- Empires’ control over large populations
The Persian Empire is one of the most essential regions and dynasties to look at, especially, when focusing on past empires, their activities as well as the successful ventures in which they engaged themselves in. This is because it was one of the best organized empires, and as a result, gained a lot of popularity, as well as power and success across the modern day Europe. After Alexander the Great ventured into the region of Persia and established a colony, he managed to come out successful, especially, through the establishment of the Hellenistic kingdoms. These kingdoms spread across Southeast Asia, and managed to thaw their way into north east Africa. There are several advantages and drawbacks that come with the expansion of empires, as it has been observed with the Hellenistic empires under Alexander the Great.
Firstly, it is necessary to note the fact that the empires played a major role in expanding and sharing of beliefs, practices, cultures as well as other virtues across the colonies under one empire. This is one of the aspects that were noted with the Hellenistic kingdoms across aria and northern Africa. At the same time, expansion of empires, as seen with the Hellenistic kingdoms, played a major role in the collection of taxes, and this made them stronger in all aspects, especially financially through trade. At the same time, larger colonies were in a better position to provide larger, more experienced, as well as well trained armies. This is one of the factors that made it possible for the Hellenistic kingdoms to assimilate smaller colonies and empires, and this made it one of the most successful empires in both the ancient and the ancient-modern times.
However, establishment and expansion of empires had a major setback, especially to the involved societies. Considering the fact that each of the society or community in the empire had its own, distinct and independent practices, virtues, values and traditions, all these were eroded, especially through the interactions that took place within the empire, for example through trade. As a result, this made it possible for most of the societies, especially the weaker ones, to be assimilated and lose their identity to the larger societies.
- China and Rome: The long-lasting empires
China and Rome are some of the most long lasting empires of all time, that made them to not only prosper, but also outlive other empires that had been established during their times (the ancient times). Looking at China, however, one of the factors that made it collapse and acted as a destabilizing agent was socialism and communism. These are some of the strategies that have made many other societies and empires to crumble, because it does not support individual, but state development. As a result, most of the people end up living economically unstable lives, and living at the expense of the dynasty/empire, and this is one of the factors that led to its instability. On the other hand, national and political cohesion is one factor that made it successful, and one of the factors that promoted national cohesion was dictatorship. Through the reign of autocratic leaders, as much as this form of leadership has been heavily discouraged, it discouraged any chances of rebellion during national growth, and as a result, this made it to consistently grow and develop.
- Common problems and solutions to the Roman and Chinese Empires
The common problem that both the Chinese and the Roman empires faced was financial and state economic instability, and this was based on the forms of inconsistent taxation strategies applied. Irrespective of the fact that the Roman Empire adopted the capitalist strategy while China was a communist empire, the inconsistent tax collection which was further catapulted by the expansion of both empires made it hard and impossible for the emperors to effectively manage the empires with the tax they collected. This led to poor management, and consequently, played a role in the collapse of the empires.
- Domination and hegemony in empires
Hegemony and domination are used in ruling of empires. Hegemony was used to maintain dominance in a given region, in order to overpower rising dynasties. In China for example, it was used between 770 BC-480 BC, in order to overpower the Zhou dynasty. In Rome, on the other hand, it was used in 1871, as it sought to dominate over the British Empire, which was consistent and steadily rising. In this case, however, the Chinese Empire’s hegemony against the Zhou dynasty was the most effective, and this is, particularly, due to the fact that it managed to not only overpower the Zhou dynasty, but also assimilate it into the empire. This was one of the most essential consequent goals of these strategies when applied, and the Chinese Empire managed to effectively achieve it. The Roman Empire, on the other hand, wasn’t successful in the application of the same, especially, due to the fact that it was at its point of fall during the application.
Works Cited
Brook, Timothy. The early Chinese Empires: History of imperial China. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.
Camiller, Patrick. Empires: The Logic of World Domination from Ancient Rome to the United States. New York: Harvard University Press, 2007. Print.
Leslie, Donald. The Roman and the Chinese empires. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2006. Print.
McGregor, Neil. A history of the world in 100 objects. New York: McMillan Press, 2011. Print.
Ostler, Nicholas. Empires of the Word: A language history of the world. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2006. Print.
