One major core class young students are required to take in high school is History. Students learn a wide variety of subjects under this category, including ancient civilizations, past presidents, US history, and the great empires that once ruled the continents. The idea behind learning history is possibly to try to avoid it relapsing again. Students are taught in depth about the major empires of the world and what modern civilization stands to gain from learning about these empires. One thing that is not discussed in depth is the reason why these great empires ultimately declined in the history books, and if there are any correlations between each empire’s plummet. To further investigate the idea of a correlation between each empire's downfall, three major empires were investigated into their leadership, ideas, and ultimately why they dissolved into the history books. Using three empirical case studies - the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire, and the Mongol Empire - it will be examined if there is any correlation between the reasons why these great empires fell.
The Roman Empire is the most popular and the most thought of civilization when the word ‘empire’ is spoken. Founded in 31 B.C.E., the Roman Empire had experienced many leaders, the most memorable and profound, including its first leader Augustus Caesar, later Vespasian, Diocletian, and finally Constantine. Rome had experienced many leaders in its birth and beginning growth due to constant assassinations, deaths, and mismanagement from its leaders. Rome was the glass slipper that very few leaders had fit. In its beginning, Rome had experienced at least 20 rulers, each ruling very differently than the last. This constant change in leadership of the Roman Empire created a period known as the Imperial Crisis. During this period, Rome was wrecked with civil wars and social unrest, many fighting for a chance to be its leader. The Imperial Crisis is noted as a period of economic instability as well due to the constant change in leaders and policies.
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This unrest was ultimately controlled by another short-term leader who laid the foundation for a more significant leader, Diocletian, to build upon in his succession of the empire. Diocletian established the tetrarchy (‘rule of four’) to maintain order throughout the empire. He also realized the Roman Empire was far too vast to rule alone and divided it into Eastern and Western halves, promoting a Roman officer to co-emperor. This divide created a short bout of peace for Rome, which after Diocletian’s death was ruined as the tetrarchy fell and more civil wars broke out to succeed the emperor position.
Recognized as one of the last emperors of Rome, Constantine came into leadership in 312 C.E. In his reign, Constantine implemented many religiously tolerant laws towards the Christian faith, believing that he came into succession of Rome through Jesus Christ. Constantine wanted the primary religion of Rome to be Christianity. As he was an advocate for Christianity and to augment his authority over Rome, he claimed to have a special relationship with Jesus Christ. With this relationship in mind, Constantine helped collect the manuscripts of Jesus Christ, which later formed the Bible for Christianity. In doing this, he effectively stabilized the empire for the last time, reformed the Roman currency, and created the city that would later be called Constantinople.
While his success is viewed as the last stable period of Rome, Constantine's ideals and values, interpreted by his lineage to the empire, were ultimately the demise of the empire. Consequential leaders then proceeded to switch back and forth from advocating Christianity to rejecting it completely. One of Rome’s final leaders, an advocate for Christianity, reformed Rome strictly. Pagan worship, the primary religious glue to the empire, was outlawed. Universities and schools were closed, and pagan temples were converted into Christian churches. The unity that paganism provided to Rome was severed by this implementation of Christianity and ultimately was a major cause of its disintegration.
Once the religious glue was removed from Rome and other territories began to try to invade it, the empire began to crumble. The Eastern and Western halves operated as competitors rather than two halves of the whole empire. With lacking leadership and the inability to come together as a whole, the Western Empire was demolished in 476 C.E., when its leader was assassinated by the Germanic King Odoacer, and the Eastern half succumbed to form the Byzantine Empire.
While the leadership of Rome was a rocky path for historians to follow, the innovations and ideas that came about during its reign still influence much of the Western culture most people know today. The Roman Empire constructed advancements in roads, buildings, indoor plumbing systems, and even the idea of free returns for faulty or disliked products. Rome contributed to the invention of shoes, apartment complexes, postal services modeled after Persia, cosmetics, and the magnifying glass. Although Rome created many intelligent and innovative inventions, its fall could not go unnoticed.
Another well-known great empire is the Persian Empire. The Persian’s once great empire spanned from the west in Egypt to Turkey in the north. They controlled the Indus River in the east and prowled through Mesopotamia in the middle of their vast empire. By the 5th century B.C.E., the Persian Empire was the largest the world had ever seen. The empire was commanded by King Cyrus during its most prosperous time. King Cyrus ruled with a gentle hand, allowing those lands he conquered to maintain religious freedoms. Cyrus did not enslave those whom he ruled over and employed a policy of adaptation and reconciliation towards all of his new subjects. He cooperated with local rulers and did not interfere with the way of life in the new lands he obtained. The empire was divided into 20 provinces that were managed by governors. Cyrus had the approach to his subjects that if local matters did not directly involve his rule, he was not to interfere with them and create more issues that could influence the obedience and peace that his empire’s subjects maintained. Cyrus even went as far as to adopt different religious traditions that his people participated in, always respecting his subjects' beliefs.
The Persian Empire was such a success in the beginning because of its selfless policies and values. Persians did not like to destroy the local economies they inhabited, but rather increase the trading through each economy to better the empire as a whole. The Persians developed a currency for their empire and implemented empirical laws for proper trading etiquette. Cyrus created a 1,600-mile-long travel route to connect the empire and implement travel lodging for royal couriers to obtain fresh supplies. To enforce cooperation among the vast land they occupied, the Persians implemented a 20 percent tax on all manufacturing products and agriculture. They also taxed religious corporations that had previously not been taxed and maintained a substantial wealth. The Persians however did not pay any taxes themselves.
The Persian Empire has been the model for many civilizations to come because of their peaceful success. Many civilizations and empires came to copy their laws, hoping to achieve the fairness and equality that the Persians ruled by. For example, when the Persians were first conquering lands to form their empire, they did not take the Hebrews as slaves to the Persian Empire when they conquered Babylon, but instead let them return to the holy city of Jerusalem. Cyrus returned the holy and sacred items that had been previously withheld from the Hebrews in Babylon and allowed them to rebuild their capital and temples.
This success, however, did not last. When King Xerxes came into power in 480 B.C.E., the empire was to face its last days. Xerxes' main goal for the Persian Empire was to expand into its surrounding area, hoping to make Persian rule the only rule on the planet. The Persians attempted to expand into Greece. The Greek city-states cooperated with the orders from their ruler, held off the Persians, and almost obliterated the entire Persian navy. This loss of military aid ultimately increased the plummet of the empire, and as Alexander the Great rose to power over the ancient Greek city of Macedon in 331 B.C.E., he effectively put a halt to the Persians' expansion goals. There was not a leader with as talented military strategies as Alexander the Great, and thus he was able to conquer the entire Persian Empire and spread Greece's power across its lands.
A third empirical case study worth investigating is the Mongol Empire. The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous land empire in history, covering over 33 million kilometers squared at its peak. The empire was founded by Genghis Khan in 1206. At its height, the Mongol Empire encompassed the majority of territories from Southeast Asia to Europe, pushing to conquer lands in northern China and Iran as well. The empire was known for its extensive coordination in conquering strategies. Mongol military personnel were very familiar with sieging lands and searching for skilled recruits for the fierce Mongol army and empire. The Mongols used the seasonal changes and the different landscapes to their advantage to siege the areas they wished to conquer.
The empire was ruled in a different manner than other empires. The Mongol Empire was ruled under a code of law devised by Khan called the Yasa, or order. This strict code was the basis for everyday life in the empire and stressed that the nobility shared the same hardships as the common man, imposing severe penalties for those who did not obey the Yasa. Under the Yasa, crime and violence were not tolerated, making the empire safe for unarmed common folk to live in peace without fear. Khan never persecuted those with different religious practices, which later proved to be a successful military strategy to obtain unity in religiously motivated battles. The Mongol Empire also contributed to the creation and re-establishment of the Silk Road through Asia to unify the trading of expensive goods from China to the West. This middle-man system allowed traders to move luxury goods without needing to walk the entire length of the road, creating high prices for the goods, which flourished the economy along the Silk Road. Khan also implemented extensive trade routes and postal systems and encouraged his empire to use a written alphabet. To enforce this, Khan exemplified teachers, lawyers, and artists from being taxed, which allowed those individuals to educate his empire in the written alphabet. While those individuals were not taxed, the rest of the empire was heavily taxed, partially to aid the Mongol military. Also, under the Yasa, if the lands and civilizations conquered by the Mongols did not submit and obey the Yasa law and adopt the Mongol way of life, the people in the cities were slaughtered and the cities were burned to the ground. This was a fear tactic implemented by the Mongols to demonstrate the power they had over the empire and dared those under its rule to defy the Yasa.
The disintegration of the Mongol Empire began shortly after Genghis Khan’s death. In his death, Khan granted the empire to his lineage to rule over. He divided the empire into four Khanates, or sub-rules, with the entire empire under the Great Khan’s leadership, or his great-grandchildren. His third son, Ogedei Khan, ruled the empire for a short while until he died in 1241, and the empire began to scramble for Khan lineage to assume power. Khan’s great-grandchildren began to each succeed into power, only to further divide it into different parts for each of Khan’s less closely related descendants to rule over, resulting in an authority struggle between the descendants. These rulers also had a taste for the expansion of power that Khan had enforced but lacked the organization and effective military strategies needed to siege lands.
Once the empire began to pass through Khan’s lineage and those rulers also began to die while still trying to conquer the world, the Mongol Empire began to crumble. The smaller Mongol Khanates began to recede from expanding the empire further into Europe and eventually Italy, to deal with electing a new Khan lineage to rule the whole empire each time a successor died. By the time the last official descendant of Genghis Khan was located, the empire had already begun splitting into several smaller Khanates. With this split of the empire, the Silk Road closed due to the divide, and ultimately, so did the Great Mongol Empire. The Mongol Empire was then unable to unite and maintain power, finally dividing into four smaller descendant empires to later rule the once vast single Mongol Empire.
While each case study is extremely different in nature and ideals, a common thread can be identified between the three. While each empire disintegrated differently, the causal factor that influenced and possibly ignited the declines was the leaders of those empires. The Roman Empire was subject to years and years of social unrest and experienced many leaders. Its final leader fractured the unity of Rome’s religion and state values, which catapulted its demise. The Persian Empire had been peaceful, ruling with a merciful hand, until its last leader became expansion-happy and tried to expand into Greece. This initial act of war ignited the Persian Empire’s fall. The Mongol Empire, continuously expanding as it gained multiple leaders, ultimately dissolved due to its leaders being unable to unify together to rule the empire as a whole. This lack of unity increased the divide of the empire and, as a result, its demise.
It can be determined, through these case studies, that a primary reason why empires fall is due to human selfishness. Through these case studies, each empire fell due to its leader making decisions, or the lack of, in their own favor. Rome’s many leaders all acted out of selfishness and greed, wanting to rule the empire in the way that they saw fit, regardless of its functionality over the population. It can be hypothesized that the Persian Empire may have stood a fighting chance against Alexander the Great and Greece's rule if its leader had not selfishly chosen to try to expand the empire into its surrounding areas. The Mongol Empire, being the largest and most powerful in the world, could have stayed in power and potentially conquered more, if not all, of the world if its first leader had chosen a different way for the emperor position to be filled with other than his own lineage.
While these are just three of the many great empires that once prowled the world, the common thread between them is glaring as the reason why these empires are only discussed in history books. The selfish corruption of empirical leaders could be a much larger coincidence between all of the great empires, not just the case studies discussed above. Potentially, if the leaders of these great empires had acted out of the best interest of their people and not selfishly, the world today could be a very different place.
References
- Mark, Joshua J. ‘Alexander the Great’. Ancient History Encyclopedia, 30 Nov. 2019, https://www.ancient.eu/Alexander_the_Great/
- Mark, Joshua J. ‘Roman Empire’. Ancient History Encyclopedia, 28 Nov. 2019, https://www.ancient.eu/Roman_Empire/
- ‘Mongol Empire’. Mongol Empire - New World Encyclopedia, 18 Oct. 2018, https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Mongol_Empire
- ‘Persian Empire’. Ushistory.org, Independence Hall Association, 2019, https://www.ushistory.org/civ/4e.asp
- Woolf, Greg. ‘Rome: An Empire’s Story’. Oxford University Press, 2012.
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