H417 Ancient Empires: Rome and Han compared

December 2022

by Emily Pace, Upper School history teacher

I was excited to bring this course to Lakeside because I want to give students an appreciation for the influence the ancient world continues to have on our world today. The stories of the Roman and Han Empires kick off our exploration of the course. For Rome, we read about Romulus and Remus, the Sabine Women, Lucretia, and Aeneas, and for China, we read about the sage kings, Yao and Shun, “The Grand Model” presented to King Wu, and the Duke of Zhou. We examine these texts to both understand how Rome and China defined good leadership and to also consider the idea that Rome and China serve as foundation stories for us today. These empires had a profound impact on our understanding of what makes a stable, just, and legitimate government.

As a comparative Rome/Han approach has gained popularity as a field of history, a few anthologies covering a range of topics have been published: “Conceiving the Empire: China and Rome Compared” (ed. Mutschler and Mittag), “Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on the Ancient World,” and “State Power in Ancient China and Rome” (both ed. Scheidel). Of particular interest for discussing good governance is a Rome and China section in Karen Turner’s “Law and Punishment in the Formation of Empire.” This chapter offers an in-depth look at philosophers from the Legalist, Confucian, and Stoic schools and their discussions surrounding the laws limiting imperial excess, the protections available to common people, and the codification of law, as well as the legacies of these legal systems. Pairing this reading with articles about Amy Coney Barrett describing herself as an “originalist” and Ketanji Brown Jackson’s argument that the 14th Amendment was framed “in a race-conscious way” allows us to compare ancient philosophical ideas to current debates surrounding the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and our own laws.

Questions about legitimate leadership and how laws function within and for a given society are a couple of the perennial questions of history. By examining the works of the philosophers from these early empires, perhaps we can better appreciate the nuance and complexity of these foundational issues and better appreciate the importance of studying the ancient world. 

This piece was previously published in the Fall/Winter 2022 edition of Lakeside magazine. Image credit: Fred Birchman.