Historians have engaged in historical comparative research involving the roughly contemporaneous Roman Empire and the Han dynasty of early imperial China. At their peaks, both states controlled up to a half of the world population and produced political and cultural legacies that endure to the modern era; comparative studies largely focus on their similar universal scale at their pinnacles and on synchronism in their rise and decline.
The vast majority of studies focus on one or the other but the comparison of the two has attracted interest in the 21st century. Of all comparative history, the most popular seems to research comparing the advent of the Qin and the Han dynasties with the ascension of imperial Rome, though it is probably second to the comparison between Rome and the United States. Studies examine the patterns of ethnicity, identity, the views of foreigners, and geopolitics. Scholars also explore the relevance of ancient structures and characteristics to China's loss of world leadership in what has been called the Early Modern "Great Divergence".
History Oswald Spengler in his magnum opus The Decline of the West (1922) stressed that the development of China during the Warring States "in innumerable parallels" corresponds to the contemporary Mediterranean world (301-50 BC), with the Chinese wars in 368-320 BC corresponding in political outcome to the Second Punic War. He regarded Qin as the "Roman" state of China because Qin similarly founded a universal empire in its world. The First Emperor of the unified China, Hwang-ti assumed the title "Shi," literally the equivalent to "Augustus." He began to build the Chinese Limes, the Great Wall. Both fortifications protected against the barbarian.Spengler, Oswald (1922). The Decline of the West: Perspectives on World-History, (tr. Atkinson, Charles Francis, London: George Allen & Unwin LTD), vol II, p 38, 40-42, 416-417, https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.264078/mode/2up?view=theater
The historian Frederick John Teggart in 1939 published Rome and China: A Study of Correlations in Historical Events, covering the period of the Han dynasty.Teggart, Frederick J., (1939). Rome and China: A Study of Correlations in Historical Events, (Berkeley: University of California Press). Teggart criticized the dominant narrative form of history aiming mainly to emphasize the greatness of one's own nation. His purpose of the Correlations was scientific understanding of affairs of nations and generalization of causes and effects. History must inquire "not only into what has happened, but into the way things actually work in the affairs of men." Besides the scientific comparative approach, his Correlations with China was revolutionary also in breaking the bond of Eurocentrism: "The study of the past can become effective only when it is fully realized that all peoples have histories, that their history run concurrently and in the same world, and that the act of comparing is the beginning of all knowledge." The comparison, Teggart argued, revealed a correspondence in barbarian invasions throughout the continent of Eurasia, "and thus brought to light relations in the histories of widely separated areas which had not previously been suspected."
Walter Scheidel reviewed the previous scholarship when he explained the purpose of Stanford University's ancient Chinese and Mediterranean Empires Comparative History Project and the framework of its study in the early 21st century. Max Weber and Karl August Wittfogel both wrote works comparing ancient Mediterranean civilization and China; however, their studies have had little influence on later historians of the ancient world. Scheidel gives this as a contributing cause to the relative paucity of comparative studies between the two, though several scholars have made such studies. In the 1970s, principles of sociological examination have been identified that can be applied to the study of Han China and Rome. They draw on analytical and illustrative comparisons. in
The majority of the research in the subject area has concentrated on looking at the intellectual and philosophical history of each society. Scheidel also noted a change in the direction of research in the 2000s, with a refocusing on the "nature of moral, historical, and scientific thought" in Greece and China. These researches have tended to focus on the philosophical and intellectual histories of China and the Greco-Roman world, and despite modern interest, gaps remain in the scholarship comparing Rome and the Han Empires. Scheidel notes that there are no comparative studies of high culture; there is also a virtual absence of work on "political, social, economic or legal history" of the Greco-Roman world and ancient China, though historian Samuel Adshead addressed the issue.
In 1961, Adshead published an article comparing Rome and China. While outlining several parallels, especially the synchronism of their political patterns, he emphasized that contrasts overshadowed similarities and the two should not even be called by one word ("empire").Adshead, Samuel A. M. (1961). "Dragon and Eagle: A comparison of the Roman and Chinese Empires," Journal of Southeast Asian History, vol 2 (3): p 11-22. In his China in World History, Adshead compared the Han China and the Roman Empire before Constantine. He repeated that their "differences outweighed the similarities". However, his comparisons have received negative response from experts on Chinese history who cite his lack of use of Chinese sources, poor support of his arguments and eagerness to take poorly supported points as facts. More recently, sinologists have been engaging in comparative work on political institutions between China and Rome and between China and early modern Europe.
For their volume on the birth of the Chinese Empire, a team of Sinologists recruited a Roman Historian, Alexander Yakobson, to compare the First Emperors in the Roman and Chinese world. The choice, they explained, is not casual. "Few figures in world history can be compared to the [Chinese] First Emperor as meaningfully as can Augustus." Both founded long lasting Empires.Pines, Yuri et al (2014). Birth of an Empire: The State of Qin Revisited, (Berkeley: University of California Press), p 237. In his chapter, Yakobson outlines the parallels between the First Emperors of Rome and China. Both were legitimized as pacifiers of their worlds, Augustus ending civil wars and Qin Shi Huang inter-state wars. Their peace monuments, Ara Pacis Augustae and Twelve Metal Colossi, symbolized Pax Romana and Pax Sinica respectively. Res Gestae of Augustus parallels the imperial steles of Qin Shi Huang in the content of the message. Both glorify themselves as superhumans who have completed achievements of superhuman magnitude. Yakobson supposes that the existence of such parallels might point to certain fundamental patterns of empire that transcend the divide between civilizations.Yakobson, Alexander, (2014). "The First Emperors: Image and memory," Birth of an Empire: The State of Qin Revisited, (ed. Pines, Yuri et al, Berkeley: University of California Press), p 280, 282-283, 287.
In 2021, Jakobson contributed to another volume devoted to the comparison of Greece, Rome and China. This article focuses more on differences between the First Emperors. Coming from the monarchic background, Qin Shi Huangdi had a simpler life than Augustus who had to fake an elaborate republican façade to cover his monarchy.Jakobson, Alexander (2021). "Augustus, the Roman Plebs and the Dictatorship." Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China. (Cambridge University Press), pp. 269-299. Contributing to the same volume, David Engels suggested that a comparison between the rise of the Roman and the Chinese emperors should not be confined to parallels between Augustus and Qin Shi Huangdi alone, but has to include Caesar and the advent of the Han dynasty. The abrupt rules of Julius Caesar and the Qin Dynasty were followed in both cases by civil wars and then stable universal monarchy. This approach allows us to see two "closely mirroring" political evolutions and hence supposes structural dynamics.Engels, David (2021). "Historical necessity or biographical singularity? Some aspects in the biographies of C. Iulius Caesar and Qin Shi Huangdi." Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome, and China. (Cambridge University Press), pp. 331-332, 344-345, 348.
A comparative monograph from the official Chinese perspective was published by expert on ethnicity Pan Yue.Pan Yue (2022. English translation 2026). Comparative Studies on Chinese and Western Civilizations. (Beijing: Springer. New World Press), open access https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-96-4994-5
Political pattern One of the most appealing reasons for historians to begin comparing Han China and Roman Empire, is their synchronous ascent to political hegemony over the Mediterranean and East Asia respectively. The two exhibit an "extraordinary" synchronism:Ford, Randolph B. (2020). Rome, China and the Barbarians: Ethnographic Traditions and the Transformation of Empires. (Cambridge University Press), p. 8. Both systems existed as warring states during the Axial Age; Qin conquered its world in 221 BC, while Rome established its hegemony over the Mediterranean in 189 BC; both empires endured for centuries until the Han Empire dissolved in 220 AD and the Western Roman Empire followed suit in 476; both began reconquests in the sixth century but at this point proceeded in opposite directions—China under the Sui dynasty completed its reunification while Justinian's failed.
The Sui-Justinian era marks the divergence when the two civilizations proceeded in reverse directions—China remained unified while the Mediterranean never repeated its ancient unity. Adshead called this a "major watershed" to "expansion in modern Europe" and to "implosion in pre-modern China."Adshead 2000, p 55. In 2009, Scheidel coined the term "divergence" and the phrase "the first great divergence" to distinguish from the title of Kenneth Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence.Scheidel, Walter (2009). "From the 'Great Convergence' to the 'First Great Divergence': Roman and Qin-Han state formation and its aftermath." Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires. (New York: Oxford University Press. ), pp. 11-13. "Divergence" became the accepted term.Ford, Randolph B. (2020). Rome, China and the Barbarians: Ethnographic Traditions and the Transformation of Empires. (Cambridge University Press), p. 6.
Dominic Lieven devoted a chapter to the comparison between Rome and China where he supposed that the comparative analysis of this divergence might reveal much about the sources of imperial power and the factors that contribute to the rise, fall and longevity of empire.Lieven, Dominic (2002). Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals. (New Haven: Yale Nota Bene), p 33, https://archive.org/details/empirerussianemp0000liev/page/32/mode/2up For Scheidel, "the most striking divergence concerns their afterlife: the effective absence of universal empire from the post-Roman Europe and its serial reconstitution in East Asia." He regretted that the causes for this divergence remain neglected in the research.