Similarities between Rome and Han

Develop from regional into world powers

Cost of defending borders which stretch 1000 of miles ultimately hastens
downfall
Urban empires based on surplus from agriculture
Technological achievements include hydraulic engineering: Rome aqueducts
Chinese canals. Networks of roads & other forms of transport unify empires.
Families headed by patriarchs provide cohesion
Agriculture main economic activity. Get power by breaking aristocrats and giving
land to free peasantry. Later reversal for small farmers back to aristocrats leads to
erosion of state.
Skill in farming leads to population explosion
Size and Location
In the second century CE, China controlled about 1.5 million square miles of territory.
In the second century CE, Rome controlled about 1.7 million square miles of territory.
China's first recorded census (2 CE) gives a figure of 58 million; Rome's population
was about the same.
Rome's heartland was confined to Italy, with a population of some 3 million. Ethnically
speaking, the rest of the empire was largely non-Roman.

During Han, most of the population lived on the North China Plain. The census
figure given above, derived from counting peasant households, is restricted to
Chinese.

Differences between Rome and Han

Rome background is republican city-state. Will place limits on power of emperor
who must pay homage to traditions (Consuls, Senate, Constitution), which limit
his power. Han from highly standardized Qin Empire with Confucian system in
place giving heavenly mandate.
Rome provincial administration tolerates local autonomy more like a federation of
semi autonomous cities. Han imperial system of provincial administration does
no tolerate local exceptions or diversity. Empire is more unified and highly
centralized.
Slavery far more important in Rome treated worse. Slavery in China more
domestic.
Once it falls, Roman Empire never reconstituted. Chinese imperial model revived
in Sui & Tang lasts until 1911 if not today.
Confucianism with its deference to authority and ancestor much stronger than
Roman cult of ancestors. No Roman equivalent to Confucianism. Emperor
limited by Republican tradition. No dynastic tradition in Rome refer to Consul
as period of rule.
Confucianism disparages merchant class Rome does not. Rome more property
and individual rights and less government interference or centralization.
Christianity w one doctrine of truth negates Emperor causes irreversible break
with the past. China w idea of emperor as divine son of heaven w access to royal
ancestors. Religion in China tends to offer ideological aid to state not to
challenge it.
One important difference between Rome and the Han period, however, centers on the
question of cultural cohesion. Which society established a common culture as a result of
its conquests? In the words of Patricia Ebrey,
Perhaps because of the Chinese script, it is much easier to talk about a common culture
among the elite in Han China than in the Roman Empire. As the influence of Chinese
culture increased in frontier areas with the presence of Chinese garrisons and magistrates,
members of the local population learned to read Chinese... Even if Latin became a lingua
franca in the Roman Empire, other written languages continued to be used... (Ebrey 1996:
85)
One strong argument for Ebrey's point is the continuity of Chinese civilization: Although
the Roman Empire has vanished, Chinese culture still flourishes today, eighteen hundred
years after the fall of the Han.
The Han dynasty is a major element in this continuity: The establishment of Chinese
cultural, social, and political institutions during Han was so important and enduring an
accomplishment that even today the Chinese call themselves "people of Han."
The Romans inherited the concept of citizenship the idea that the state extends legal
protection to certain people in exchange for taxes and other services from the Greeks.

Originally Roman citizenship was limited to those who lived in the city of Rome. It was
gradually granted to subject peoples, beginning with most of Italy during the first century
CE. In 212 CE, universal citizenship was granted to all freeborn members of the Empire.
By that time, however, the value of citizenship was greatly eroded. More important was
the distinction between members of the upper class (honestiores) and those of the lower
class (humiliores).
The concept of "citizenship" and "citizens" was a new idea imported to China from the
West in the second half of the nineteenth century. It became an important topic of
discussion among reformist thinkers who contrasted it to the web of family and local
loyalties that had held pre-modern Chinese society together.