235 AD: The Collapse of Four Great Empires
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- Опубліковано 15 тра 2024
- Between 220 and 235 AD, all four of Eurasia's major empires - Rome, China, Parthia and the Kushan realm - either collapsed or suffered serious reverses. Why?
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My interview with Kyle Harper on climate, disease, and the decline of Rome: • Plagues, an Ice Age, a...
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Chapters:
0:00 Four Great Empires
1:43 The Roman Empire
2:46 The Parthian Empire
3:51 The Kushan Empire
4:12 The Han Chinese Empire
5:00 Masterworks
6:16 Connected stories?
6:42 Climate
8:05 Disease
8:50 Conclusions
A great book about connections between these civilizations is 'Empires of Ancient Eurasia' by Craig Benjamin.
Thanks!
Interesting
Thanks, I will look it up..
A fun book of ancient trivia by this realy cool classical historian you might be familiar with is called "Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and RomansNaked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants" it's not just humorous and pithy, the information in it in it is ALWAYS interesting and presented in little bite size chunks of information just like those videos. It's actually uncanny just how mucho The book reminds me of these videos 🤔
Cheers for this I was looking for a good book on the subject
FINALLY SOMEONE TALKED ABOUT IT OMG.
I always wondered why all 4 of the great empires collapsed so suddenly in the early 200s yet there was no actual name for this that i could find
He just spent 10 minutes saying nothing more or less than no one knows why. smh
Because Rome didn't collapse and the Han Empire was already considered collapsed since 190 due to the emperor being a powerless puppet to warlords. And not much is well known about the Kushan Empire. The one thing that all 4 share is most likely improper administration and political corruption.
@blshouse bro did NOT watch the video 😋
@@blshousecc
Much like you, there are many phenomenon in history that I found but cannot seem to find any other to discuss about it.
For example, the collapse of several civilisation in Bronze Age has largely affected by the foreign invader, in which they call them the "Sea People".
Meanwhile, the collapse of Chinese imperial dynasty that once lasted two thousand years, would also be largely contributed by foreign invader, as the civilisation be replaced by xeno ideology from Europe such as communist. So during that time，the Chinese of Qing dynasty would refer the European as "洋人 sea people", or even more radically as "洋鬼子 sea demon". Very interesting coincidence that the very essence of "Sea People" would cause a civilisation to collapse forever
It seems to me that anytime you have a plague that kills a significant percentage of people, you're going to have a corresponding loss of production. If a competing nation does not experience this loss, they will grow in strength while the effected nation stagnates. So, these things do effect the rise and fall of states, even when clear political and military evidence is the prominent factor.
*affect
Plagues tend to affect everyone, they really don't stop at the borders
What could have happened is that i.e. Roman were more affected than barbarians because they were more developed, so there was more communication and the illness had more chances to spread
@@RomaInvicta202 That is sort of how I was thinking. Pandemics tend to cause more trouble the denser the population.
agreed, surely the Mediterranean Sea, and the Roman Empire were way more interconnected than the other Empires and that surely must have had an impact on how quickly pestilences could spread and persist. The fall in manpower impacted the empires in many ways with fall of productivity, famine, collapse of centralization and control of regions and of the armies.
The Antonine Plague of the 160s onwards killed about a third of the imperial population, and the Plague of Cyprian in the 250s onwards about half. This was of course attacking a population already reduced by the earlier plague, which seems to have been a form of smallpox. The Cyprianic plague may have been Ebola. Obviously densely populated cities had it worst. The Antonine plague entered Europe from Alexandria and Cyprian, who first wrote about his plague, was bishop of Carthage. Rome’s returning soldiers seem to have spread it a lot of the time. Even the Justinianic plague, Y Pestis, arrived with soldiers returning from his Persian war.
You're the first channel I've seen to talk about a greater crisis in the 3rd century, not just Rome.
It's possible that the great dying of the Antonine plague created a "population time bomb" so to speak. A generation later, a large segment of the population that would've filled important roles wasn't there because their would-be parents died without having kids. Something similar happened in Russia due to the large number of deaths during WW2
Fun fact: the entire world is facing the same problem because of lowering birthrates
Population loss is bad enough, but it gets worse if the ruling-class continues to extract taxes and tribute at the old levels. It gets even worse if civil war breaks out and armies start ravaging the land. This appears to be what happened in the Roman Empire and Han China. No one appears to know a lot about India and Parthia/Persia at this time, but what we do know sounds bad.
@@thealmightyaku-4153not really
@@satanwithinternet2753 Yes really.
Western nations have for decades tried to fill the gap with high immigration - but it's already effecting developing nations. Only relatively few nations, mostly in Africa, have fertility rates above replacement level, and they are also declining fast with increased development.
Before long, like China, the majority of people will be retirement-age, and there won't be enough healthy young people to fill the gaps in the workforce. And that's planet-wide.
@@thealmightyaku-4153
High immigration is the major cause of falling birth rates. It has never been a solution to anything.
This video makes Aurelian’s accomplishments even more impressive. I had never realized that all of Eurasia was collapsing at the time.
Aurelian is the human embodiment of the spiritual black wolf of Rome.
In the year 235AD, the Eastern Han (東漢) dynasty had been long gone for 15 years and there were 3 independent states (魏Wei ,蜀Shu ,吳Wu) fighting each other endlessly until the re-unification by Jin(晉) dynasty in 280 AD. (The eastern Han dynasty had no control of 西域 Xi-Yu, The Tarim basin , so the political map shown in this video is not correct! )
In summary and comparisons between the east and west in the 3rd century:
in East Asia:
184 AD: Yellow Turban Rebellion(黃巾之亂)
189～220 AD: collapse of imperial Authority of Eastern Han dynasty.
220 ~ 280 AD: Three Kingdoms period. (三國時期)
280 AD: re-unification of China by Jin(晉)dynasty.
in Europe:
193~235 AD: Severan dynasty
235~284 AD: The Crisis of the Third Century
284~305 AD: Emperor Diocletian's Reign
Comparing these timelines I come up with the following explanation contradicting the claim of the video that there was a global crises: The decline of the Chinese empire shrinks trade along the silk road. As a result the Kushan empire being mostly built on the silk road trade collapses. The Parthian empire only undergoes a regime change but flourishes under the Sassanids. Question: Was the Roman emperor dependant on the silk road trade to be able to keep his palace guard happy?
@@travelingonline479
Thank you for your comments
There are a lot of factors and causes contributing to the collapse of Han imperial Authority (not just the global trade)! Currently, most historians agree that the successive years of natural disasters is the most likely main reason for it.
171 AD
February 13th : earthquake
summer: epidemics of plague broke out in various places
172 AD
June: flood in the capital city of Luoyang
173 AD
January: epidemics of plague broke out in various places
June: earthquake in the capital area
175 AD
April: floods in 7 commanderies and fiefs
June: locust plague in Luoyang and ChangAn metropolitan areas
176 AD
rain-praying ceremony was held by the emperor due to the lack of rain fall near the area of capital city Luo-Yang
177 AD
April: drought and locust plagues in seven provinces (州)
October: earthquake in the capital city LuoYang
178 AD
Feb 9th: earthquake
179 AD
spring: epidemics of plague broke out in various places
earthquake in ChangAn city
181 AD
June 19th: hail rain
182 AD
February: epidemics of plague broke out in various places
April: drought in various places
183 AD
summer: drought in various places
184 AD
February: Yellow Turban rebellion broke out
185 AD
January: epidemics of plague broke out in various places
April 12th : hail rain in capital area
Autumn: locust plague in ChangAn city
188 AD
Summer: floods in 7 commanderies and fiefs
189 AD
Simmer: floods in various places
June~April: heavy rainfall in capital area
An Empire Long Divided Must Unite; Long United Must Divide
Dude I aspire to be as well read as you. Well done.
The Kushan empire in your map is way bigger than it actually was, especially at its western front. The western half of the Kushan empire in your map was actually a part of the Parthian empire for most of its history. You ate up almost 1/4 of the Parthian territories!
Yeah I'm sure you know more than toldinstone, keep your mouth shut bro
Kushan Empire extended more into India than shown in the map but here they more interested in the underlying concept of the fall of these empires, so maybe they didn't focus that much on the boundaries.
Given the importance of the Silk Road it isn't surprising that the fall of one component might create a domino effect.
This makes me doubt the current historians that say there was no dark age. I bet the people living back then felt they were living in especially hard times. Probably surrounded by ruins they couldn't hope to replicate for a long time.
Historians have taken that way too far. Most young people nowadays are taught that the dark ages were just as pleasant as what came before and after.
The Kushan Empire is so underrated. The modern day countries that were once part of the mighty Kushan Empire were very unique back then, different cultures and religions Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism all in one empire...
I think it's better to call the sects/traditions of modern day Hinduism seperately here because by this time frame, Hinduism as we known today didn't even exist.
@@KaiserOfAryaslol Hinduism existed before any religion wtf are you even smoking kushan were shavaism followers of lord Shiva later they converted to Buddhism
@@KaiserOfAryasvedic religion
@@kartik6023even vedic faiths had differences in them
@@ZhuyithNuristani but not that far back in history. And what differences are you talking about?
"Vigorous Polygamy" is a pretty solid band name.
I nominate Momosuzu Nene for our lead vocalist.
What if long-distance trade revenues were vital to ancient regimes? The fate of the Roman Empire might have been linked to China.
they werent
were@@DrPeculiar312
The fact that all these nations had plagues before their collapse leads me to believe that these events are interconnected, like how the peasants rebellion in England and Red Turban Rebellion in China were both inspired by the effects of Black Death.
once again you have done it with your choice of topic and quality of work. thank you!
Another fantastic video, Garrett!
Thank you a very well-thought-out and informative video
An outstanding video as always :)
This is an inçredibld channel. So much so that I might even buy your books. Keep doing what you're doing Toldinstone, I don't look forward to any other channels uploads more than yours.
His books are great, I highly recommend them
My favourite channel for learning history. Thank you
Interesting thing that all those empires had the silk road as their common bit.
I wouldn't say that empire that the Parthian Dynasty controlled fell, rather the royal dynasty heading it changed to the Sassanian Dynasty.
So glad i discovered you I love history and you do such a great job with your videos
you do not love history
I love clips which cover topics that are rarely covered by anyone else. Thank you!
thats what is so great about this guy! Love it!
This was a very interesting episode.
i HIT LIKE IMMIDIATELY! Please, Pleaease , more persian, steppe and asian stuff... Alot of us have read & consumed the Greek and roman material. At some point, we need to expand our horizons.
There is an alternate explanation floating around metallurgists and survivalists. In the Roman era steel making was a major and fairly centralized industry. Steel making was a bit of a state secret. This may have been true of the other three. The Roman army and the Chinese army's both had advantages over their foes in high quality mass produced steel. Parthia matched Rome. Kushan matched Parthia. It was literally the stuff of empires.
Yet around the time you cover German technology from the Eurasian steps came in including their ways of making steel. As the technology spread steel making became a relatively easy backyard operation for even the smallest village and farm stead. There was no magic ingredient or flux. Roman bloomerys were huge, 2 meters, with bellows and trip hammers driven by water wheels. They were efficient but also very centralized. Centers of corruption too.
However the backyard methods, while less efficient, are freely doable by anyone with the skill so as the skill spread that steel became cheaper. It shifted the power balance and resulted in the capital Rome being locally irrelevant. Local governments were taxing locally and spending locally. They began buying steel locally, equipping Germanic, Frank and other mercenaries to guard the towns and roads. Tax reports were going to Rome but very little tax revenue and nothing of real value came back. The key possibility is that the spread of easy 'at home steel making' was spreading in Parthia, Kushan and China from central Asia. This armed the rebels and local defenders alike. That negated the value of the capital, its armies, and its currency. Xuchang, Rhages, and Mathura may have suffered the same fate as Rome. They became irrelevant to the average person in the distant cities and towns. Revenues dried up or were wasted. Regional powers with well armed militias and mercenaries could push back on taxation and other demands. I first heard about it on a libertarian site decades ago. Sadly I don't have an easy source to reference.
Great video as usual. I would look into a different sponsor besides master works that has a limited track record and not the best transparency.
Forgive me, but i felt today's video a bit clickbaity.
Those empires did not fall in the year 235 ad (Parthia in 224ad, the Han officially in 220ad, the Kushans at the beginning of the IV century and Rome... well, way later than that).
There's no apparent link between their fall beside the Sassanians replacing the Parthians and slowly absorbing breakaway parts of the still existing Kushan Empire.
As you mentioned already, the theory of lingering pathogens or climate changes contributing to their fall has very little evidence.
Technically you could say the Han died in 184 Ad due to the yellow turban rebellion
17 year old me watching mini documentaries in history class: 😴😴😴
26 year old me watching the same types of mini documentaries in my free time: 👀🧠
because toldinstone does it very well lol
another toldinstone banger
Another thing to consider is that the weather effects on their own probably would’ve been a mild or moderate problem at worst, but became part of a crisis when combined with plagues and civil wars and invasions; all of which would be serious issues even without the unstable climate.
The roman warm period was arguably over by this time. There is an interesting correlation between the end of climatic warm periods and the outbreak of plagues.
Criminally underrated channel
Oh yeahhhhh!!!! I love these type !!!
I always click “like” during the preceding commercial because I know it will be fascinating and accurate as possible.
Fantastic video! It may well be an epic coincidence. I once heard that sometimes nothing happens for decades, then decades can happen in a few weeks. This might be one of those cases!
Keep up the good work. Always feel like I learn something when I watch one of your videos.
and even if you arnt paying attention, Garrett's voice is like buttered toast
Interesting as per usual.
It's fascinating that four great empire fell or decline at the same time. It's like a the whole civilization (just like the bronze age) all collapse suddenly
Compare that with the second decade of the twentieth century, when the German, Austro-Hungarian, Turkish and Russian empires fell. All four took part in the first world war.
Great video
Just shows how amazing it was that the Roman empire survived the crisis of the 3rd century, while the other great powers either collapsed or changed dynasty's
Rome changed dynasties many times
lol
@@guerreroart3255 the Roman empire didn't become a different empire and name, like the Parthians became the Sassanid empire, and the kush. If you mean the Chinese dynasty changes were like Rome and had different family dynasty groups, then yes there is a point there. But Rome never became Palmyrain or a Gallic empire. Was Rome, just in really bad shape
@@christopherevans2445Tbf both Rome and China were in chaos for much of the 3rd century. But by c.280 both were united again.
@@mint8648 that was my point on the dynasty comment of the 4 powers of the time. China and Rome are similar as surviving as a same identity with various dynasties. The Parthian Empire returning to the sphere of Persian aristocracy as the Sassanids in identity and kushans eventual change
Great insights into the 3rd century around the ancient world. The sassinads would hold onto power up until Mohammed & his armies poured out of the Sinai in the 6th century. And great point about how climate precipitates change. And some theorize could be behind certain plague outbreaks which definitely can play a role in crippling Empire's & their armies!
Please, more content on the early republic and the italian leagues.
Especially on the roman morality in that age.
I had no idea that there had even been other empires around Rome, nor that they suffered problems at the same time.
How very interesting.
Thanks!
Keep up the great job, Garrett 👍
omg the mosaic girls at the beach are hilarious 🤣🤣
New guilty pleasure: the phrase "vigorous polygamy".
amazing video this is a topic i never really thought of but mainly because i know little of persian and indian/central asian history so i only thought of the fall of rome and china during this time
4 empires falling at essentially the same time cant be coincidental
In the mid-8th century we saw the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate, Turkic Khaganate, and the An Lushan rebellion in Tang China. Historian Christopher Beckwith has linked this to Sogdian merchants who operated the Silk Road between these empires. The Abbasid revolution was planned in a Sogdian city, the Uighurs who replaced the Turks borrowed heavily from Sogdian culture, and the An Lushan rebellion was led by a Sogdian general.
Chatgpt says it admires your work.
The fall of Han is an important contributor in the fall of the Kushan Empire if we consider economics of these empire, as the trade along the silk road didn't remain as secure and vibrant. The Yellow turban rebellion resulting in the loss of Western Protectorates from the Han Empire leading to period of confusion and chaos ensued which made trade extremely difficult leading to economic crisis within the Kushan realm whose most important source of income i.e., the Silk Road fell in tatters.
Most likely it would have made it difficult for the Kushans to pay the army leading to abandonment within the ranks and overall weakness of military which then had to face the rising Sassanians.
Macro view=wild conspiracy theories; Micro view=dr ryan's astute FACTUM analysis. thx you for yur videos!! i think lack of worldewide tech also led to local calamity . . . that seems to be a macro picture.
What a great content, so insightful
＂Empires long united must divide, Empires that long divided must unite. "
＂合久必分、分久必合＂
Can you please do an upload on how augurs would take the auspices? Like, the most attested detail we have of what the ceremony would entail and what interpretations would be made. Plug one of your books as a reply if you got the answer in there. I wanna see the birds as the Romans did to help make my life decisions.
I'd love to hear more about Chinese imperial history on this channel!
If Dr. Ryan can handle it as good as his usual content, why not?
Look up Cool History Bros. They cover Chinese history
I suspect that climate or trade were part of it. China traded silks for giant horses from Kush. Silks traveled all the way to Rome. After the Han fell, maybe less silks went westward and less Roman glass went eastward. Economic hardships can bring about chaos and change.
I'll be honest: I know you need to make money, and there's nothing wrong with having sponsors, but you have an ethical responsibility, which you continuously ignore by shilling for masterworks. It is a hilariously bad investment, not a safe one.
High fees, high risk, almost no liquidity, meaning you can't sell back your share to masterworks (because they profit more off you than they ever could off the art), you have to find a buyer of your share on a secondary market.
At least its not that dumb nobility titles scam which directly contradicts his credentials as a history expert. Masterworks is merely just a questionable investment. He's about a midlevel channel so there aren't many well paying readily available sponsors other than the usual questionable suspects like Raid shadow legends and the rest. They pay a ton of money too, I think like thousands per ad depending on your size, thats hard to find anywhere else at this level. Heck I'd shill Masterworks for 30s for that amount of money.
Isn’t there an ethical responsibility to provide for yourself and your family
It's not that bad
@@Sleepycollegestudentnot if you have the ability to not do that. I’m sure there are history related products/services that would love to advertise on this channel. This isn’t exactly a “stealing a loaf of bread to feed your kids because you’re destitute” situation.
You forgot to post your other UA-cam channels in the description.
Thanks for the reminder!
@@toldinstone I want to make sure people can find 'em! :)
Thanks for another great video. Always interesting subjects you pick. Although, I heard Masterworks is a dubious company.
I would love to travel back and see Rome back in the day. Just imagine…
0:33 Name of this painting anyone ?
Surely its also possible that the coincidental declines of these empires that coincided with each other may have affected trade in these regions, as loosely goods would of been traded from empire to empire
Would have*
The dark ages must’ve sucked really bad. Plague, famine warring nomads and natural disasters, what a time to be alive 🫠
Kinda like right now
oh my god the licc
both kushan and roman collapse can be attributed to sassanian expansion , and this probably had shock effects through silk road trading
The fall of Han is equally an important contributor in the fall of the Kushan Empire if we consider economic dimension and not just political alone, as the trade along the silk road didn't remain as secure and vibrant. The Yellow turban rebellion resulting in the loss of Western Protectorates from the Han Empire leading to period of confusion and chaos ensued which made trade extremely difficult leading to economic crisis within the Kushan realm whose most important source of income i.e., the Silk Road fell in tatters.
Most likely it would have made it difficult for the Kushans to pay the army leading to abandonment within the ranks and overall weakness of military which then had to face the rising Sassanians.
my dear kind sir... are you familiar with jazz because the dorian mode intro riff is literally the lick 💀💀
6:27 To Say that there were no link between the four empires if not for climate and plaugue Is Simply false, there are mentions of Roman ambassadors and merchants in both india and china, and mentions of ambassadors and merchants from india and china inside the Roman Empire; some sources are ( if i Remember correctly) the " peryplus of the erithrean Sea", the "Rerum natura", the "tabula peutingeriana", and maybe the "res gesta augusti" but there are many others i can't remember
You may be familiar with the excellent book The Romans in the Indian Ocean, which talks about the Roman peripli. I also read a source about Chinese visitors to the Empire, where they refer to arriving at a great city which looked west over the sea. Rome isn’t on the sea, and my guess is that they were in Antioch, which does.
@@Joanna-il2ur That's a great book, I got it on Kindle during a sale, and it's awesome.
@@Joanna-il2ur well, that city might be Rome (It Is quite near to the sea to the west) anyway even if they were in antioch, there are account of indian Ambassadors at the court of augustus (maybe in the res gestae but i'm not sure)
toldinstone with another masterpiece that everyone had on their minds
can you make a video on tartaria?
Kek
Best with fish.
Could trade have been an issue?
Caracalla is one of the most underrated emperors ever
He was awful
Nah he sucks
@@TonyFontaine1988 he was great and awesome and he taught the elites in Alexandria who wanted roman citizenship only for their peers a great lesson.
1:19 small error, parthians were not a dynasty, but an Iranian ethnic group just like persians and medes.
The arsacids or ashkanian was the dynasty.
Hey, they were like that when I got here.
I thought Four Great Empires referred to Rome, Aksum, Persia, and China specifically?
Parithian had no Catisfon. Catisfon waa built by one of the Sasanid dynasty Emperors and moved the capital to it.
There are 3 major periods that all empires fall. Third century was the first. The second one is 9-10th century, when the Caliphate and Tang Dynasty fall. The third one was the 18-19th century, when Ottoman, Persian, Mughal, and Qing, get destroyed one by one.
Watching this from Ancient Purusapura, i.e. modern Peshawer in Pakistan.
They were interconnected by trade. The Antonine Plague in the Roman Empire specially, and the Yellow Turban Rebellion in China secondarily, weakened both empires critically. Trade between the two collapsed and the two other empires were deeply dependent on the Sino-Roman trade.
The rebellion happened in 184. It started the decline but the true nail was Dong Zhuo’s tyrannical rule
@@SeanHiruki yes indeed. That was the nail in the coffin. But for the Roman Empire, the nail in the coffin was Commodus. The Antonine Plague and the eunuch rule under Ling already severely weakened both.
I could just point out that the end of the Parthian Empire was the rebirth of the Persian Empire after some 550 years. It grew to rival Rome pretty quickly and by AD600 it was engaged in a massive struggle with the Roman Empire. It overran Egypt and the Levant and by 630, both powers were exhausted and tottering. Then in 632 the man who evangelised the Arabs died and, after a brief civil war, the Riddah, those same Arabs, who were already familiar with Constantinople and Ctesiphon, conquered the Persian empire and came close to doing the same in Europe, besieging Constantinople, taking Egypt, Syria and Palestine by 640 and Carthage by 698.
Then the Persians came back during the 10th century under the Buyid dynasty and almost went to war with Rome (Byzantium) again. But the rulers concluded friendly terms and exchanged gifts.
"rebirth of Persian empire" just a correction, it was never called Persian empire and it was not necessarily Persian.
@@kakkakapwppwow Yes it was called the Pedantic empire.
Didn't the Parthians retain the traditions of the Achaemenids before them such as retaining the titles of King of Kings and the religion of Ahura Mazda? Why would you consider them as a non Persian Empire?
@@canchero724 I don’t pick the terminology.
this the new sea people video
Explore Golgumbaz
Smart.....
Then along came Gallienus.
Three, potentially all four of these empires seem to share a common thread. They collapsed from internal strife brought upon by a challenged, weakened authority. While we can't confidently say climate or disease spurred a major change in these empires, there may by subtle societal trends at work here. Maybe too complex to find an easy answer to, certainly too complex for a layman like me, but if we look at even recent modern history there are trends we can look at.
The period of revolution and decolonization following WW1 saw the decline of Europe's strongest nations and collapse of centuries of monarchic governments. There's a lot you can attribute this reasoning to, but if we're looking at the motivating factors, it could be summarized as: A) the rise of the middle class, which for a world where money is king meant a continual disempowerment of central authority and a need for governments to cater to an educated and morally conscious populace, B) the emergence of the third world, whereupon the world's colonies, satellite states and constituents were no longer as far behind their great power overlords as they used to be, bringing about independence movements and competition from modernizing nations. Finally, C) WW1 and WW2 devastated the world's powers, exhausted their military, and left them massively in debt. This was the weakness needed to topple the order of the old world from within.
How does this compare to 235 AD? I'm not confident enough to say anything with certainty, but there's commonalities we might be able to pick out from this. China's rise of warlords, the rise of regional powers within Rome, and Parthia's vassals rising to prominence all suggest to me that power had accumulated toward forces outside their respective central governments. My theory? These lords were empowered by trade between each of these nations. By the time of 235 AD there was already the beginnings of a silk road between east asia and europe, connected through india. We know that the Han and Roman empires traded with eachother directly enough that they were well aware of the other's existence. Roman coins of that period were found all around China, and silks were a hugely demanded luxury for the Roman elite.
Control of this trade route was essential for these empires, but centralized control can be difficult to maintain especially during times of upheaval, which would not have caused an immediate collapse but could, for example, result in the Roman Empire's standardized currency to fall out of use during 200AD due to constantly debasing their silver coins. But a stable currency is needed for reliable trade, so trade cities along the route picked up the slack. Moreover, tariffs and taxation were ways in which these empires profited from trade but is by no means a direct throughline to the state treasury. It is easy for other government officials and provincial powers to profit from these methods in equal measures. The point I'm making is that when wealth escapes the central authority, and measures of their authority has already been sacrificed to maintain itself, that lost power is difficult to recapture. The Roman Emperor was becoming less important in the lives of the ruling elite for maintaining their day-to-day living, and so the potential gains of challenging that authority were worth the risk of instability.
I don't know enough about the other empires, but the last hypothesis I want to suggest is that these empires all relied on eachother to maintain the stability of an otherwise incredibly lucrative trade route--so what happens if either of these empires begins suffering from internal strife and are no longer safe for trade? Would these other powers, dependent on the wealth brought about by this trade route, not feel shockwaves from this? When all four are already suffering from internal struggles, how do they maintain their authority when their treasury is suddenly unable to cope with mounting expenses just to maintain power?
Food for thought anyway. tl;dr I think trade can be a double-edged sword in the case of these empires.
Amazing content as usual, but please check who you let sponsor your videos. Masterworks has quite a few issues as an investment.
Fate can do awful things to some people. If Elagabalus, if he was turning 19 today, would have been a sweet, funny club boy who's day job would be in retail.
I think thats why they have a niche following among history nerds, they were dragged into power by scheming family members when they would have probably been much happier just hanging out as a local aristocrat sun priest back in the eastern provinces
He would be making bank on onlyfans.
At first I thought Kushan is Bactria
Pretty sure the league of shadows had something to do with it
A tough year for the Global North. Press f to sympathise.
The top one percent owns 32% of the nations wealth. Total wise it is a record, percent wise it is down from earlier in the 21st century and way down from the early 20th century.
Wonder why the Potohar region in Pakistan was the last region and capital where the Kushans ruled.
Don’t be slagging on my boy, Elagabalus!
Is it really fair to say that the Parthian empire "declined".
I mean, yea, in one sense it's true,if we equate the empire with the dynasty.
But is that really fair? I mean the Sassanid dynasty occupied more or less the same territory, with a very similar political structure, culture and so on. Arguably they just usurped the same royal authority.
So at least to me it's a bit weird to say that the Persian empire declined in the period. Seems more like a resurgence to me.
Alexandrian/Seleucid Empire too. They were just the elite, and contributed almost nothing to the religion, culture or genetics of Iran. Just very few contributions in astrologic and astronomic fields, like the seven days of the week named according to seven celestial bodies known to the ancients.
Maybe simply the zeitgeist...
As people living in a time that is experiencing crippling plagues and climate change, it's tempting to ascribe these as causative factors throughout history. It reminds me of how historians in the mid to late 20th century, like Kagan, viewed the various Greek and Greco-Persian Wars through the lens of the Cold War. Or how Max Boot recontextualized the various conflicts of the United States when it was a minor power in the light of the War on Terror in 2002.
Crippling plagues?
the population of this planet has never been healthier... we can just have a vague idea of what a real plagues really causes, and in my opinion, it's mayhem
Covid-19 was in no shape way or form a crippling plague. Buts yes more people are currently in poverty than every before in human history, and living standards/health have declined massively in many countries around the world.
@@heremapping4484 COVID-19 caused 3 million excess deaths in just 2020. Get fucking real. Obviously, it wasn't as bad as the Black Plague that killed a third of Europe in the 14th century, but that's because we aren't fucking idiots any more and have actual science to protect us. It could very well have gotten that bad without the unprecedented scientific and economic efforts involved to mitigate it.
There's a crisis of meaning in the world, those people were ignorant of the facts of reality and lived to obey their gods. There was cosmic purpose despite their fragile, painful and relatively briefer lives and they had no hesitation in living well and handling suffering well. Today's societies are centered on something as fickle as chasing pleasure and power and lacks the grandiose vision of being a part of the Cosmic game.
Considering humanity adopted a sedentary lifestyle and developed agriculture simultaneously but independently at multiple locations around the world exactly when the climate stabilized in an unprecedented way is not a coincidence. It follows that any climate instability would disrupt the civilizations and regimes that had emerged and endured. The early Anthropocene hypothesis has proposed that early humans inadvertently stabilized the global climate by provoking warming as a counterforce to the end of the interglacial. They might have accomplished this through land use changes, livestock and rice cultivation (which releases large amounts of methane). And separating environmental from social or political factors seems naive, we have always been defined by the context in which we live
Climate changes, epidemics, invasions... All have some level of effect on these collapses but the collapse of ethical standards is the key answer. Not only for 235 AD but for the whole history of humankind!
Masterworks is a scam