Xianfeng Emperor

Pompeii is one of the most well-known ancient cities in the world. However, at the height of its existence, it was just another Roman city. What makes Pompeii so important to us today is how well it was preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Nevertheless, there are still many unanswered questions about the city. Mary Beard defined it as the Pompeii Paradox, or the fact that we “simultaneously know a huge amount and very little about ancient life there.” Although the eruption of Mount…

Over, the course of this class we have watched how Chinese art has changed throughout history. We first witnessed the bronze ritual vessels of the Shang and Zhou Dynasty. Then we examined the different Hu’s of the Han Dynasty. We also watched the progression of Buddhist sculptures in the 3rd and 4th century. With the course ending we see the collapse of the Tang Dynasty in the 10th century, and the emergence of Chinese Landscape painting. The past couple weeks, we were introduced to a variety of…

The history of the Roman Empire spans several centuries, starting with the disintegration of the Roman Republic, as a result of civil wars, until 476 AD, the year of the last emperor of Rome (Gibbon 1829). The Roman Republic (res publica meaning "public affairs") is the conventional term used to define the Roman state and its provinces since the end of the Kingdom of Rome in 509 BC. The Republic lasted until the establishment of the Roman Empire in 27 BC. The Empire was a consequence of the…

Rome and Persia were both successful empires, but they were both very different in the way their empires worked and expanded. There were some similarities the empires shared such as conquering vast amounts of land, political advancements, and bureaucracy. Despite these similarities, there were much more differences with these two empires. One of the reasons Rome expanded was because of its disciplined military. They could also support their big population with the military, and in their…

recording the Roman triumph and apotheosis. It is so immersive that the spectators can experience the events when they pass through. Further, she claims that there is a close connection between the two spectacles. She argues that the deification of the emperor in the apotheosis is based on his triumph. Norman makes a convincing argument about the link between the triumph and the apotheosis. She uses textual source, visual evidence, and comparison to solidly support her idea that the emperor’s…

(Background Essay). Although Rome was prospering, it was slowly starting to fall apart due to poor leadership, a weak military and invasion of outsiders. Poor leadership was a big contributing factor to the fall of the Roman Empire. 12 out of the 19 emperors that ruled Rome were assassinated for power or out of hatred (Document A). That’s about 63%. This shows that the Romans were always fighting over power which lead to an unstable government. “[He]…considered his new life…better than his…

led a rebel army that finally drove the Mongols out of China. Hongwu then became the first Ming Dynasty emperor and he ruled from the capital, Yuan. Even though Hongwu was able to implement stability in China, problems arose and he became a ruthless tyrant. He doubted the loyalty of his officials and then killed thousands of them. After Hongwu’s death in 1398, his son, Yonglo, became the new emperor. Yonglo had intellectual curiosity about the outside world and sent seven Voyages, all led by…

Rome was the most dominating and powerful government the world has ever seen. However, Rome is no longer a government, now it’s only a memory. In this essay I, will explain why agree that the spoils of victory were the downfall of Rome. I will explain how the military, politics, and the economy contributed to the spoils of victory which ultimately lead to the downfall of the Roman empire. The military in Rome was a strong force and helped garner territory for Rome’s massive empire. Rome’s…

During the reign of Augustus great artists enjoyed emperor's patronage, artists like Virgil, Ovid, Horatius, and many others. Seneca, the private teacher to Nero and Emperor Marcus Aurelius excelled as philosophers. Many religious writers were prominent too. Among them, theologians of new faith, Christianity freely roamed the Empire and spread the word of Christ. What started as a small sect, as Romans classified it,…

The Roman and Han Empires were the greatest empires in history. Both empires showed great military forces, strived in economic trade, and their territories covered vasts amounts of land, yet they both had an unfortunate collapse. Although the Roman and Han empires are similar politically and socially in that there was conflict between the statuses there were also differences. In both Imperial Rome and Han China there was a social unrest during the collapses of the empires. The society of the Han…