based on the teachings of Plato and
  earlier Platonists
• Human perfection and happiness were attainable in
  this world, without awaiting an afterlife.
  Perfection and happiness could be achieved
  through philosophical contemplation

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Roman Culture Theatre

• Drama flourished under the Republic but declined
  into variety entertainment under the Empire
• Roman festivals Held in honor of the gods, but
  much less religious than in Greece
• Entertainment tended to be grandiose,
  sentimental, diversionary
• Actors / performers were called histriones

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ROMAN COMEDY

• Chorus was abandoned
• No act or scene divisions
• Songs
• Everyday domestic affairs Boy meets girl,
  complications, boy gets girl marriage
• Action placed in the street
• Bawdy
• Stock characters
• Only two playwrights' material survives
• Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254-184 bce)
• Publius Terenius Afer Terence (195 or 185-159
  bce)

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PLAUTUS (c. 254-184 B.C.E.)

• 21 extant plays including Pot of Gold, The
  Menaechmi, Braggart Warrior -- probably between
  205-184 B.C.
• All based on Greek New Comedies
• Added Roman allusions, Latin dialog, varied
  poetic meters, witty jokes
• Some techniques
• Stychomythia dialog with short lines, like a
  tennis match
• Slapstick
• Songs

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TERENCE Publius Terenius Afer (195 or 185-159
B.C.E.)

• Born in Carthage, came to Rome as a boy slave,
  educated and freed
• The Afer in his name may indicate that he was an
  African, and therefore he may have been the first
  major black playwright in western theater.
• Six plays, all of which surviveincluding The
  Brothers, Mother-in-Law, etc.
• More complex plots combined stories from Greek
  originals.
• Character and double-plots were his forte
  contrasts in human behavior
• Less boisterous than Plautus, less episodic,
  more elegant language.
• Less popular than Plautus.

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Roman Tragedy

• None survive from the early period, and only one
  playwright from the later period Seneca
• 5 act structure later adopted by Elizabethans
• Elaborate speeches -- rhetorical influence
• Interest in morality expressed in sententiae
  (short pithy generalizations about the human
  condition)

Medea, Herculaneum c. 70 bce
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SENECA

• Roman philosopher, orator, dramatist and
  statesman
• Nine extant tragedies, five adapted from
  EuripidesThe Trojan Women, Medea, Oedipus,
  Agamemnon
• Suicide in 65 A.D. at the orders of Nero
• Seneca had a strong effect on later dramatists
  Elizabethans and French
• Uncertain whether Seneca's plays were actually
  performed or simply intended for recitation
  before a small private audience closet dramas

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (5 or 4 B.C.E. 65 C.E.)
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Roman Culture Spectacle

• Gladiatorial combats
• Chariot races
• Naumachia Naval battles in a flooded Coliseum
• Real-life theatricals

• Decadent, violent and immoral
• All theatrical events banned by Church when Rome
  became Christianized

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Comparisons

• Rome
• Well organized bureaucracy founded on Roman law
  and classical learning
• Emphasis on family pater familias
• Reliance on patricians women gained power and
  property rights within families
• Engineering roads, aqueducts, amphitheatres,
  domes, sewage systems, central heating
• Inventions concrete, the arch (probably
  Etruscan), insulae (apartment buildings)
• Religion Emperor as god, paganism, mystery
  religions, introduction of Christianity

• China
• Well organized bureaucracy founded on Confucian
  ideals and education
• Emphasis on family, ancestors patriarchal
• Reliance on gentry as support good marriages
  afforded women more rights
• Engineering roads, canals, the Great Wall
• Inventions wheelbarrow, gunpowder, printing
  press, compass, paper, paper currency (all before
  1000 ad)
• Religion Confucianism, Taoism, native gods,
  introduction of Buddhism

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Empires in Decline

• Imperial Rome
• Internal opposition barracks emperors
• Difficulties in administering vast empire lead to
  division of authority and rivalry
• Eastern and Western Empire Constantine moved
  capitol of Empire to Constantinople
• Germanic invasions by Vandals, Ostrogoths, and
  Visigoths
• 410 ce Visigoths sacked Rome
• 476 ce Odawacer deposed the last Western Roman
  Emperor
• 5th c. Eastern Roman Empire became known as
  Byzantine Empire

• Han China
• Infighting among ruling elites
• Inequitable distribution of land -- tax burden
  fell on peasants rather than on large landowners
• Series of peasant rebellions
• Usurpation of political authority by generals --
  allied themselves with landlords and became
  warlords
• 220 ce generals divided empire into 3 kingdoms
• Emigration of nomadic peoples into N. China kept
  the country disunited

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CHINA and ROME

• END