_The Earth And Its Peoples_ Terms: Chapter 6, An Age Of Empires: Rome And Han China, 753 Bce-330 Ce

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Aqueduct

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A conduit, either elevated or under ground using gravity to carry water from a source to location - usually a city - that needed it. The Romans built many aqueducts in a period of substantial urbanization.

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Augustus (63 BCE-14 CE)

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Honorific name of Octavian, founder of the Roman Principate, the military dictatorship that replaced the failing rule of the Roman Senate. After defeating all rivals, between 31 BCE and 14 CE he laid the groundwork for several centuries of stability and prosperity in the Roman Empire.

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Chang'an

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City in Wei Valley in eastern China. It became the capital of the Zhou kingdom and the Qin and early Han Empires. Its main features were imitating in the cities and towns that sprang up throughout the Han Empire.

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Constantine (285-337 CE)

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Roman emperor (r. 312-337). After reuniting the Roman Empire, he moved the capital to Constantinople and made Christianity a favored religion.

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Equites

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In ancient Italy, prosperous landowners second in wealth and status to the senatorial aristocracy. The Roman emperors allied with this group to counterbalance the influence of the old aristocracy and used the equites to staff the imperial civil service.

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Gentry

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In China, the class of prosperous families, next in wealth below the rural aristocrats, from which the emperors drew their administrative personnel. Respected for their education and expertise, these officials became a privileged group and made the government more efficient and responsive than in the past. The term "gentry" also denotes the class of landholding families in England below the aristocracy.

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Han

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A term used to designate (`) the ethnic Chinese people who originated in the Yellow River Valley and spread throughout regions of China suitable for agriculture and (21) the dynasty of emperors who ruled from 206 BCE to 220 CE.

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Jesus (ca. 5 BCE-34 CE)

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A Jew from Galilee in northern Israel who sought to reform Jewish beliefs and practices. He was executed as a revolutionary by the Roman.s. Hailed as the Messiah and son of God by his followers, eh became the central figure in Christianity, a belief system that developed in the centuries after his death.

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Patron/client relationship

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In ancient Rome, a fundamental social relationship in which the patron - a wealthy and powerful individual - provided legal and economic protection and assistance to clients, men of lesser status and means, and in return the client supported the political careers and economic interests of their patron.

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Paul (ca. 5 -65 CE)

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A Jew from the Greek city of Tarsus in Anatolia, he initially persecuted the followers of Jesus but, after receiving a revelation on the road to Syrian Damascus, became a Christian. Taking advantage of his Hellenized background and Roman citizenship, he traveled throughout Syria-Palestine, Anatolia, and Greece, preaching the new religion and establishing churches. Finding his greatest success among pagans ("gentiles"), he began the process by which Christianity separated from Judaism.

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Pax romana

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Literally, "Roman peace," it connoted the stability and prosperity that Roman rule brought to the lands of the Roman Empire in the first two centuries CE. The movement of people and trade goods along Roman roads and safe seas allowed for the spread of cultural practices, technologies, and religious ideas.

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Qin

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A people and state in the Wei Valley of eastern China that conquered rival states and created the first Chinese empire (221-206 BCE). The Qin ruler, SHi Huangdi, standardized many features of Chinese society and ruthlessly marshalled subjects for military and construction projects, engendering hostility that led to the fall of his dynasty shortly after his death. The Qin framework was largely taken over by the succeeding Han Empire.

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Roman Principate

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A term used to characterize Roman government in the first three centuries CE, based on the ambiguous title princeps ("first citizen") adopted by Augustus to conceal his military dictatorship.

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Roman Republic

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The period from 507 to 31 BCE, during which Rome was largely governed by the aristocratic Roman Senate.

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Romante Senate

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A council whose members were the heads of wealthy, landowning families. Originally an advisory body to the early kings, in the era of the Roman Republic the Senate effectively governed the Roman state and the growing empire. Under Senate leadership, Rome conquered an empire of unprecedented extent in the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. In the first century BCE quarrels among powerful and ambitious senators and failure to address social and economic problems led to civil wars and the emergence of the rule of the emperors.

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Romanization

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The process by which the Latin language and Roman culture became dominant in the western provinces of the Roman Empire. The Roman government did not actively seek to Romanize the subject peoples, but indigenous peoples in the provinces often chose to Romanize because of the political and economic advantages that it brought, as well as the allure of Roman success.

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Shi Huangdi

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Founder of the short-lived Qin dynasty and creator of the Chinese Empire (r. 221-210 BCE). He is remembered for his ruthless conquests of rival states, standardization of practices, and forcible organization of labor for military and engineering tasks. His tomb, with its army of life-size terracotta soldiers, has been partially excavated.

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Third-century crisis

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Historians' term for the political, military, and economic turmoil that beset the Roman Empire during much of the third century CE: frequent changes of ruler, civil wars, barbarian invasions, decline of urban centers, and near-destruction of long-distance commerce and the monetary economy. After 284 CE Diocletian restored order by making fundamental changes.

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Xiongnu

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A confederation of nomadic peoples living beyonc the northwest frontier of ancient China. Chinese rulers tried a variety of defenses and stratagems to ward off these "barbarians," as they called them, and finally succeeded in dispersing the Xiongnu in the first century CE.