IN EARLY EMPIRES

Editors d Lewis, and Walter Scheidel

tate Power[rom Assyria to Byzantium and Walter Scheidel

spectives on Ancient World Empires alter Scheidel

Rome and China Comparative Perspectives on

Ancient World Empires

Edited by Walter Scheidel

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

2009

Contents

Contributors ix Chronology Xl

Introduction 3 Walter Scheidel

From the "Great Convergence" to the "First Great Divergence": Roman and Qin-Han State Formation and Its Aftermath 11

Walter Scheidel

2 War, State Formation, and the Evolution of Military Institutions in Ancient China and Rome 24 Nathan Rosenstein

3 Law and Punishment in the Formation of Empire 52 Karen Turner

4 Eunuchs, Women, and Imperial Courts 83 Maria H. Dettenhofer

5 Commanding and Consuming the World: Empire, Tribute, and Trade in Roman and Chinese History 100 Peter Fibiger Bang

viii Contents

6 Gift Circulation and Charity in the Han and Roman Empires 121 Mark Edward Lewis

7 The Monetary Systems of the Han and Roman Empires 137 Walter Scheide!

Bibliography 209 Index 229

Contributors

PETER FIßIGER BANG is Associate Profess(J

hagen. His research focuses on the corni

economy of early empires. He is the aul Study of Trade and Markets in a Tributa

comparative study of the Roman state an

published a number of articles on the co

is the coeditor of the forthcoming Empir,

The Oxford Handbook of the Ancient Stal

management committee of the EuropeaJ

Compared" that coordinates comparati Ottoman empires.

MARIA H. DETTENHOFER is Professo

of Munich. Her research focuses on Ror

and the comparative history of Rome aI1

dita Iuventus: Zwischen den Generatione

Herrschaft und Widerstand im augusteisc

res publica und domus Augusta (2000)

Frauen in Männerdomänen der antiken V MARK EDWARD LEWIS is Kwoh-Ting J

ford University. He specializes in the his

of Sanctioned Violence in Early China I

China (1999), The Construction of Spacl

Myths of Early China (2006). He has ree on the history of early Chinese empires, '

(2007), Between Empires: The Northern ,

forthcoming sequel on the Tang period.

NATHAN ROSENSTEIN is Professor 0

specializes in Roman military, political,

Imperatores Victi: Military Defeat and Ar

1