Rome and Han Empires

From about 30 B.C.E to the 200’s A.C.E the Roman and the Han Empire’s fell. The Roman Empire had 2 centuries of Pax Romana (Peace in Rome) that ended with the death of Marcus Aurelius and started the decline and fall of the empire. In the Han Empire Liu Bang ruled the Empire very peacefully and restores unity to China, Bang established a centralized government, lowered taxes and softened punishments. Following Bang’s death Wudi ruled the Han empire and was known as the Martial Emperor because he wanted to expand China through wars, both Wudi and Bang were very successful leaders but after the death of Wudi china experienced many bad rulers and thus starting the fall of the Han Empire. Internal and external factors led to the decline and fall of classical empires like the Romans and the Han.

The fall of Rome was caused by many different internal and external reasons. One internal reason the Roman Empire fell was because of the weakening economy and inflation. In the text it says “Desperate for revenue, the government raised taxes, It also started minting coins that contained less and less silver.” By doing this the government made a huge mistake. Raising taxes made the civilians angry that they had to pay more, and minting coins with less silver caused inflation because they didn’t have enough metal to back it. This caused Rome to fall because the gap between the rich and poor grew even larger because of these mistakes. An external reason that Rome fell is that The Huns lead by Attilla started to attack the Empire. In the book it states“With 100,000 soldiers, Atilla terrorized both halves of the Empire. In the East, his armies attacked and plundered 70 cities.” The Huns along with the Germanic invasions hurt the Empire very badly and was one of the main factors it fell. These internal and external factors are why The Roman Empire fell the way it did.

The reason the Han empire fell was because of the internal and external factors. A main internal factor that lead to the fall of the Han was the economic imbalance. There was a large gap between the rich and the poor, and the customs allowed the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. A quote from the book explains this, “Small farmers went into debt and had to borrow money from large landowners, who charged very high interest rates. If the farmer could not pay back the debt, the landowner took possession of all the farmer’s land.” A lot of farmers that did this often could not pay back the high rates back and lost there land. This caused the large gap between the rich and poor consequently leading to the fall of the Han Empire. Additionally an external factor that lead to the fall is that Wang Mang overthrew the Empire in 9 A.D. “In 9 A.D. Wang Mang took the imperial title for himself and overthrew the Han, thus ending the former Han, the frist half of the Han Dynasty” Wang Mang was acting as a regent for six years for an infant that was crowned, but decided the Han Dynasty shouldn’t be in power still. Many people did like Mang so in 23 A.D. a group of rebels assassinated him starting the second half of the Han dynasty. If these internal and external factors did not happen then the Empire may not have fell the way it did.

Overall the Roman and Han Empires decline and fall happened because of internal and external factors. These Empires were two of the largest empires ever and they both were very similar and came to end because of many of the same reasons. We need to know how this happend and why it did so other countries or empires don’t fall the way these did.