How to examine the divergent histories of ancient Rome and China

This is the text of a speech – “First notes on geo-philosophy” – delivered at the First World History Frontiers Forum, organized by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, September 12, 2025, Beijing, and published by the Appia Institute, of which the author is director. It is republished with permission.

The differences between the ancient Chinese state and the ancient Roman state, as observed by Feng Youlan a century ago, begin with the geographical environments in which the two civilizations developed.

The Roman Empire was established around the Mediterranean, building upon the foundations laid by the Greeks and Phoenicians. These earlier peoples had already mastered the sea; they were skilled navigators, and Rome first had to wrest control of the Italian peninsula from them to ultimately rule the Mediterranean. Operating one of their early ships were two parallel lines of rowers – all equals – who had to work in perfect unison. The captain was simply the one with the heaviest oar: the rudder.

He had to keep the rhythm and the harmony of the rowing; it was easy and immediate to see when he made a mistake. The rhythm was an abstract rule, independent of his will. He could do it faster or slower, but had to consider all conditions.

The phalanx, the model army of the Greeks and the foundation of the Roman legion, was also a group of equals. The king held the main line of the phalanx; the spear was used somewhat like an oar. Whether in a boat or a battle formation, the key was cohesion. If one person made a mistake, the entire ship could sink, and the same was true for the phalanx, whose break could lead to defeat. Therefore, the main goal was to maintain equal effectiveness, governed by the simple rule coordinating the rowers or the steps of the phalanx.

Moreover, the Mediterranean is a treacherous sea where winds and currents can change at any moment. Mistakes are inevitable because the sea and wind are unpredictable. The goal, then, is not to execute a single plan consistently over a long period but to cultivate the ability to correct sudden errors and adapt to surprises.

The political structure of Sparta, or its equivalent in the Roman Republic, was designed to correct mistakes. Sparta had two kings who ruled in succession; similarly, Rome had two consuls who also ruled sequentially. This system aimed to correct potential errors made by the previous leader. It proved highly effective, enabling the Greek League to defeat the mighty Persian Empire. Later, under the leadership of Alexander of Macedon, the phalanx conquered half the known world, demonstrating its unstoppable force.

The Greeks and Romans were both merchants and pirates. The legion was organized almost like a private equity firm: Everyone was entitled to a share of the loot based on rank. As an organization of equals, its members had rights that matched their duties – two sides of the same coin. One had to stay in formation in the legion, holding the shield, and would receive payment based on performance.

The Mediterranean was a vast, open area bordered by three continents and six other seas, a geography that for centuries prevented its political unification. It was unified only once, by the Romans – a feat never achieved again. Although the sea remains a fiercely contested battlefield to this day, its unity was never pursued after Rome.

The Chinese space

The Chinese space was profoundly different. First, it was enclosed. To the north lay the steppes, to the west the desert and mountains and to the south more mountains and dense jungle. To the east was an archipelago and a peninsula, and beyond that, a vast, endless ocean. This limited space was challenging to access. Originally, it was also a dense jungle inhabited by elephants and other wild animals, with formidable mountains and rivers.

These geographic features could only be controlled by organized groups of people executing a long-term plan – burning forests, hunting elephants, managing river courses and leveling mountains. Here, nature was harsh but not unpredictable; it was a stable environment over months and years. Surprises were rare and usually caused by exceptional events like an earthquake or a locust plague.

To address these challenges, a highly organized hierarchy was necessary and, for that hierarchy, authority was essential to validate it. Those with more efficient organization, greater manpower and more resources succeeded in building more river embankments, clearing more forests and hunting more elephants, thereby expanding the land under cultivation and increasing food production. This led to a larger population, a stronger army, and better weaponry. The core issue was the entire organization.

This river region differed from the other three ancient river civilizations. The rivers of Egypt and Mesopotamia flowed through deserts and were close to each other and to the sea – the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. They were also near the Indus civilization, which was situated not in a desert but amidst forests. These were not isolated but connected, open, and contiguous areas. From the start, these three civilizations had mutual relations and influences. Inspiration from Egypt and Mesopotamia shaped Greek society, and Alexander later conquered parts of India.

China and its civilization, on the other hand, remained separate from this sphere. Social organization in China also became a way of waging war. But while governing the boat leads to the phalanx, which in turn leads to the res publica and democracy, hierarchical organization leads to a different kind of political structure and a different kind of warfare. In Rome or Greece, the emperor was a warrior who fought alongside his soldiers.

In China, the emperor was a semi-religious authority who guaranteed social peace – that is, the hierarchical order. At the start of any major waterworks project, you cannot know if the chief designer is right. You must trust him, have faith in him, and you need a clear social order to carry out the work.

This is very different from a boat, whose fate – whether it is sinking or crashing under the waves – can be determined in minutes.

Therefore, in China, there was a distinct social distance: the sovereign, the general-bureaucrat and the soldier. Because the organization is only as good as its leader, the ruler is the key. Everything belongs to him. There are no rights or duties, only loyalty or disloyalty, and he distributes rewards and punishments based on his undisputable judgment. If he seriously fails, the world and the dynasty collapse. Consequently, no one wants him to fail. His person is more important than the rules he uses to govern.

An ancient debate

It is interesting to observe the philosophical debate in China during the fourth and fifth centuries BCE. The philosopher Mozi was the first to provide an account of the intense intellectual and political discussions of that era, with three chapters all titled Fei 非 (Against) and aimed at presenting arguments against opposing schools of thought. Fei Ru 非儒 (Against the Ru) clearly opposes Confucius and the Confucians.

Fei Gong 非攻 (Against Offensive Warfare) argues against those who advocate for wars of attack, where large states target smaller ones to eliminate them. Sunzi supported the idea that large states should continue to grow stronger and larger, with more people and greater resources, enabling them to conquer more territory and support a bigger population with a more efficient organization. Fei Gong seems to oppose Sunzi.

Possibly, the chapter Fei Yue 非樂 (Against Music) (or perhaps it should be read as Fei Le, Against Fun-Enjoyment, as A.C. Graham suggested) targets Zhuangzi and his followers, who preferred to spend time in the forests singing and dancing rather than working hard for the state.

Mozi agrees with the principle of efficient organization and supports its logic, but he opposes large states expanding further at the expense of smaller ones. Instead, he believes that a return to an inter-state religious-political authority should ensure a balance of power: an overreaching Son of Heaven (tianzi 天子) arbitrating between independent state lords (guojun 國君).

Therefore, he suggests a series of measures to strengthen the defenses of cities and smaller states. However, he never proposes an army of equals, like the Greek phalanx or the Roman legion, which would have been more effective for a small state facing a larger one, as Greek history against Persia showed. A few, equal, highly motivated individuals can defeat larger, poorly motivated crowds who may dislike their own generals more than they dislike the enemy.

Greek warriors were bound by a special love for each other called agape. There was a kind of love also in the Chinese social organization that the Mohists called ai 愛, etymologically “a heart between a claw and a beating stick.” But even that was to be directed hierarchically above one’s superiors and not below. The sentiment among low-class members was referred to with the derogatory term dang 黨, etymologically “mouths under a roof in the dark.”

The Mohists were unique in ancient China. They were the most organized school of thought, with highly loyal disciples serving as “military advisers” to various warring states. However, even they failed to see beyond the limits of a bureaucratic army.

The army of equals was clearly outside China’s cultural horizon at the time, as well as beyond its geographical and political boundaries. The army consisted of noble warriors trained for years in archery and chariot riding, or growing numbers of farmer-soldiers commanded by a strategist-general.

There was no united group of comrades who fought and died together, as in Rome or Sparta. There was supposed to be no love for fellow comrades. In Rome, beneath the heroic band of soldiers privileged to fight and thus be immortalized in their deeds, there was a crowd of nameless slaves who could only live as long as they remained useful: they were tools, animals raised to pull plows or be killed for entertainment in the Colosseum. Dying as a hero was a privilege; the great foundational poem of Western culture, the Iliad, is centered on this – the drama and suffering of Achilles, a man who chooses to die young in exchange for eternal fame.

In China, this concept does not exist. Since ancient times, when numerous large and small states fought among themselves, the idea of yang sheng (nourishing life) has persisted – maintaining one’s own life even at the expense of sacrificing a state, aiming to extend life indefinitely.

In Greece and Rome, however, people sought a heroic death by the sword, to be celebrated in triumph on shields as a fallen hero. There is also the idea of the immortality of the name, almost a personal soul, which holds more significance than earthly salvation.

In China, there were not many fighting heroes, but there were not many slaves either. In Rome, the economy relied on agriculture, war, conquest, and plunder. Raids brought in material wealth and slaves. In China, wealth was generated mainly through agriculture and industry. War was either a waste of resources or aimed at increasing territory and manpower to gain more arable land, a larger workforce, and thus more resources for further expansion or consolidation, as Mozi’s Fei Gong chapters vividly described.

Furthermore, although the unity of the Mediterranean was achieved only once, the unity of the Central Chinese plain became a recurring theme in the history of Chinese civilization after the second unification by the Sui and Tang. Unification was not only geographical but also historical. All dynasties emphasized a linear continuity and succession of cycles, glossing over historical differences.

In the Mediterranean, although the Romans admired ancient Egypt, as shown by the obelisks they plundered and brought to Rome, they never claimed a historical continuity with Egypt.

In this parallel story, there is no right or wrong, better or worse. There are only two historical paths that led to different outcomes, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. The challenge today is how to peacefully reconcile these two histories.

What emerges from this brief examination is that we think in relation to our geographical and historical contexts. Philosophy allows us to address the historical issues before us clearly and thoroughly.