Why Did Empires Of The Ancient World Rise And Fall?
Why did empires of the ancient world rise and fall?
According to the statement of Ian Morris and Walter Scheidel in their book The Dynamics of Ancient Empires, the first empire we have known in the world “took shape in Mesopotamia between the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf, beginning around 2350 B.C.E” (Ian Morris, Walter Scheidel. 2009). From then on, a large number of imperial powers with a growing share of humanity sprung up in the next 2500 years. Among these, there are “four major powers, the Roman, Persian, Kushan and Han Dynasty which ruled perhaps two-thirds all the people on Earth two thousand years ago” (Ian Morris, Walter Scheidel. 2009). Although these empires were all in flourish for a period, they went die at the end. Now, there comes out a question that why did these empires experience the pattern of rising and falling.
On one hand, internal conflicts causes the falling of an empire. Expanding territory is the first thing that …show more content…
governing class would choose to do after the foundation of a new empire. Corruption of both governing class and normal people would come into being when an empire get significant improvement and go into a flourishing period. Under such circumstance, internal conflicts, conspiracies and civil wars would happen because of the pursuit of wealth and power. A typical example is the Jewish–Roman wars lasted for sixty years in Roman which happened “in the second half of the first century and the first half of the 2nd century were exceptional in their duration and violence” (Yaron Z. Eliav, 2010).
On the other hand, aggression from other nations leads to the decline of an empire.
It has mentioned in the first paragraph, there were a large number of empires existing in the ancient world. Every empire would like to expand their territory and conflicts between empires were inevitable. In the year of 334 B.C., Persian meets inevitable extinction after fierce war with strong Macedonia led by Alexander the Great. Besides this, the aggression target of Macedonia also includes Egypt and Babylonia. To the contrary, Macedonia is also the target of other empires, for example, Roman. The kingdom of Macedonia clashed with the rising power of the Roman Republic during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. In the year of 323 B.C., the kingdom of Macedonia was defeated and followed the Roman rule. At the same time, the Romans took charge of them and named it as the Roman province of Macedonia (Wikipedia). Just like Macedonia, the Roman Republic was finally defeated by The Ottoman Empire in the year of
1453.
The reasons why did these empires experience the pattern of rising and falling are not the two aspects above, it also includes some natural causes, such as climax, geological disaster and so on. No one empire can exist for all time. They would follow the same circle of rise and fall. The world today then is simply going through the same cycle of dissolution that it has always endured.
References
Ian Morris, Walter Scheidel. 2009. The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yaron Z. Eliav, "Jews and Judaism 70–429 CE", in A Companion to the Roman Empire (Blackwell, 2010), p. 571.
Macedonia. Wikipedia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_(ancient_kingdom)#Early_history_and_legend>
According to the statement of Ian Morris and Walter Scheidel in their book The Dynamics of Ancient Empires, the first empire we have known in the world “took shape in Mesopotamia between the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf, beginning around 2350 B.C.E” (Ian Morris, Walter Scheidel. 2009). From then on, a large number of imperial powers with a growing share of humanity sprung up in the next 2500 years. Among these, there are “four major powers, the Roman, Persian, Kushan and Han Dynasty which ruled perhaps two-thirds all the people on Earth two thousand years ago” (Ian Morris, Walter Scheidel. 2009). Although these empires were all in flourish for a period, they went die at the end. Now, there comes out a question that why did these empires experience the pattern of rising and falling.
On one hand, internal conflicts causes the falling of an empire. Expanding territory is the first thing that …show more content…
governing class would choose to do after the foundation of a new empire. Corruption of both governing class and normal people would come into being when an empire get significant improvement and go into a flourishing period. Under such circumstance, internal conflicts, conspiracies and civil wars would happen because of the pursuit of wealth and power. A typical example is the Jewish–Roman wars lasted for sixty years in Roman which happened “in the second half of the first century and the first half of the 2nd century were exceptional in their duration and violence” (Yaron Z. Eliav, 2010).
On the other hand, aggression from other nations leads to the decline of an empire.
It has mentioned in the first paragraph, there were a large number of empires existing in the ancient world. Every empire would like to expand their territory and conflicts between empires were inevitable. In the year of 334 B.C., Persian meets inevitable extinction after fierce war with strong Macedonia led by Alexander the Great. Besides this, the aggression target of Macedonia also includes Egypt and Babylonia. To the contrary, Macedonia is also the target of other empires, for example, Roman. The kingdom of Macedonia clashed with the rising power of the Roman Republic during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. In the year of 323 B.C., the kingdom of Macedonia was defeated and followed the Roman rule. At the same time, the Romans took charge of them and named it as the Roman province of Macedonia (Wikipedia). Just like Macedonia, the Roman Republic was finally defeated by The Ottoman Empire in the year of
1453.
The reasons why did these empires experience the pattern of rising and falling are not the two aspects above, it also includes some natural causes, such as climax, geological disaster and so on. No one empire can exist for all time. They would follow the same circle of rise and fall. The world today then is simply going through the same cycle of dissolution that it has always endured.
References
Ian Morris, Walter Scheidel. 2009. The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yaron Z. Eliav, "Jews and Judaism 70–429 CE", in A Companion to the Roman Empire (Blackwell, 2010), p. 571.
Macedonia. Wikipedia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_(ancient_kingdom)#Early_history_and_legend>