This is lecture 15; we call it the end of the classical era.
When you hear the word ‘classical’ think of Greece and Rome – at least in the west
that’s what we’re accustomed to – so we’re talking about the 5th and 6th centuries,
and you’ll also see as the sort of classical cultures, Greece and Rome, as they decline,
you’re going to see the rise of Islam and the expansion of the Arab culture.
So the end of the classical era is a great divide in human history.
The Rome and the Han empires fall in similar time frames.
Rome, of course, being on the western end of Eurasia, and Han China on the eastern end.
The classical world is basically gone by 600 of the Common Era.
Han China, a couple of remarks here.
A great deal of social unrest, there is economic problems; trade is breaking down; landlords
are too oppressive; this causes the peasantry to rise up.
There is Han invasions from Central Asia.
Again, a long-running theme in Eurasian history of the nomadic horsemen from the Steppe lands
of Central Asia encroaching upon the great sedentary civilizations in China, India, Persia,
Mesopotamia.
In Rome, a couple of remarks here.
The empire had peaked by about 180 of the Common Era.
Expansion ended shortly after that.
There were fewer rewards for the army, fewer slaves for the economy.
The army began to intervene more and more in political affairs.
Cultural life deteriorated in Rome with the exception perhaps of Christianity, which is
growing.
Of course, Rome faces barbarian invasions around its periphery in the East and in the
North.
And then of course, Rome, sort of the semi-official date of 476 of the Common Era, the Roman Empire
– at least the Western portion of it – ends.
The Eastern portion, of course, of the Roman Empire will survive for another 1,000 years.
It goes under the name of Byzantium, or the Byzantine Empire.
And then of course, in India, the Gupta Empire deteriorated in the 5th century of the Common
Era.
It became increasingly decentralized, which is a theme in Indian history¸ as local officials
take over the functions of the state government, and also Steppe invaders from the North encroaching
upon Indian territory.
Let’s just mention a couple of these common factors in the decline of these civilizations.
Invasion is obviously one.
Steppe attacks, or nomadic attacks from horsemen from the Steppes of Central Asia, encroaching
on China, on Europe, the Middle East, and India.
These horsemen, of course, have stirrups; this gives them a great deal of power because
it allows them to continually fire arrows at the enemy from every direction.
It frees up the horsemen’s hands because he can lock himself to the horse with the
stirrup, and this creates probably the most formidable cavalrymen until we get to the
modern age.
The empires, again we’re talking about Rome and China and India, their military power
declines as these Steppe invasions increase.
Another factor in decline, of course, is disease – smallpox; measles; of course, we will
later have a tremendous outbreak of the Bubonic plague in the 14th century.
A third of the Roman population killed by disease, this creates economic chaos; it creates
social chaos.
Disease is spread from India with its tropical climate.
From India, disease is spread along the human web that we’ve been talking about; this
metaphor that the McNeills use.
You can think of these cosmopolitan centers, as they expand, connected by the trade routes,
and of course, the diseases follow these trade routes as well.
Another factor – institutional weaknesses – the leadership seems to deteriorate; it’s
of less quality.
The elites tend to be more shortsighted, more focused on their individual pleasure, as opposed
to the sustaining the empire.
They have an appetite for pleasure and sensual indulgence.
We’ve all heard about this, the wild, Roman orgies, and etcetera, etcetera.
I don’t know if these are true or not, but there is a general sense across the classical
world, as it declines, that the leadership was becoming increasingly decadent and less
able, less willing, to sustain the empires.
Consequences in India – well, there’s no subsequent empire in India until the 20th
century.
You see the British in India earlier than that, and then India becomes a more modernized
and more centralized in the 20th century.
There’s no powerful, unifying factor in India over those centuries.
India remains a productive economy.
It produces cotton and pepper and other spices that are valued.
Hinduism continues to evolve.
The caste system remains in place, limiting your social mobility, whom you marry, you
occupation or career.
And local power in India prevails over any sort of centralized, national power.
Consequences in China – of course, China will recover.
Former institutions will be revived.
Confucianism is sustained.
Centralized government will be revived.
Consequences in Rome – well, the authority of the state dwindles.
Trade begins to fail.
The economy begins to fail.
I heard one historian say that the Roman economy went from one of production to one of plunder,
and of course, the use of slavery inhibits the Roman economy as well.
I should emphasize, again, that local authorities tend to have more control now in the Western
Roman Empire than any sort of centralized authority.
These local authorities will, in time, emerge into what we call feudalism.
Feudalism having about it distinct hierarchy of classes – with large land owners at the
top; the land owners and their vassals and knights, and then beneath them, of course,
the vast peasantry, and we’ll talk more about feudalism as we go forward.
And – I said this earlier, but I repeat it – the Eastern portion of the Roman Empire
centered around Greece and Turkey, and the Eastern Mediterranean, it survives for another
1,000 years.
We draw a couple of conclusions here.
As we see the end of the classical era, we see the diminishment of the importance of
empire.
Socio-deterioration pushed people to think of alternatives, as a greater emphasis on
religion, with both Christianity growing, and then you’ll see the explosion of Islam
in the 7th century.
And finally, the unity of the Mediterranean world now divided among Europe to the north,
Middle East to the east, and North Africa to the southern shores of the Mediterranean.
So, just a brief survey of the end of the classical era.
Thank you.