This chapter explores the archaeological and literary evidence for marketplaces and urban forms connected to the manufacturing of bricks and metalworking in the capital cities of the contemporary empires of Rome and Han China (ca. 200 BC-200 AD). A comparative analysis of the physical aspects of these urban structures informs a discussion of the impact of the political, practical, ideological, and economic circumstances of the two empires on the distribution and features of the architecture and industries presented. This highlights the extent to which the urban architecture of the capitals was involved in the social and political processes that characterized the production of space in these cities.
This chapter presents a comparison of urban structures connected to the economy of the Roman and Han empires within their capital cities during the first two centuries BC and AD. During this period, Rome and China became the world's largest agrarian empires, and their capital cities were shaped for the first time by the urban elites to be symbols of the power of their relatively newly formed political systems. In 210 BC, the Western Han Dynasty took control oF the Chinese territories conquered by the Qin Dynasty and created an empire that lasted until the advent of the Republic in AD 1911. In the Han period, the Chinese created a new and stable urban form representative of not only a state, but of an entire universe: the imperial capital. Simultaneously, the Han imperiaL ideology came to focus on the notion of the emperor as the center of the world and the link between heaven, earth, and humans. By that time in the West, the city of Rome had become the capital of a powerful Republic engaged in active territorial expansion, and its urban features had undergone the modifications necessary to transform it into the new imperial capital. Thus, it was during the same broad period, and particularly
In the first centuries BC and AD, that the two capitals of Rome and Chang'an acted as theaters for the transformation of imperial ideologies and religious beliefs, which were tightly connected to the alteration of their political institutions. These changes were expressed in the material forms of the capitals, the design of city buildings, and in the location of structures within the urban landscape.
Control is a critical element that must be considered when discussing different levels of spatial production in ancient cities. In this context, control references both the ownership of land on which architecture is built and control of activities within the property. The Han Empire had a strong autonomous and absolutist character, with a strictly stratified society that showed continuous interweaving of political and administrative urban hierarchies, as well as a lack of distinct religious elites (Eisenstadt and Shachar 1987:126). Social classes were mainly determined by literary-political criteria of status definition, where the class of scholars was considered superior to those of farmers, artisans, and merchants (Ch'u 1972:64-66, 84-88).
Considering this simplified characterization of the sociopolitical structure of the Han period, it is possible to infer that the ruling elites - composed of emperor, literati, and officials - were irmly in control of the utilization of urban land, regardless of whether or not they personally owned the property. The social and political structure of the Roman Empire was also characterized by hierarchical criteria such as social ranking classified by wealth (with senatorial and equestrian ranks at the top of the scale [Suetonius I9i4a:i5]), ancestry (or the division between patricians and the rest of the population - the plebeians [Livy 1919:1.8]), and the degree of citizenship possessed (Nicolet 1980). The social classification of Rome allowed room for social mobility, mainly through loss or gain of wealth and through career progression, resulting in a ruling class that was relatively fluid in its composition. It follows that, in contrast to the Han situation, the sociopolitical scene of Rome was characterized by a plurality of actors, which could influence the control over the land and the production of space, according to a combination of their own interests and those of the res publica.
The distinctiveness of the political and administrative systems of the two empires was ultimately reflected in the construction of their cities, and of their capitals in particular. The center of Rome, as well as of minor Roman cities, had always contained the forum, which initially served as a democratic symbol of the interests of
The citizens, the locus of economic activities as well as social and political meetings, and the site of the main religious and civic buildings. In contrast, the urban space of the Chinese capital was arranged around a walled enclosure within which could be found the palace, administration, and court of the emperor (who was, by the Han period, considered ruler of the world and keystone of the universe), or at least his provincial representative. Within the city, political and economic activities appear to have been physically separated (Lewis 2006:151-152). Because common people in ancient China received no civil rights and did not take part in public religious or political affairs, a city had no need for an open center for social, political, and economic activity like the Roman forum. It follows that the production of space in Rome appears to have been driven by a combination of top-down and mid-level dynamics, in which the impact of the middle levels of society was comparatively low, but still discernible, whereas the evidence for Chang'an shows a mostly top-down process. During the transition from Republic to Principate, the production of space in the Roman capital shifted from operating at multiple levels (reflecting the plurality of sponsors constituting the top part of the Republican society) toward a concentration in the interests of the emperor. Such differences in the social drive for the production of space seem to reinforce the impression of an indissoluble link between imperialism, society, and the urban landscape that can also be observed in relation to the urban structures connected to the economy of the capitals, on which this study mainly focuses.
COMPARING EAST AND WEST
World History
