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ahorbinskiBibliographic Data: Rosenstein, Nathan. “War, State Formation, and the Evolution of Military Institutions in Ancient China and Rome.” In Walter Scheidel, ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires, 24-51. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Main Argument: Rome and Qin, despite facing similar pressures in general terms (endemic warfare in a competition between states), took very different paths to imperial hegemony. In particular, the military pressures that Qin faced led to a series of sweeping institutional transformations that were unmatched in Rome; in effect, Rome's "alliance building and the enlargement of the citizen body itself" substituted for "the more intensive control of state territory that furnished China's warring states with their strength" (30).
Argument, Sources, Examples Rome, like the warring states of China, were "able to mobilize the mass armies that fought its battles by offering incentives to those it conscripted in order to secure their willing compliance and their enthusiastic participation in combat" (32). These incentives were political rights in Rome initially and then opportunities for personal advancement (i.e. loot), and status/rank/wealth in the warring states. Moreover, because the Romans were so good at winning wars and so mistrustful of monarchs after the expulsion of Tarquin, "military efficiency, in other words, yielded to the need to distribute high public offices and bestow honor widely among the aristocracy in order to foster cohesion among its members and prevent one or a few individuals from dominating public life at Rome by virtue of their repeated success on the battlefield," and this prioritization of politics over war continued after a monarchy was reestablished under Augustus in that his military reforms were aimed at securing his own power and the loyalty of his troops. The need to pay lip service to "restoring the Republic" meant that the imperial bureaucracy was created largely through the imperial household and the equestrians, who could not be potential competitors in the way that senators could. The senatorial elites were drawn into imperial administration after the monarchy was longer established. In China, by contrast, the bureaucracy was thoroughly transformed as its members were made commoner appointees rather than aristocratic life officeholders. Similarly, in China commoner military professionals led the armies, while in Rome personal (aristocratic) qualities were held to be the difference in leadership positions, whether civilian or military (which were in any effect held by the same people). However, by the Han empire, imperial China "came to vest command in an elite whose entitlement to those positions arose from their personal qualities, cultural attainments, and relationship to the emperor rather than technical expertise or demonstrated talent for the conduct of war;" in both states these circumstances were the result of "the demands of political power" (43). These developments were made possible in both cases by the fact that military threats were limited and faced only along the frontier, but both empires were ultimately threatened by their inability to control increasing military threats along those same frontiers. In Rome, the solution to the 3rdC crisis, namely employing formerly low- and middle-rank military professionals as military commanders and then even as emperors, "inaugurated a lasting split within the empire between the holders of social and cultural power, that is, members of the senatorial class, on the one hand and the military leadership on the other" (46). At the same time, the emperor's status was dramatically raised vis-a-vis the populace and the elites, with concomitant rises in expenses, and after the 3rdC crisis, "Rome's imperial government increasingly penetrated the society it ruled to an unprecedented extent in an effort to secure the resources it needed to support its vast military endeavors and the civil administrative apparatus this entailed" (48), ultimately unsuccessfully. War thus played a crucial part in state formation at different times in both empires.
Bibliographic Data: Scheidel, Walter. “From the ‘Great Convergence’ to the ‘First Great Divergence’: Roman and Qin-Han State Formation and Its Aftermath.” In Walter Scheidel, ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires, 11-23. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Main Argument: Scheidel argues that before there was the "Great Divergence" of the early modern period that Ken Pomeranz identifies, there was first a "Great Convergence" from the first millennium BCE to the first half of the first millennium CE in terms of state formation, and then after the 6thC CE, a "First Great Divergence" in terms of state formation. [I would note that there has also been a "Second Great Convergence" beginning in the 19thC, in which China and the rest of the world's ancient/and or non-modern polities were incorporated into the emerging nation-state system.]
Argument, Sources, Examples Scheidel notes that the empires of Rome and China shared many similarities, from size and population to cosmological orientation and climate position to nine phases of historical development, in the last of which they finally diverged. The most obvious difference in the early phases was that the pressures of the Warring States period created much stronger state structures much earlier than in Europe--and indeed, resistance to the imposition of the Qin state structure ultimately ended the Qin empire and provided the animating force behind the rise and ultimate dissolution of the Han. By contrast in Rome, Scheidel points out, throughout the period of the rise to empire under the Republic, "the army was the only institution that attained a certain level of professionalization;" thus it is not surprising that the Republic, when it ended, was replaced by a "military monarchy" (17). However, although Qin was unusually centralized and Republican Rome unusually uncentralized, both empires converged to the "mean" of premodern imperial states over time, with the mature Roman Empire of the 4thC CE resembling the Han Empire quite closely. Scheidel explains that "the major differences in political and administrate organization between Rome and China can be explained by initial differences in regime type" (18). Scheidel also argues that the greater bureaucratization of China vis-a-vis Rome is greatly overblown, particularly after the 3rdC crisis; the most significant difference remained at the local, i.e. urban level, since China was practically totally agricultural in comparison to Rome. Roman successor states were unable to maintain high levels of state taxation and salaried military forces, making "the prospects for the creation of very large stable empires" very poor (22).
Bibliographic Data: Turner, Karen. “Law and Punishment in the Formation of Empire.” In Walter Scheidel, ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires, 52-82. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Main Argument: Turner looks at the question of "how to justify the state's right to punish elites whose support was necessary for political survival and commoners whose compliance and labor sustained the institutional apparatus. Judging from the wealth of writing on the topic from observers in both empires, no other area of statecraft generated more unease among elites who witnessed the emergence of universal rulership than ceding to the emperor and his courts the authority to determine categories of deviance and the level of punitive action necessary to maintain order and deter further violence" (52-53). Turner notes by way of conclusion that "in a comparative light, a trial deemed unfair by Roman standards offered far more choice for alternative voices to speak on behalf of the accused person than a magistrate's investigation in China, which presumed guilt from the outset and allowed fro no defense" (82). By contrast, the general principles of law in China, in which "law existed as a means to preserve order and garner the resources needed to maintain the imperial apparatus, and elites, whether Confucian or Communisty, have always decided matters of life and death," have endured for over two thousand years: "but the human costs have been high indeed" (ibid).
Argument, Sources, Examples "Textbook accounts of Roman and Chinese imperial law point to the emperor as the supreme legislator. It is trite that the final decision about making and changing law rested with the emperors, but the histories reveal a much more complex situation at work, one that often involved a multitude of actors and agendas" (61). Moreover, the increasing judicial savagery of the later Roman empire must be put in the context of the de facto abolition of trial by jury; harsh punishments from judges were socially acceptable. Finally, it is important to note that "massive and organized codification of the laws began only after a period of crisis" in both empires, namely the division in 395 CE and the fall of the Han, respectively (63). Turner also argues that "the Chinese case challenges Foucault's contention that a passion for organizing bodies for their productive capacities marked a shift in political life from classical to modern systems. In China, patrimonial displays of the ruler's terrible power to punish and bureaucratic imperatives existed in tandem, especially at the lower levels of society. Resources were ultimately at stake" (77). By contrast, "in the Roman Empire, the criminal body served more as a site of symbolic retribution than an economic asset" (78). Thus, "as crimes that warranted harsh retribution became more numerous in the later empire, so too did spectacles of death sponsored by emperors become more routine" (ibid). The Chinese husbanded convict labor carefully while the Romans squandered it, often in the arena, possibly because a citizen body that incorporated more former enemies (and which no longer had the same citizen/non-citizen status distinctions as the high emperor) needed to see more criminal deviants-as-outsiders punished in the arena to cement social cohesion.
Bibliographic Data: Bang, Peter Fibiger. “Commanding and Consuming the World: Empire, Tribute, and Trade in Roman and Chinese History.” In Walter Scheidel, ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires, 100-120. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Main Argument: Bang is looking at what he calls the "paradox of ancient empire," which is, in essence, "how to combine a political discourse that was frequently hostile to and always suspicious of trade and merchants with the widespread existence of markets and commercialism" in the history of agrarian empires, particularly Rome and China, the two most successful such societies in the longue duree (100, 101). Bang argues that "tributary empire was a way of controlling and distributing wealth. it aimed to expand the level, range, and diversity of resources available to the ruling class, group, or people. … Tributary empire, like markets, embodied an economic strategy" (103).
Argument, Sources, Examples [IMO, Mark Elvin's The Pattern of The Chinese Past is wrong because the "high-level equilibrium trap" is not actually a thing that exists; Moses Finley's The Ancient Economy is wrong because culture is not an independent causal factor.] Moreover, both books made assumptions about the degree to which the state could penetrate ancient society and the degree to which the economy could be perfected (in the sense of economics) which are simply unreasonable. Bang notes that in the ancient world, most communities essentially formed autarkies; "by imposing tribute, empire forced resources out of the semiclosed cells of local economies and brought them into a wider sphere of circulation" (104). In Bang's view, "tribute obtained through a minimum of effort remained a key principle of Roman imperialism for centuries" (106). Bang argues that the Romans in particular were successful partly through achieving economies of scale in army organization and mobilization. He also speculates that "the formation of a tributary empire" also may "have had the added effect of producing a modest increase in per capita production by forcing producers to work harder" (112). Bang also notes that "the process of tributary extraction would have spawned a complex process of commercialization," as it was simply not possible for such large empires to operate entirely on an in-kind system even had monetary systems not predated their formation (see Scheidel in this post) (114). Bang also identifies a key difference between ancient and (early) modern empire: ancient states "did not treat new or subject territories as commercial opportunities by monopolizing trade between mother country and outlying region" (116). Rather, they were interested in "the expansion of more self-sufficient forms of agriculture. That would guarantee the creation of many more new peasant households that were sufficiently prosperous to pay the imperial taxes" (ibid). In this light, Rostovtzeff's contention that the Roman imperial economy was trapped in a spiral of decreasing specialization of labor after the 2ndC CE is untenable; "what really took place was simply the reproduction and expansion of 'civilized' agricultural production. Aggregate production and the disposable surplus had increased" (117). Reviewing patterns of elite consumption, Bang also argues that "the early modern period produced a new conjuncture in the old pattern of world trade for which the rising demand of imperial elites in Rome and Han China had laid the foundations" (120).
Bibliographic Data: Dettenhofer, Maria H. “Eunuchs, Women, and Imperial Courts.” In Walter Scheidel, ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires, 83-99. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Main Argument: Women and men of humble background surrounded the emperor in both Rome and China; in Rome these men were first freedmen and then equestrians, and then in late antiquity, eunuchs, while in China they were eunuchs throughout the period. Moreover, women and eunuchs were natural allies--or bitter rivals--in the struggle for political influence, made easier by their service to the emperor in intimate matters. Eunuchs came to prominence at the Roman court after the crisis of the 3rdC isolated the emperor from elites both physically and through ritual. Moreover, "eunuchs were unpopular in both societies. They represented a despised group that was only able to exist inside the court and under the emperor's protection" (98).
Bibliographic Data: Lewis, Mark Edward. “Gift Circulation and Charity in the Han and Roman Empires.” In Walter Scheidel, ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires,121-136. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Main Argument: Lewis argues that "the giving of gifts and charitable relief was a fundamental aspect of both political and social authority in Han China as well as the Roman Empire" (121). However, the Chinese case is not well studied. The principle differences between the two is that Roman imperial beneficence was directed at cities, while for the Han the target was the countryside. Furthermore, Greek and Roman euergetism was focused on "making a contribution to a public good shared by all citizens," epitomized by public municipal buildings in stone, spaces and structures which simply did not exist in imperial China (132). Similarly, the entire point of the arena games--to manifest the emperor's generosity and his physical presence--was anathema to Chinese political thinking, which conceptualized power as inside and hidden. Finally, Roman euergetism evolved from pre-existing traditions, even if the principate evolved it to such a point that the emperor was beyond reciprocity and put everyone into a relationship of gratia with him. By contrast, Chinese imperial generosity evolved out of the mode of state formation in the Warring States period, specifically the quid pro quo model of military service upon which it relied.
Argument, Sources, Examples Under the Han imperial gifts took several forms. One of these was the bestowal of ranks on all adult males coinciding with happy occasions in the emperor's life, which in practice meant that benefits accrued to the age in keeping with social ideology. Another was the pardoning of capital crimes, which were issued empire-wide on an average of every three years. in practice, "it seems that the Han emperors clearly recognized the need to balance the severity of their legal administration, which was the physical foundation of their state, with regular manifestations of beneficence in the form of pardons, grants of titles, poor relief, and related acts of manifest generosity" (125-26). As well as poor relief, emperors also distributed land to peasants from overcrowded regions, who were presumably more efficient cultivators than convicts. Emperors also gave various people regular gifts, such as dove-staffs to those over the age of 70, as well as generosity to nobles and officials, and even to non-Chinese peoples on the frontiers. Finally, there were imperial sacrifices, which were conducted by the emperor for the common good, and thus were a form of euergetism. Rural elites also practiced the redistribution of wealth in the form of charity to some extent. Unsurprisingly, when the imperial gift-giving apparatus broke down, it was rural elites who filled the gap, and the Han successor states were constituted on the model of a state/family union.
Bibliographic Data: Scheidel, Walter. “The Monetary Systems of the Han and Roman Empires.” In Walter Scheidel, ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires, 137-207. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Main Argument: Scheidel argues that "the emergence of monopolistic superstates in both eastern and western Eurasia favored the creation of hybrid currency systems in which the lack of competition relaxed 'metallistic' constraints without removing them altogether, and that coin users in both systems retained a substantial degree of sensitivity to the intrinsic value of their currencies" (138). He concludes that "in real terms, the Roman imperial economy was probably considerably more monetized than that of the Han state" (ibid).
Argument, Sources, Examples Currency in pre imperial China was not controlled by states, as private individuals were allowed to strike coins until 112 BCE. Chu followed a different (perhaps southern/Vietnamese), non-bronze-based set of currency standards than the other central states. The principle of value by weight as a proxy for metal content was widespread by Qin, which established a bimetallic (gold and copper) currency, but the Qin state sought to enforce face value to reduce transaction costs, probably with only limited success, to judge by the history of the Han state attempting the same later. The unified empire experimented with token money briefly but mostly upheld a unified weight system and a minting monopoly; after about 170CE a partial collapse of the bronze currency occurred in conjunction with inflationary debasement. The economies of the Han successor states appear to have been somewhat demonetized by the end of the 3rdC, relying on existing issues and payments in kind; although the Tang resumed minting coinage, depreciating pressures did not abate, and the value of coin issues continued to fluctuate. At the same time, gold circulation declined after the end of the Han dynasty and was largely replaced by silver thereafter. Although early Italian coinage was also largely bronze (unlike other historical societies), the peninsula and then Rome were embedded in a network of coined silver, with the result that the Romans adopted a bimetallic system of "traditional" bronze and "Greek-style" silver. Moreover, "Roman expansion precipitated progressive unification of the Mediterranean monetary system(s)" (172). After the 3rdC crisis, however, the empire was operating on a de facto gold and bronze currency as a consequence of ongoing debasement, and continued counterfeiting of small-value bronze coinage meant that gold was the only reliable standard of wealth. Scheidel explains the peculiarities of the Han currency system in terms of the bullion supply (low), military demand, and cultural factors (? which apparently mitigated against striking high-value gold and silver coins), but stresses that these variables need to be assessed in terms of both ends of Eurasia to evaluate their significance. Scheidel argues that the contrast between "full-bodied" coinage in Rome and "fiduciary coinage" in China is overblown; rather, both empires had currency systems with a "limited elasticity of the ratio of intrinsic value to nominal value" (196). Both empires effectively constituted currency monopolies, and "both monetary regimes combined an appreciation of of intrinsic value with varying degrees of tolerance of long-term debasement" (198). Abrupt changes to the monetary system were met with widespread loss of trust in the official coinage in both states.
Critical assessment: These chapters are for the most part very good, although I have several specific complaints. First, the Detenhoffer article is an intellectual fluff piece made actively bad by its completely thoughtless throwing around of terms such as "bisexual" in a totally non-contextualized and untheorized way. I also disagree with Karen Turner's implicit argument that Roman law in the empire or in its successor states was somehow more humane than imperial Chinese law; the fact that England eventually developed trial by jury is totally irrelevant to the actual question. I also think Wally Scheidel's inability to recognize the Second Great Convergence beginning in the 19thC is problematic, since the whole point of--many things, including this book--is that we are now in a unified world system, for better and for worse. Finally, while I take Bang's point, it's a little weird to me to just subsume trade under tribute as the same thing.
Meta notes: Two houses, both alike in equal dignity…
Main Argument: Rome and Qin, despite facing similar pressures in general terms (endemic warfare in a competition between states), took very different paths to imperial hegemony. In particular, the military pressures that Qin faced led to a series of sweeping institutional transformations that were unmatched in Rome; in effect, Rome's "alliance building and the enlargement of the citizen body itself" substituted for "the more intensive control of state territory that furnished China's warring states with their strength" (30).
Argument, Sources, Examples Rome, like the warring states of China, were "able to mobilize the mass armies that fought its battles by offering incentives to those it conscripted in order to secure their willing compliance and their enthusiastic participation in combat" (32). These incentives were political rights in Rome initially and then opportunities for personal advancement (i.e. loot), and status/rank/wealth in the warring states. Moreover, because the Romans were so good at winning wars and so mistrustful of monarchs after the expulsion of Tarquin, "military efficiency, in other words, yielded to the need to distribute high public offices and bestow honor widely among the aristocracy in order to foster cohesion among its members and prevent one or a few individuals from dominating public life at Rome by virtue of their repeated success on the battlefield," and this prioritization of politics over war continued after a monarchy was reestablished under Augustus in that his military reforms were aimed at securing his own power and the loyalty of his troops. The need to pay lip service to "restoring the Republic" meant that the imperial bureaucracy was created largely through the imperial household and the equestrians, who could not be potential competitors in the way that senators could. The senatorial elites were drawn into imperial administration after the monarchy was longer established. In China, by contrast, the bureaucracy was thoroughly transformed as its members were made commoner appointees rather than aristocratic life officeholders. Similarly, in China commoner military professionals led the armies, while in Rome personal (aristocratic) qualities were held to be the difference in leadership positions, whether civilian or military (which were in any effect held by the same people). However, by the Han empire, imperial China "came to vest command in an elite whose entitlement to those positions arose from their personal qualities, cultural attainments, and relationship to the emperor rather than technical expertise or demonstrated talent for the conduct of war;" in both states these circumstances were the result of "the demands of political power" (43). These developments were made possible in both cases by the fact that military threats were limited and faced only along the frontier, but both empires were ultimately threatened by their inability to control increasing military threats along those same frontiers. In Rome, the solution to the 3rdC crisis, namely employing formerly low- and middle-rank military professionals as military commanders and then even as emperors, "inaugurated a lasting split within the empire between the holders of social and cultural power, that is, members of the senatorial class, on the one hand and the military leadership on the other" (46). At the same time, the emperor's status was dramatically raised vis-a-vis the populace and the elites, with concomitant rises in expenses, and after the 3rdC crisis, "Rome's imperial government increasingly penetrated the society it ruled to an unprecedented extent in an effort to secure the resources it needed to support its vast military endeavors and the civil administrative apparatus this entailed" (48), ultimately unsuccessfully. War thus played a crucial part in state formation at different times in both empires.
Bibliographic Data: Scheidel, Walter. “From the ‘Great Convergence’ to the ‘First Great Divergence’: Roman and Qin-Han State Formation and Its Aftermath.” In Walter Scheidel, ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires, 11-23. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Main Argument: Scheidel argues that before there was the "Great Divergence" of the early modern period that Ken Pomeranz identifies, there was first a "Great Convergence" from the first millennium BCE to the first half of the first millennium CE in terms of state formation, and then after the 6thC CE, a "First Great Divergence" in terms of state formation. [I would note that there has also been a "Second Great Convergence" beginning in the 19thC, in which China and the rest of the world's ancient/and or non-modern polities were incorporated into the emerging nation-state system.]
Argument, Sources, Examples Scheidel notes that the empires of Rome and China shared many similarities, from size and population to cosmological orientation and climate position to nine phases of historical development, in the last of which they finally diverged. The most obvious difference in the early phases was that the pressures of the Warring States period created much stronger state structures much earlier than in Europe--and indeed, resistance to the imposition of the Qin state structure ultimately ended the Qin empire and provided the animating force behind the rise and ultimate dissolution of the Han. By contrast in Rome, Scheidel points out, throughout the period of the rise to empire under the Republic, "the army was the only institution that attained a certain level of professionalization;" thus it is not surprising that the Republic, when it ended, was replaced by a "military monarchy" (17). However, although Qin was unusually centralized and Republican Rome unusually uncentralized, both empires converged to the "mean" of premodern imperial states over time, with the mature Roman Empire of the 4thC CE resembling the Han Empire quite closely. Scheidel explains that "the major differences in political and administrate organization between Rome and China can be explained by initial differences in regime type" (18). Scheidel also argues that the greater bureaucratization of China vis-a-vis Rome is greatly overblown, particularly after the 3rdC crisis; the most significant difference remained at the local, i.e. urban level, since China was practically totally agricultural in comparison to Rome. Roman successor states were unable to maintain high levels of state taxation and salaried military forces, making "the prospects for the creation of very large stable empires" very poor (22).
Bibliographic Data: Turner, Karen. “Law and Punishment in the Formation of Empire.” In Walter Scheidel, ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires, 52-82. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Main Argument: Turner looks at the question of "how to justify the state's right to punish elites whose support was necessary for political survival and commoners whose compliance and labor sustained the institutional apparatus. Judging from the wealth of writing on the topic from observers in both empires, no other area of statecraft generated more unease among elites who witnessed the emergence of universal rulership than ceding to the emperor and his courts the authority to determine categories of deviance and the level of punitive action necessary to maintain order and deter further violence" (52-53). Turner notes by way of conclusion that "in a comparative light, a trial deemed unfair by Roman standards offered far more choice for alternative voices to speak on behalf of the accused person than a magistrate's investigation in China, which presumed guilt from the outset and allowed fro no defense" (82). By contrast, the general principles of law in China, in which "law existed as a means to preserve order and garner the resources needed to maintain the imperial apparatus, and elites, whether Confucian or Communisty, have always decided matters of life and death," have endured for over two thousand years: "but the human costs have been high indeed" (ibid).
Argument, Sources, Examples "Textbook accounts of Roman and Chinese imperial law point to the emperor as the supreme legislator. It is trite that the final decision about making and changing law rested with the emperors, but the histories reveal a much more complex situation at work, one that often involved a multitude of actors and agendas" (61). Moreover, the increasing judicial savagery of the later Roman empire must be put in the context of the de facto abolition of trial by jury; harsh punishments from judges were socially acceptable. Finally, it is important to note that "massive and organized codification of the laws began only after a period of crisis" in both empires, namely the division in 395 CE and the fall of the Han, respectively (63). Turner also argues that "the Chinese case challenges Foucault's contention that a passion for organizing bodies for their productive capacities marked a shift in political life from classical to modern systems. In China, patrimonial displays of the ruler's terrible power to punish and bureaucratic imperatives existed in tandem, especially at the lower levels of society. Resources were ultimately at stake" (77). By contrast, "in the Roman Empire, the criminal body served more as a site of symbolic retribution than an economic asset" (78). Thus, "as crimes that warranted harsh retribution became more numerous in the later empire, so too did spectacles of death sponsored by emperors become more routine" (ibid). The Chinese husbanded convict labor carefully while the Romans squandered it, often in the arena, possibly because a citizen body that incorporated more former enemies (and which no longer had the same citizen/non-citizen status distinctions as the high emperor) needed to see more criminal deviants-as-outsiders punished in the arena to cement social cohesion.
Bibliographic Data: Bang, Peter Fibiger. “Commanding and Consuming the World: Empire, Tribute, and Trade in Roman and Chinese History.” In Walter Scheidel, ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires, 100-120. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Main Argument: Bang is looking at what he calls the "paradox of ancient empire," which is, in essence, "how to combine a political discourse that was frequently hostile to and always suspicious of trade and merchants with the widespread existence of markets and commercialism" in the history of agrarian empires, particularly Rome and China, the two most successful such societies in the longue duree (100, 101). Bang argues that "tributary empire was a way of controlling and distributing wealth. it aimed to expand the level, range, and diversity of resources available to the ruling class, group, or people. … Tributary empire, like markets, embodied an economic strategy" (103).
Argument, Sources, Examples [IMO, Mark Elvin's The Pattern of The Chinese Past is wrong because the "high-level equilibrium trap" is not actually a thing that exists; Moses Finley's The Ancient Economy is wrong because culture is not an independent causal factor.] Moreover, both books made assumptions about the degree to which the state could penetrate ancient society and the degree to which the economy could be perfected (in the sense of economics) which are simply unreasonable. Bang notes that in the ancient world, most communities essentially formed autarkies; "by imposing tribute, empire forced resources out of the semiclosed cells of local economies and brought them into a wider sphere of circulation" (104). In Bang's view, "tribute obtained through a minimum of effort remained a key principle of Roman imperialism for centuries" (106). Bang argues that the Romans in particular were successful partly through achieving economies of scale in army organization and mobilization. He also speculates that "the formation of a tributary empire" also may "have had the added effect of producing a modest increase in per capita production by forcing producers to work harder" (112). Bang also notes that "the process of tributary extraction would have spawned a complex process of commercialization," as it was simply not possible for such large empires to operate entirely on an in-kind system even had monetary systems not predated their formation (see Scheidel in this post) (114). Bang also identifies a key difference between ancient and (early) modern empire: ancient states "did not treat new or subject territories as commercial opportunities by monopolizing trade between mother country and outlying region" (116). Rather, they were interested in "the expansion of more self-sufficient forms of agriculture. That would guarantee the creation of many more new peasant households that were sufficiently prosperous to pay the imperial taxes" (ibid). In this light, Rostovtzeff's contention that the Roman imperial economy was trapped in a spiral of decreasing specialization of labor after the 2ndC CE is untenable; "what really took place was simply the reproduction and expansion of 'civilized' agricultural production. Aggregate production and the disposable surplus had increased" (117). Reviewing patterns of elite consumption, Bang also argues that "the early modern period produced a new conjuncture in the old pattern of world trade for which the rising demand of imperial elites in Rome and Han China had laid the foundations" (120).
Bibliographic Data: Dettenhofer, Maria H. “Eunuchs, Women, and Imperial Courts.” In Walter Scheidel, ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires, 83-99. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Main Argument: Women and men of humble background surrounded the emperor in both Rome and China; in Rome these men were first freedmen and then equestrians, and then in late antiquity, eunuchs, while in China they were eunuchs throughout the period. Moreover, women and eunuchs were natural allies--or bitter rivals--in the struggle for political influence, made easier by their service to the emperor in intimate matters. Eunuchs came to prominence at the Roman court after the crisis of the 3rdC isolated the emperor from elites both physically and through ritual. Moreover, "eunuchs were unpopular in both societies. They represented a despised group that was only able to exist inside the court and under the emperor's protection" (98).
Bibliographic Data: Lewis, Mark Edward. “Gift Circulation and Charity in the Han and Roman Empires.” In Walter Scheidel, ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires,121-136. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Main Argument: Lewis argues that "the giving of gifts and charitable relief was a fundamental aspect of both political and social authority in Han China as well as the Roman Empire" (121). However, the Chinese case is not well studied. The principle differences between the two is that Roman imperial beneficence was directed at cities, while for the Han the target was the countryside. Furthermore, Greek and Roman euergetism was focused on "making a contribution to a public good shared by all citizens," epitomized by public municipal buildings in stone, spaces and structures which simply did not exist in imperial China (132). Similarly, the entire point of the arena games--to manifest the emperor's generosity and his physical presence--was anathema to Chinese political thinking, which conceptualized power as inside and hidden. Finally, Roman euergetism evolved from pre-existing traditions, even if the principate evolved it to such a point that the emperor was beyond reciprocity and put everyone into a relationship of gratia with him. By contrast, Chinese imperial generosity evolved out of the mode of state formation in the Warring States period, specifically the quid pro quo model of military service upon which it relied.
Argument, Sources, Examples Under the Han imperial gifts took several forms. One of these was the bestowal of ranks on all adult males coinciding with happy occasions in the emperor's life, which in practice meant that benefits accrued to the age in keeping with social ideology. Another was the pardoning of capital crimes, which were issued empire-wide on an average of every three years. in practice, "it seems that the Han emperors clearly recognized the need to balance the severity of their legal administration, which was the physical foundation of their state, with regular manifestations of beneficence in the form of pardons, grants of titles, poor relief, and related acts of manifest generosity" (125-26). As well as poor relief, emperors also distributed land to peasants from overcrowded regions, who were presumably more efficient cultivators than convicts. Emperors also gave various people regular gifts, such as dove-staffs to those over the age of 70, as well as generosity to nobles and officials, and even to non-Chinese peoples on the frontiers. Finally, there were imperial sacrifices, which were conducted by the emperor for the common good, and thus were a form of euergetism. Rural elites also practiced the redistribution of wealth in the form of charity to some extent. Unsurprisingly, when the imperial gift-giving apparatus broke down, it was rural elites who filled the gap, and the Han successor states were constituted on the model of a state/family union.
Bibliographic Data: Scheidel, Walter. “The Monetary Systems of the Han and Roman Empires.” In Walter Scheidel, ed., Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires, 137-207. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Main Argument: Scheidel argues that "the emergence of monopolistic superstates in both eastern and western Eurasia favored the creation of hybrid currency systems in which the lack of competition relaxed 'metallistic' constraints without removing them altogether, and that coin users in both systems retained a substantial degree of sensitivity to the intrinsic value of their currencies" (138). He concludes that "in real terms, the Roman imperial economy was probably considerably more monetized than that of the Han state" (ibid).
Argument, Sources, Examples Currency in pre imperial China was not controlled by states, as private individuals were allowed to strike coins until 112 BCE. Chu followed a different (perhaps southern/Vietnamese), non-bronze-based set of currency standards than the other central states. The principle of value by weight as a proxy for metal content was widespread by Qin, which established a bimetallic (gold and copper) currency, but the Qin state sought to enforce face value to reduce transaction costs, probably with only limited success, to judge by the history of the Han state attempting the same later. The unified empire experimented with token money briefly but mostly upheld a unified weight system and a minting monopoly; after about 170CE a partial collapse of the bronze currency occurred in conjunction with inflationary debasement. The economies of the Han successor states appear to have been somewhat demonetized by the end of the 3rdC, relying on existing issues and payments in kind; although the Tang resumed minting coinage, depreciating pressures did not abate, and the value of coin issues continued to fluctuate. At the same time, gold circulation declined after the end of the Han dynasty and was largely replaced by silver thereafter. Although early Italian coinage was also largely bronze (unlike other historical societies), the peninsula and then Rome were embedded in a network of coined silver, with the result that the Romans adopted a bimetallic system of "traditional" bronze and "Greek-style" silver. Moreover, "Roman expansion precipitated progressive unification of the Mediterranean monetary system(s)" (172). After the 3rdC crisis, however, the empire was operating on a de facto gold and bronze currency as a consequence of ongoing debasement, and continued counterfeiting of small-value bronze coinage meant that gold was the only reliable standard of wealth. Scheidel explains the peculiarities of the Han currency system in terms of the bullion supply (low), military demand, and cultural factors (? which apparently mitigated against striking high-value gold and silver coins), but stresses that these variables need to be assessed in terms of both ends of Eurasia to evaluate their significance. Scheidel argues that the contrast between "full-bodied" coinage in Rome and "fiduciary coinage" in China is overblown; rather, both empires had currency systems with a "limited elasticity of the ratio of intrinsic value to nominal value" (196). Both empires effectively constituted currency monopolies, and "both monetary regimes combined an appreciation of of intrinsic value with varying degrees of tolerance of long-term debasement" (198). Abrupt changes to the monetary system were met with widespread loss of trust in the official coinage in both states.
Critical assessment: These chapters are for the most part very good, although I have several specific complaints. First, the Detenhoffer article is an intellectual fluff piece made actively bad by its completely thoughtless throwing around of terms such as "bisexual" in a totally non-contextualized and untheorized way. I also disagree with Karen Turner's implicit argument that Roman law in the empire or in its successor states was somehow more humane than imperial Chinese law; the fact that England eventually developed trial by jury is totally irrelevant to the actual question. I also think Wally Scheidel's inability to recognize the Second Great Convergence beginning in the 19thC is problematic, since the whole point of--many things, including this book--is that we are now in a unified world system, for better and for worse. Finally, while I take Bang's point, it's a little weird to me to just subsume trade under tribute as the same thing.
Meta notes: Two houses, both alike in equal dignity…