Using specific examples, analyze causes of imperial decline and

collapse in the period circa 600 B.C.E. to 600 C.E. (Historical thinking
skill: Causation)

During the period 600 B.C.E to 600 C.E. there were many empires including:
Han China, Gupta India, Roman Republic, Roman Empire, and the Maya &
Teotihuacan. Analyzing these empires one can conclude that the main causes
of imperial decline and collapse came from the population and its demands.
One can also conclude that in most (if not all) cases overexpansion/expansion
caused the start of the downfall of these empires.

What we have to keep in mind here is that overexpansion is when an empire

expands to a point where they can’t keep control/order anymore due to many
factors. Some empires were able to expand a lot while some were only able to
expand half of so said empires. How much a empire is able to expand depends
on a lot of factors with government being a big factor, but overexpansion
doesn’t necessarily mean the empire expanded to include a group of people
that were able to overthrow the empire as you will see in the case of Han
China.

The fall of Han China was started originally by expansion, but not the
expansion of China - it was Rome’s. What ended Han China was demand of the
population and the population number itself. The expansion Rome meant
there was going to be a bigger population, which in turn means that the
demand for resources increases. The demand for silk from China increased as
the population [of Rome] increased which led to the construction of the Silk
Roads. The Silk Roads brought a lot of economic advantages to China, but it
also brought a lot of disease. The markets were tight which made a good
environment for diseases like the smallpox, measles, and the bubonic plague
to spread in epidemics that wiped out as much as 1/4 of the population of
China. China relied on its working and merchant class which were the ones
who were most often on the trade routes trading & selling silk and other
goods. These were the classes who were most impacted by the diseases and
impacted China’s economy greatly. Another thing that lead to Han China’s fall
was revolts by the lower class whose demands weren’t being met. Many
farmers lost their land to large landowners to pay their debts which caused
inequality to increase. This in turn lead to revolts that were inspired to
increase in amount when subsequent Han emperors also failed to address the
land distribution problem. The Yellow Turban Rebellion which decreased the
population even further was one of the bloodiest conflicts in the world before
the 1900s. Finally in 220 C.E. the Han dynasty came to an end when the people
managed to overthrow the emperor. To think that if the lands were
distributed according to demand, this might have all been avoided.

What happened in the Roman Empire decline was similar to what happened
in Han China. Like Han China, the Roman Empire collapsed due to the
population itself, it’s demand, and expansion. The Romans got a lot of disease
from the Silk Roads with smallpox and measles epidemics affecting the
population the most with some cities losing up to 1/4 their population to
these diseases. Decline in population led to a damaged economy because the
lower population caused tax revenue to go down and there was less money to
repair roads and aqueducts. There was less money to pay the armies and
caused mutiny in the armies. Since there was less people in the armies, there
was less soldiers to keep the trading routes safe and led to less safe trade plus
less trade, further damaging the economy of Rome. An increasing population
meant an increasing demand for wood to use as lumber, in buildings and for
fuel. The demand got so high it caused deforestation and Rome was not able to
keep up with the demand for wood. Increasing demand for food led to
overgrazing and farming marginal lands in order to keep up with the demand.
In the end Rome was not able to keep up with demand for these resources and
there was uprisings when the supply was restricted and people were
struggling to get by. This affected all classes with lower classes being hit the
worst and inspired many revolts. To top it all off the growth of the empire
meant a larger area to defend that proved too much for the Roman soldiers to
handle when the westward progression of the Huns forced the Visigoths,
Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Franks (all near to Rome) ahead of them into the
empire. The turmoil from this much movement proved too widespread for the
already weakened Roman armies. This was when overexpansion brought
down the Romans even more.

In the case of the Roman Republic demand is what ended this era of the
Roman Empire. Julius Caesar was murdered by a group of conspirators
frightened by his power and influence as the people demanded that no one be
in complete control, yet Caesar became a dictator. Even though he
accomplished much, in the end the people didn’t want a dictator no matter
how good. After the death of Caesar, competition between two remaining
generals (Octavian and Marc Antony) led to the downfall of the Roman
Republic that had been established when people no longer wanted a
democracy.

The reason the Gupta India fell was because of the subcontinent’s ethnic
diversity. The demand of the population ended this empire, while
overexpansion started the problems. They a expanded a lot and included
many different cultures in its empire as a result. Due the vast amount of ethnic
diversity, any administrative power had to make deliberate laws and efforts to
unify the empire, which resulted in laws that didn’t apply to all the
cultures/weren’t necessary for all. This of course caused the people of the
empire to not be happy and since the Gupta took a “hands off” approach to
governing, they didn’t become aware of turmoils and conflict going on, making
the people feel unheard and unsatisfied. Unable to organize a highly
centralized bureaucracy, the people continued to be unheard, further angering
them and inspiring more uprisings. Conflict continued to get worse, further
weakening the empire, until one day the invasions of the White Huns brought
down the weakened empire.

In the case of the Maya and Teotihuacan it was demand of the population and
the number of population that collapsed the empire. A drought provoked
demands from the public which the empire could not satisfy. These two
empires were big and needed a lot of food to support all of its people. The
drought affected the environment greatly and destroyed the crops, which
provided the food for the people. The two great empires had many people and
when the food supply went down, many restrictions were put on food that
upset the public. They demanded that there be food, so more sacrifices were
done to appeal to the gods and end the drought. This evidently didn’t work,
and people continued to be without food. Another demand was for wood, but
eventually this led to deforestation, which led to another demand that could
not be fulfilled. Eventually people lost faith in their leaders and they moved
elsewhere to begin anew after their protests got them nothing. These two
empires counted on having a big population in the lower classes to do their
work, and when these people all moved, they ended up with no working class
to support the needs of the upper class. This final blow ended these once great
empires and all that remained was the disbanded groups from these empires.

In these five cases, the demand of the population was a major factor in the
collapse of these empires, with expansion/overexpansion and decline in
population further increasing the blow.