The Axial Age

The Axial Age was a time in mankind’s history when great thinkers started to conceive and develop many new political, economical, and philosophical ideas. It is defined as a period from 800 B.C. to 200 B.C. The Axial Age was the era of enlightenment and mankind began to develop intellectually. All these ideas soon led to the start of the Age of Empires. The Age of Empires arises from the end of the Axial Age. The rulers and leaders of this new era started to use the new ideas and thoughts in their decisions. Empires began to base rulings off of information. Some empires started to manifestly grow and flourish, while it caused others to fall apart and collapse. The Axial Age was a period in time where political transformations utterly impacted
One example would be in China would be Han Fei. Han Fei said, “…Bad characters cannot be disguised, falsely praised fellow cannot be advanced, wrong defamed people cannot be degraded.” (Legalism) Han Fei’s intellectual thoughts made him to strongly believe that, “To govern the state by law is to praise the right and blame the wrong.” (Legalism) These thoughts have led him to believe that the intelligent ruler can control his ministers by two handles only, which are chastisement and commendation. Chastisement is the act of scolding or punishing a culprit. Commendation is to award encouragements and praise. Han Fei believed that, “Ministers are afraid of censure and punishment but fond of encouragement and reward.” (Legalism) This also made Han Fei imagine that if the authority of being able to give punishment and give rewards were given to the ministers, then everybody would start to turn to the ministers and away from the ruler. This developed into Han Fei’s political development of China. Han Fei believed, “Any ruler to expel private crookedness and uphold public law finds the people safe and the state in order; and any ruler able to expunge private action and act on public law finds his army strong and his enemy weak.” (Legalism) Han Fei used this idea back up his thought to find men following the discipline of all the laws and regulations, and make them superior over
This shows how drastically the Axial Age affected the Age of Empires. Imperialism and trade both played huge factors in the expansion of the empires. The new, strong intellectual ideologies helped develop and create a strong foundation for the political developments. The political developments in return help expand the strong empires and help them become much more strong and stable. Rulers of the empires stabilized their governmental systems and grasped a good system for maintaining resources. The Axial Age is the bark of the tree, and the Age of Empires expanded on the ideas from the Axial Age, creating the branches of the tree. The new political, economical, and philosophical ideas helped shape and provide a stronger and stabilized