Compare and Contrast of the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty

From 500 bce to 500 ce, a time known as the classical era, states and kingdoms grew larger than we had ever seen before. These domains spanned continents and spawned new forms of government and new schools of thought to control and maintain these massive holdings. Of these great empires, the Roman Empire and the Han dynasty were among the biggest and the best. The Roman Empire and Han dynasty were similar in that both had centralized bureaucracies with one emperor ruling through claimed power from the heavens, strong and written law codes, and a fall out of power caused by internal or external invasion and uprising, although they are different because the Han’s emperor had much more power than the Roman’s, their law codes are based off two different and conflicting ideas, and the fall of Han was because of mostly internal uprising, while the Romans fall was because of mostly external settlers invading and organizing and uprising.

The Roman Empire and the Han dynasty were both built around strongly centralized bureaucracies. Both Han and Rome were led by an emperor, although Han’s emperor had unlimited power, while the early Roman emperor had to act with and sometimes obey a senate. In the early Roman Empire many of the old republican offices were kept, including the senate. Although the Roman emperor was immensely power full, the senate could always check him. No legislative group in the Han dynasty had enough power to check the emperor who, unlike the early Roman emperor, ruled unopposed with absolute power. Later in the Roman Empire the emperor Diocletian divided the Roman Empire into separate east and west empires. When he did this he removed the senate and all the old republican functions from the Roman government and gave the emperors of the Roman Empire Han like control and power to try and get rid of the factions, jealousy, and greed associated with groups of ruling elites. The early Roman Empire had an emperor in check with a republican senate, while the later Roman Empire and the Han dynasty had emperors with nearly unlimited power. The emperors of the Roman Empire and the Han dynasty also kept in power through a claim to heavenly rule. In the Han dynasty and throughout the history of emperors in China the emperors have ruled through ‘the mandate of heaven’. The mandate of heaven postulates that heaven would bestow a just ruler, and if that ruler has been over thrown it means his mandate has removed and is transferred to the next ruler in line. In Rome the state created a religion that declares the emperor as a god or a powerful heavenly figure that was to be worshiped. This is why the Roman state tried to stamp out Christianity, because it threatened the emperors right to rule.

The Han dynasty and the Roman empire each had their own strong, written, and enforced law codes that were used throughout their rule and their realms. The Han’s law code was based on legalist values. The martial emperor, Han Wudi,