Discuss Rome's expansion to 265 BCE. During your discussion be sure to address the following issues: How was Rome able to control Italy? In their relations with Greece and Asia Minor in the second century BCE, were the Romans looking for security? Wealth? Fame? Explain your feelings.
Describe the problems the Roman Republic faced in the last century BCE. What caused these problems and how did the Romans try to solve them? To what extent was the republic destroyed by ambitious generals who loved power more than Rome itself?
Despite unpromising beginnings, Christianity was enormously popular by the fourth century CE. Discuss the reasons why Christians were persecuted by Roman authorities. What were the more important reasons for Christianity's success?
Consider three theories that scholars have advanced to explain the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. What are the difficulties involved in explaining the fall? What explanation for the Empire's demise would you give?
What was the "dynastic cycle?" In what sense was it a Confucian moral rationalization? Was a cycle of administrative and military decline especially true of Chinese government, or can we see the same pattern elsewhere? Explain.
Did Buddhism "triumph" in China in the same sense in which Christianity triumphed in the Roman world? Compare China to the Roman Empire. What problems did both empires face and how did they try to resolve them?
Explain how China was able to recreate its empire - just 400 years after the fall of the Han - when Rome could not. Are there similarities between the Qin-Han transitions and that of the Sui-Tang? Between Han and Tang expansion and contraction? Explain.
What drove the Mongols to conquer most of the known world? How could their military accomplish the task? Once they conquered China, how did they rule it? What was the Chinese response to Mongol rule.