Causes of First Empires Decline & Rise of New Empires Analysis

This essay examines the decline of early empires such as the Han dynasty, Gupta Empire, and Roman Empire, attributing their fall to factors like foreign invasions, political instability, social challenges, and economic problems such as high taxation and epidemics. The decline of these empires led to transitional periods and the emergence of new realms, including the Sui and Tang dynasties in China, the Holy Roman Empire in Europe, and the development of regions in Mesoamerica and Africa. The analysis suggests that while the initial decline caused setbacks, it ultimately paved the way for developments in other parts of the world, marking a significant shift in global power dynamics and cultural evolution. Desklib provides a platform for students to access similar solved assignments and past papers.

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Reasons Why the First Empires Decline and How the New Empires Rose To Take Their Place
There were a series of crisis which took place in the early part of the first millennium that
ended up shaking some of the classical civilization like China, Rome, and India. In essence, the
Han, Gupta as well as Roman had flourished successfully for many years. Consequently, they
dominated their different worlds thus producing prodigious cultural achievements over time.
However, most of these empires had collapsed by 550 C.E. One of the first empires to fail was
the Han, which had ruled China for over four hundred years. The Han created a strong leadership
or system of a centralized rule. Later, Roman and the Gupta Empire fell as well. This paper
intends to discuss the main reasons why the first empires declined and how the new empire rose
to take their place. Some of the reasons why the early empires fell were foreign invasion,
particularly the Gupta Empire and political and social challenges in dynasties like the Hun and
the Roman Empire.
Ideally, the first empires such as the Roman and the Hun Empire collapsed because of the
problems that were economic as well as social in nature. For instance, Rome decided to raise the
levels of taxation too high with the intention of supporting the empire and the defense.
Consequently, many people had to leave their farms and flee to big cities across the empire.
Nonetheless, there was an increase in the level of poverty as well as social problems in the cities.
Additionally, epidemics swept across the entire empire leading to many deaths which were
estimated to be about a fourth of the total population. Some of the activities which suffered a

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great deal include farming and trade which made revenues to plummet. The Roman Empire was
hard to govern given its huge size. To reduce or solve the imminent problems across the empire,
Emperor Diocletian decided to divide the Roman Empire into eastern and western halves. This
hugely destabilized the entire Rome. On the other hand, the Hun Empire was as well threatened
by the frequent nomadic attacks from various tribes of Central Asia. This led the China Empire
to invest heavily in the military defenses, which meant that there was going to be an increase in
taxation across the empire. Notably, this increased the gap between the rich and the poor.
Moreover, frequent epidemics resulted in instability of the Hun dynasty, and later China broke
into war for nearly four centuries.
Furthermore, foreign invasion led to the fall of the first empire mainly the Gupta dynasty
of India. The Gupta dynasty was the third classical civilization to fall. Gupta kingdom had ruled
entire northern India for nearly two centuries that began at around 320 C.E through autonomous
leadership. Unlike the Roman and the Hun Empire; the Gupta dynasty fell because of an
increased foreign invasion of the time. For many years, India had been threatened from the
northwest by the White Huns. Some of the factors that shielded the Gupta Empire from such
attacks included geographic importance and political ideologies. These barriers were the
towering Hindu Kush as well as the Himalayas Mountain. The other factor was the military
strength that was provided by the Persian state of the west. Nonetheless, the overall protection
that shielded the empire broke down thus allowing the white Hun to invade India. While the
Gupta Empire repelled such invasion, high taxation to fund the military drained the empire.
Afterwards, India was divided into smaller kingdoms particularly under the leadership of King
Harsha. This led to further instability of the kingdoms and finally the collapse of the empires in
India.

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In essence, the overall fall of the classical empires had a major impact across various
regions of the world particularly the Afro-Eurasia as well as the vast areas which were made up
of Africa, Asia, and Europe. The collapseof the Hun Empire led to many centuries to pass before
another dynasty was established. The development of another dynasty needed China to be united,
something that was done by the Sui (sway) in the 589 AD. However, the Tang dynasty
completely revived Chinese power. The Tang ruled China through uniting all the people and
lasted for nearly 300 years. The Song dynasty followed the line of leadership and ruled for
almost three centuries. The two dynasties made sure that China enjoyed a lot of prosperity as
well as cultural achievements along the way. On the other hand, the fall of the Roman Empire
led to a long decline which is mostly known as the Dark Ages, where cities crumbled. Although
all the political structures shrank at that time, a powerful leader by the name of Charlemagne
united some parts of the western as well as central Europe. This resulted in the formation of a
new kingdom that was known as the Holy Roman Empire. As a result, there was a rise in
population while farming and trade nourished. During this time, missionaries facilitated the
spread of Orthodox Christianity in some parts of Russia. After the collapse of the first dynasties,
other leaders came and united the people of those regions, therefore, forming powerful empires.
This led to the development of other parts of the world such as the Mesoamerica. Other parts that
developed in the post classical civilization include the Muslim dynasties which were under the
caliph or Muslim rule and other parts of Africa such as the Dare Salam.
In conclusion, there were many ways on how the first empires in the classical civilization
fell. Some of the first empire that existed included the Hun dynasty from China, the Gupta
Empire from India and the Roman Empire from Europe. While these empires enjoyed success
for nearly three centuries, they were faced with various challenges that ended up shaking such

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dynasties. Some of the apparent reasons which made these empires to fall include foreign
invasion notably the Gupta dynasty and political and social challenges like high cost of living in
major regions like the Hun dynasty and the Roman Empire. High taxation in the Roman and the
Hun Empire meant that there was an apparent gap between the rich and the poor leading to
weakening of these dynasties. After the fall these empires, there was a period of transition which
led to the formation of other realms. In my opinion, the fall of the first empires opened
developments to other parts of the world despite the fact that there were major setbacks in the
beginning.

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