Compare And Contrast The Han And Roman Empires

All of the empires in chapter four certainly left their legacy. But what was their legacy about? As I see it, it was more about their destructive features than their ‘greatness’. Every empire had a rise and fall, the fall due to war or conflict. Rome and the Han Dynasty were the major two ‘empires’ with conflict. Next, Persia and the Greek empire’s conflicts.

The Han Dynasty and Roman Empire existed around the same time period and both lasted around 400 years. They each had large populations (around 50 million), conquered enemies they felt as a threat, wanted to spread their boundaries and had strong militaries. The Han Dynasty, located in China, was built on other dynasties such as the Qin and Zhou. The Great Wall of China was built during

this dynasty which is definitely a huge accomplishment of ‘greatness’ but what was even greater was how far they expanded. They conquered many other civilizations, pushing their boundaries. If you compare how much of Asia was belonging to the Han Dynasty at the beginning to the end of the Han Dynasty it grew a lot! The Roman Empire had a vast military! Their life depended on it. The Roman Empire was spread onto 3 continents, and they had such a large empire by being destructive and conquering these lands. They were overbearing, expanding from just a small city state to being one of the greatest empires of all time. When many people hear the words “Roman Empire” they think of Roman soldiers first and then some of their achievements such as aqueducts. If the Han Dynasty and Roman Empire weren’t destructive they’re legacy wouldn’t be so great. Without expanding and conquering land and empires some of their ‘great’ achievements wouldn’t have even existed. If Rome would have stayed a city state, would it have even felt the need to invent concrete and aqueducts?

Persia and the Greek Empires both were very destructive! The Persian war began as a conflict between Persia and Greece. Persia started ‘fire’ on Greece, igniting the Persian war. This war was very violent but was quite impressive. It was a race to invent and have the best weaponry, many battle skills were developed and adapted to be used in the future. The Greek Empire ended up winning the war, but the destruction continued. After the Persian war, Athens became the Capital of the Greek Empire and another city in the Greek empire continued to receive power as well, Sparta. Eventually, the Greek Empire ended itself due to a conflict between Athens and Sparta. Athens began the Peloponnesian War with Sparta because of power and resources. The war lasted about 30 years! Sparta won in the end leaving an impressive, destructive legacy. These two Empires had many impressive battles and certainly left a legacy because of them.

Overall, the most impressive features left by all these empires involved battle and oppressiveness. Each empire had at least one ‘great’ battle that will be remembered and leaving many impressed. Sometimes to consider yourself impressive you need to take risks, fight for what you believe in and be aggressive. All of these empires sure did, and even though conflict and war caused the fall of all of these empires, they wouldn’t have been nearly big enough of powerful enough to leave a legacy and complete some of the ‘great’ accomplishment they completed.