Decline and fall of the Roman Empire and Han Dynasty Essay Example

battles and territory were lost. As the need for soldiers increased, the cost of defense increased to the point that the emperor and senate could no longer pay the price. Diocletian split the Empire into Eastern and Western halves to prevent the inevitable downfall of the civilization. The Eastern half was repeatedly attacked and eventually Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 C.E. The Han Dynasty subsequently fell as a result of the Xiongnu invasions. Shi Huangdi, as a ruler of the Zhou Dynasty, began the construction of the Great Wall as a means of keeping the nomads out. Similar to Rome, Han officials were unable to continue to pay the cost of defense. Without a military to defend the walls and city, nomadic invaders overran outer sections of the Empire. Ironically, these nomads were related to the Huns that were pushing the Germanic tribes into Roman territory, thus the Goths were forced to attack Rome.

Rome and Han China differed in the amount of power that the local landlords had over the people and citizens. There began to be moral decay in the faith of the citizens of Rome. They lost their trust for the military to provide protection, as they should, and the citizens turned to local landlords for defense. The citizens gave their farmland to their lords and agreed to work the land in exchange for safety and security. This was a stepping stone towards Feudalism in Medieval Europe. Alternatively in Han China the local landlords took control by force. Lords picked up much of the slack left behind by a failing government. They seized control of local neighborhoods and

farmland, forcing peasants to toil laboriously and provide to be their own army also beginning a form of Feudalism.

The unstable situations in the government and the destruction from barbaric conquests lead to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty. With these faults in government came the rise in power of local lords in Rome with whom the peasants placed their loyalty upon, while in China the peasants did not choose to abandon their government, rather the local lords took it upon themselves to conquer and govern local lands and establishments. Although the end of the Age of Classical Antiquity brought an end to great civilizations such as Rome and Han China, it launched the Western world into the Early Middle Ages.