Conrad demorist model

Conrad-Demarest Roman and Han Empires
According to the Conrad-Demarest model of empires, the ancient dynasties of the Han and the Romans
The beginning of the Han Dynasty started out as a mix of decentralized and centralized empire. Liu Bang wanted to combine the ideas of the decentralized Zhou dynasty with the tightly centralized Qin dynasty. He thought the Zhou led to political chaos because the regional governors had too much power; the Qin provided too much incentive with the imperial family members. He gave large imperial land holdings expecting them to be loyal for it, but then he was captured by the nomad warriors called Xiongnu. He had luckily escaped though without the help of his family members, which resulted in him taking away their land holdings. This led to him converting the whole government to centralized power. He established an administrative bureaucracy which whom he entrusted with the political responsibilities. Etruscans’ had influenced the early establishment of a Roman monarchy, but when the Etruscan kings died Rome switched to an Aristocratic Republic. They had a republic constitution where they entrusted executive responsibilities to two consuls who had civil and military power. Consuls were elected and had power similar to the Han Emperors but they were elected as opposed to the Han where they relied on the Mandate of Heaven to choose their leaders. Rome has a forum of political and civic center which was a centralized form of government comparable to the Han administrative bureaucracy.
Rome was located near the Tiber River Rome focused more on vines, wheat, and various other crops. Rome had easy access to the Mediterranean through the Tiber River; their location was ideal because they had access to the sea but were far away enough where they weren’t threatened by sea attacks. The Han were located near the Yellow river and Han focused on cultivation of rice, types of grains, and the most valuable which was silk. The Yellow river flooded randomly giving them fertile soil which allowed them to grow a multitude of crops. The Han also took advantage of annual monsoons and planned their agriculture season around it. Rome and Han empires were both near water resources which fueled the agriculture state. The Hans Yellow River often killed them, caused destruction, and loss of crops while the Tiber River protected the Romans from foreign invasion through the Mediterranean.
In the brief time between the Qin and Han dynasty the states had no clear dominance during the warring states period therefore they started having internal conflict. Rome took advantage of the internal conflict with the Greek states and many other surrounding states on the Italian and Iberian Peninsula. Both the Roman and the Han Empire established themselves by taking over and uniting individual city-states that were in conflict with each other. The Han Dynasty rose out and took over the Qin to gain the Mandate of Heaven and claim the empire as theirs. The Romans had established their empire by conquering small states such as the Greeks, Etruscans, and Latin’s that already had internal conflict going on, unlike the Han who had to forcefully fight out of the internal conflict that was made with the Qin during the warring states era. The Han Empire had adapted iron weapons through the Qin Dynasty but craftsmen had designed iron armor which allowed them to easily fight against the Xiongnu. The Han had monopolies on salt and iron production with arable land to farm silk which was their most expensive good at the time, yet soon enough the Han craftsmen also invented paper which was easier to write on than bamboo strips and was more easily accessible. The Han made most peasants into either farmers or soldiers because peasants had either debts to pay or money to make to feed their family they came in abundance. Rome had expanded their army by establishing military colonies on places which they conquered. Rome also forbid them from making any military alliances with anyone else but them and required them to supply with anything they needed. Both Rome and Han had used slaves, peasants, and debtors to supply their army and soldier ranks, but Rome had gained support from other cities while the Han had established theirs by Han citizens.

The Han utilized the Silk Road for foreign trade with empires expanding from China to the Mediterranean. Chinese goods were being sold in Mediterranean markets which led to the increase in Chinese silk because it was most valuable in foreign areas. The Rome Empire had roads that stretched far such as from the black sea and North Sea and some along the North African Coast. The Romans started exporting latifundia through maritime trade since it was their most valuable good and in high demand. The Roads, canals, and ports had established frequent trade throughout neighboring regions but the Roman Empire had multiple roads to rely on most of them linked the Roman Empire to other places while the Han mainly used the Silk Road.
The Rome Empire’s education was mainly influenced by the Greeks in philosophy called stoicism which established a prominent moral philosophy school. The Han needed to educate people to become a part of the administrative bureaucracy; Han Wudi realized the benefit of education he based the education system on Confucianism. Both Han and Rome focused on education but Han focused on it more to benefit the overall state of the empire by taking graduated scholars to be enlisted into the administrative bureaucracy and help their government.
The Han had established their government by administrative bureaucracy which basically was smaller branches of government to watch on conquered and neighboring regions to collect taxes and let the people know they have a sense of government near, but the bureaucracy still got orders from the emperor. Rome used the mare nostrum and the seafaring abilities of the Romans to communicate throughout the empire; they sent administrators to collect taxes from regions throughout and ensure the laws are being enforced in those areas. Rome and Han had effective uses of their administrations by letting them govern and still know who they answer to, but Rome didn’t have their administrators spread out like the Han did. Rome had their administrators go to the regions and bring back taxes and reports on how the law was being enforced.
Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire because when Rome conquered all the neighboring states all of them already spoke Latin which established an easy communication language that everyone already knew. Han had multiple forms of Chinese but mostly all were just different dialect because those languages adapted to the area of which they were in. Han and Rome both had the differences of dialect of their language due to the location of which it was spoken in.
Rome established the pax romana which translates to Roman peace; the controlled peace allowed the have easily facilitation of trade from the Mesopotamian region to the Atlantic Ocean. Han relied on the Confucian system to be the law for their empire since Confucianism is always saying that people should be kind, courteous, generous, and respectful of others which ruled the lives of the Han people. Han’s law was built on a moral philosophy code that showed that if you succeeded socially in this then you succeed politically, while the Romans established rather than adopt their law and peace for the Empire.
The Han had a meritocracy system which meant that individuals could have advancement depending on their abilities or achievements such as killing the most people during a war or having the best archer skills. Rome gave freedom to all of the citizens and the higher up citizens such as aristocrats and entrepreneurs would throw banquets with exotic food for anyone who could attend it, thus this gave the lower citizens a reason to rise up in society and have banquets like those. While they both had efficient ways for their citizens to buy in and believe that they are a part of the Empires Rome didn’t have an established system like the Han.
Like all great empires, the Han and the Roman both had major results that affected the people as well as the empire itself. Most of these results involved economic rewards and prosperity for the two empires. During the Han dynasty, people further advanced iron metallurgy and found many more uses for iron. The rulers favored iron industry and encouraged its expansion which allowed iron technology to grow. Iron metallurgy entered a period of rapid growth. The famers who cultivated crops used shovels, picks, hoes, sickles, and spades that were made of iron. These iron tools allowed the people to harvest more crops which in turn fed the ever growing population. Many tools and kitchen utensils were being made from iron, which allowed poorer families to be able to purchase these tools that are better than stone but more affordable than bronze. Another major technological advance of the Han Dynasty was the advancement silk textiles and sericulture. Chinese silk was very valuable throughout the ancient world because it was of better quality than the other silk of the area. Chinese silk was better quality because they fed their silk worms crushed up mulberry leaves and they also unraveled the worms’ cocoons by hand, which produced more fibers. During the Han, paper was also being invented. Craftsmen fashioned hemp, bark, and textile fibers into paper. This invention allowed people in lower classes to write information down on a material that is more durable than bamboo and cheaper than silk. Like the Han Dynasty, the Roman Empire also had major technological advances. These advances were in the field of architecture. Throughout the rule of the Romans, many types of buildings were created that were not yet seen in the world. The most famous Roman structure was the coliseum. Originally called the Flavian Amphitheatre, the coliseum was 188 meters long and 156 meters wide and can seat 55,000 people. Other architecture advances include the building of circuses, which were oval structures used for chariot races, as well as stadiums and amphitheaters. Yet another technological advance was the use of aqueducts throughout the empire. These structures not only provided the cities with fresh drinking water, but they also served as an indoor sewer system that carried water away from the city and brought water to the peoples’ baths. The Romans also had what most historians to believe as the greatest architectural and road system the world had ever seen until then. The Roman and the Han empires were similar in the sense that they both had technological advances during their rules, but differed in the type of technological advances. The Romans focused on the advancement of their architecture, while the Han focused on the advancements of iron, silk, and paper. Another major result of the Roman and Han empires was the distribution of their land. Both empires acquired a large amount of land during their reigns and they had to figure out a way to divide the land up amongst their people. In the early days of the Han, the leader, Liu Bang, gave large amounts of land to members of the imperial family in order to win their loyalty. When a run in with the Xiongnu however, Bang realized that his family was not loyal to him and he took away their land and let it become part of the imperial domain. The Romans divided their land in a similar fashion of the early Han. They gave their conquered lands to wealthy elites who used them as plantations known as latifundia. The Romans differed from the Han however, because they had no problem with their elites, so they allowed them to keep their lands. Throughout the rule of the Han and Roman empires, both of their populations increased a great amount. The Han’s population increased due to high agricultural productivity, which supported rapid demographic growth. At the beginning of the Qin dynasty, there was an estimated 20 million people living in China. By the end of the Han dynasty, the population tripled to 60 million. The population of the Roman Empire increased not because of agricultural productivity, but because of the lands that Rome was conquering. The conquered lands contributed more people to the population of the empire. The Rome Empire was doomed to fall as soon as it expanded out of Italy because the further away Rome expanded from the capital the harder it would be to govern the territories. On the other hand the Han had the opposite situation and could not expand as far because of environmental mosaics such as the Taklimakan Desert and the Gobi Desert. During the early first century B.C.E Rome, led by Marius, fell into civil war. After Marius died, Sulla made plans to take his place; he made a list of individuals whom he labeled enemies of the state. And he killed them all. During this time, Sulla had imposed an extremely conservative legislative government which weakened the lower classed and strengthened the wealthy classes. Due to this Latifundia pressured the weak classes and this caused social eruptions. In this chaotic time, Julius Caesar, of the many rulers of Rome, took control. On the same ____, the Han also had conflicts of land distribution. Poor harvests, high taxes, and debt caused poor land owners to worsen their status and sell their property as well as their family. As the poor class lost land, the wealthy class gained more land. As tensions in the Han dynasty grew, the Han dynasty eventually fell, but they rose back to power. However, the Emperors continued to ignore the problem of land distribution and this led to the empire suffering from banditry and rebellion. The fall of the Han Empire ended with the Yellow Turban uprising as the Han emperors were unable to contain the rebellion. This led to imperial members protecting their own needs. And ultimately internal conflicts caused the Han to collapse. On the other hand, the Romans fell due to internal conflicts from civil war unlike the Han Empire’s problem of land distribution. This was because the Han Empire is limited to their expansion while the Romans continued to expand throughout the Mediterranean. The Romans had the problem of internal conflict from the Germanic warriors. When the Romans conquered the Germanic warriors, they turned the people into allies into their army, and eventually Rome granted them full citizenship. They also allowed other conquered peoples known as mercenaries, but they were only loyal to gold and their commanders and not to Rome. This led to the rise of the mercenaries trying to take control of the Roman Empire. Over time, many generals rose to become emperors, and most of them were not even Roman. Overall the stability of Rome fell causing them to collapse.