"World views and military policies in the Early..." Topic

… Roman and Western Han empires.

"In AD 144 Aelius Aristides (117-181) delivered a panegyric in the city of Rome. In his speech he extolled the grandeur which Rome had achieved under imperial rule. He claimed that the Mediterranean Sea occupied the center of the inhabited and civilized world, and that the Roman emperor ruled an empire without limits. Many centuries later Edward Gibbon referred to the first and second centuries AD as a period of peace, prosperity and order, when Rome achieved universal domination. The optimistic message broadcasted by Aristides echoes the Virgilian notion of the imperium sine fine, which stresses the universal character the imperium Romanum.

On the other end of the Eurasian landmass, Ban Gu (AD 21-92), a senior official who lived during the early decades of Eastern Han dynasty, formulated a worldview which looks similar to that of Virgil and Aristides. In a fictional dispute between a spokesman from the western capital Chang'an and a speaker originating from the eastern capital Luoyang, the latter supports his claim that Luoyang is the better city by offering the following arguments:…"
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